Comment by randomdata

While wages did obviously start to increase when the economy shifted from selling things to selling time (after all, wages weren't a thing beforehand, so they had nowhere to go but up!) incomes have remained stagnant as far back as the records go. Now that most everyone sells time instead of things, wages and income are basically the same thing, meaning that wages can only increase further if incomes also increase, but that has never happened at least since we started keeping records.

So – Would people actually be happier if they made the same amount of money, but did so selling something other than time? Even if the amount of time required to produce that something was the same as the time input they are giving in exchange for wages?