But figures in both Britain and the US show that huge increases in wealth at the top of society have not, in fact, led to any increase in affluence at the bottom.
(For day schools, this is largely a result of a stunning increase in affluence in many of the areas they serve. Boarding schools now market themselves to families not only across the United States, but worldwide).
Although impressive improvements in efficiency can be demonstrated in many local cases, increases in population, affluence and consumption create an opposite trend that we need to factor in when we address sustainability of our technological developments in an absolute sense.
Would increasing gaps in affluence between post-work and ongoing-work societies play out in the form of violent conflict?
China today is managing not only swift growth in her economy, but also a rapid increase in the affluence of her populace.
The key variables in determining the distribution of future resource rents include the demand for resource-intensive goods and services associated with increases in population and affluence and with changes in consumption preferences.
Globally, energy demand will keep climbing but more slowly than in the past, largely due to population growth and increasing affluence in poorer countries.
Also, as a result of increased population and increased affluence, the global meat consumption is rising.
"Analyses of survey data have repeatedly shown that, once a society reaches a particular level of affluence, further increases in material wealth produce very limited changes in people's self-reported happiness".
