On the other had, we are a lot better at making things out of cheap materials. Clothes from Target are relatively durable considering the price, especially if you do basic repairs like they would have back then.
Even the food is probably better now.
It's not perfect, but modern products are pretty amazing. A shirt can sell for $2 and last 20 years in some cases.
Of course sweatshops and pollution are still awful.
Sure, clothes from Target might be relatively durable considering the price. But you need more clothing now. In a lot of places, it is socially unacceptable to wear the same thing for days in a row, even if you change your undergarments. You also don't have a realistic choice to make your own clothing. Cloth, thread, buttons and zippers aren't cheap and it became more out of reach in the late 80s and through the 90's (my mother sews and has for decades). That's not even considering things like a sewing machine, fabric scissors, and the fact that you might look like your clothes are homemade (which doesn't always fare well). Your Target clothing also won't be usable when it is worn, so you can't piece it together to make a new garment or even a blanket even if the stretchy material was easier to work with. You really can't do basic repairs like they used to do.
Boo hoo. The fact that society has upgraded is no argument against clothes getting cheaper, an absolute gain. The issue of repairability is mostly one of demand: almost no one wants to repair his own clothes, given how inexpensive they've become. Electronics and appliances are the same. For many people, it's not worth repairing something that can be bought new for a day's or even a week's wages. If people started valuing repair more, then you'd see more products with it available. Repairability is an extra feature, and costs more, something people don't want to pay for.
Anyway, there is an environmental price as well as a $$$ price to clothing production. What you pay might not be the true price (eg. aquifers getting drained, soil erosion, CO2 emission etc, possible deforestation).
Even ignoring my point about non-fiscal cost "that can be bought new for a day's or even a week's wages" is great if you're rich, even relatively speaking. From wiki: "...which found roughly 734 million people [in the world] remained in absolute poverty [circa 2015]". I guess you grew up not having your parents unable to buy except as a last resort and having to patch everything repeatedly.
Your point was that, now, "it is socially unacceptable to wear the same thing for days in a row, even if you change your undergarments", ergo, society has upgraded (its expectations of acceptable wear), i.e., moved the "goal posts". That means, we solved the old problem of not putting people in rags, and have a new problem, of constantly new outfits. Absolute gain: clothing problem "solved", replaced with new "wardrobe problem". This is what progress looks like. We always find new, harder, problems. The fact that there is a problem distracts people from admitting we have solved some.
You're moving the goal posts in your rebuttal by adding environmental concerns.
Absolute poverty has been dropping dramatically as a fraction of the growing world population. Look at the trends, not the snapshot. Show some fricking gratitude for the world of plenty in which humanity exists.
I grew up in Indiana, in the interior of the US. I'm female, if that helps. It was never acceptable for me to wear the same thing for days in a row. This is so pervasive that I used to have a system to make sure I avoided that while not having to launder things if they weren't dirty. The first person I met that did that was an exchange student from Germany - we were both 17 at the time. I've since moved to Norway and really don't know anymore if folks notice: I always just wear black and usually buy multiples of the same item. Even if I wear something different, it looks the same. Plus, half of my social group is other immigrants and might not represent society really well.
I've heard similar things from women who worked in majority-women offices in e.g. HR. They were expected to steadily rotate, even wearing the same vest over other stuff two days in a row would result in questions "where they had slept last night" from their co-workers.
> In a lot of places, it is socially unacceptable to wear the same thing for days in a row, even if you change your undergarments.
Maybe depends upon how you own the choice. You react negatively to snide or snark: you lose power and social standing.
You shrug neutrally then move on unaffected, and only when pressed do you explain you save time making decisions over unimportant clothing that you put to turning a profit: you're hailed a visionary and VC's clamor to be let into your Series A's.
I wouldn't mind spending the time and money on Ship-of-Theseus-replacing what wears out on a few items of extremely high-quality high-durability clothing, except I have not been able to establish suppliers for replacements. For example, I was excited about American Giant when they first came out. Until I determined I cannot purchase from them swatches of the same fabric, thread, and hardware they use to repair whatever I get from them, much less offer a pay-to-repair option.
As a personal preference, I do not mind paying 50% or more (even >100%) for a tailor to repair my clothing than I can "buy new", and if there are repair options in other possessions I also pursue prioritizing repair over buy. "Trash" is shorthand for, "my civilization is not scientifically literate enough and/or too energy-poor to re-structure diffused baryonic matter up the energy gradient sufficiently to use it again".
Even the food is probably better now.
It's not perfect, but modern products are pretty amazing. A shirt can sell for $2 and last 20 years in some cases.
Of course sweatshops and pollution are still awful.