• Drusas@kbin.run
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    4 months ago

    The Luddites weren’t wrong. Their name has been badly misused. They were skilled professionals who were concerned that they would no longer have work as a result of the industrial revolution. They were largely right in that assessment. That doesn’t mean you should try to hold up societal/technological progress like they did, but their concerns were valid. They weren’t just afraid of technology as they are generally portrayed.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      That doesn’t mean you should try to hold up societal/technological progress like they did

      A lot of what they protested was industry consolidation and price fixing.

        • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Depends on the country, but that was not my point. Overall employment has not suffered at the hands of technology; it improved efficiency, yes, and resulted in some occupations needing fewer (or no) people, however people found work in other areas.

          • knightly the Sneptaur
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            4 months ago

            You seem to be missing the Luddites point, which is that the benefits of industrialization all went to oligarchs and shareholders while the displaced workers suffered economically as the value of their skills evaporated.

            The problem is Capitalism, having a machine do the work should liberate people from toil rather than income.

        • catloaf@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          Those aren’t skills. Driving a truck is a skill, and there’s no shortage of demand for truck drivers today.

          • knightly the Sneptaur
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            4 months ago

            The industrialization of industry under Capitalism benefits Capitalists, not Workers.

            The luddites would never have been a thing if the rewards of automation were distributed among those whose labor they devalued.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Industry consolidation and outsourcing reduces the local labor demand by setting monopsony rates for workers.

        This consolidation is often facilitated by legal enclosures, environmental degradation, and state subsidies/contracts for political insiders.

        So you end up with working people who lose access to primitive accumulation, while big industrial owners are able to undercut skilled tradesmen with below cost merchandise in a recessionary economy.

        • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          It would not have been ethical with increasing populations and no means to scale up effectively to meet their needs. Individuals, sure, but not overall; technology has replaced people in specific situations, people who then went on to get employment in other areas.

          • knightly the Sneptaur
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            4 months ago

            So those workers who were made redundant got severance pay and training for the new jobs they were assigned to, right?

            No? They got thrown out on their asses with no means to provide for themselves and their families?

            Geeze, sounds like the Luddites were right.

            • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Looking at the bigger picture… layoffs happen all the time for many reasons. Overall, technology has not increased unemployment.

              • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                layoffs happen all the time for many reasons

                Layoffs are the result of primitive capital being monopolized through enclosure and the local labor force being corralled into industries that generate more goods than the deflated economy can absorb.

                There’s no layoffs for yeomen farmers and independent craftsman. You only experience the phenomenon when land barons control the property and dictate how many people they wish to employ.