I think if you look at the average technological progress per person, the 20th century undoubtably wins. What we commonly think of as the 19th century through popular media actually comprises of only the very top strata of society, in terms of percentiles, it would be like only looking at millionaires and celebrities today to get an idea of typical 21st century life. The vast majority of people derived little benifit from technological progress until the creation of a strong middle class in the mid 20th century.
I’m inclined to agree with Shalmanese, although it would be better if I had actually read a paper on the subject.
Pick a nit though: I’d say, “The vast majority of people derived little benifit from technological progress until the creation of a strong middle class in the [del]mid[/del] 20th century.”
A broader middle class began to emerge in the early 20th century, possibly related to the rise in unions.
Annual Hours Worked per Person Employed 1870-1998
1870 1913 1950 1973 1998
Britain 2984 2624 1958 1688 1489
USA 2964 2605 1867 1717 1610
I relate “rise in middle class” to “Working shorter hours”. This may be bogus. I can’t think of a good dataset that might shed light on this.
(Today, American work longer hours than those in Europe. That wasn’t the case in 1950. Indeed, Americans seem to work less today than they did in 1973. There exists some anecdotal speculation about a decline in the quality of the US data though.)