The underlying expectation -- that the present is supposed to be better than the past -- is a new phenomenon in history. No 18th-century politician would have asked "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" because it never would have occurred to anyone that they ought to be better off than they were four years ago.

(Also see Living in the Age of Abundance.)

Actually, agriculture really did have a huge impact upon the lives of people. Jared Diamond's The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race discusses this a bit.

I think that line was sarcasm on the author's part, chiggles. (Though as Diamond has pointed out, it was the invention of agriculture that ultimately enabled such abundance and the concomitant development of class hierarchies in the first place.)

Boring.