An era can be called prosperous by people who never ask who performed its cheapest work.

Prosperity is measured at the top of the arrangement. The era is called golden by counting trade, building, and the comfort of the people who wrote about it, while the labour that made all of it cheap goes unpriced and often unnamed. The description is not false so much as partial, and the partiality is systematic, because the people doing the cheapest work rarely wrote the account.

When you hear a period or a company described as thriving, ask who performed the least visible work and what it cost them. The question applies to the present at least as much as to the past. A prosperity that cannot survive that question is a distribution rather than an achievement.