I suspect that you have not read enough them. Ask someone in China (which yes, still has a capita owning class) if the proles were better off 50 years ago or now. The only real probes we have now in the west is that we have failed at housing, precisely because instead of growth, we have made many choices to increase returns for old people, and insufficient taxes for real estate.
I was a bit triggered by your China comment, if only given the fact that there is a very specific institution that drove many formerly prosperous cities and communities into abject poverty (the CCP in Mao's era) and then tries to claim all the credit for the market driving how many people they've lifted out of poverty.
And nowadays with Hong Kong (and probably soon Taiwan) they are proving they are perfectly happy to destroy economic growth as long as it benefits The Party
