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When the Industrial Revolution came around, society said 'theyre not even doing the work, machines are! The workers don't deserve more pay!' and employers were

When the Industrial Revolution came around, society said 'theyre not even doing the work, machines are! The workers don't deserve more pay!' and employers were more than willing to progress to the point where entire families, children included, worked 16 hour days 6 days a week just to be able to feed themselves. Then there was the New Deal which basically forced employers to pay 600% more for their workers practically overnight (rough numbers, reducing number of workers per family from 4 to 1 and hours worked from 96 to 40). Now with the computer revolution, society says 'theyre not even doing the work, the machines are! The workers don't deserve more pay!' and since 1980, wages have been nearly frozen despite astronomically rising productivity due to technology. It would make sense that this continues until families are starving. There may never be another New Deal, though, because when that originally came around you couldn't shut down any discussion of helping people just by whispering the word 'socialism'.

conanbatt 8y ago
> When the Industrial Revolution came around, society said 'theyre not even doing the work, machines are! The workers don't deserve more pay!' and employers were more than willing to progress to the point where entire families, children included, worked 16 hour days 6 days a week just to be able to feed themselves. Then there was the New Deal which basically forced employers to pay 600% more for their workers practically overnight (rough numbers, reducing number of workers per family from 4 to 1 and hours worked from 96 to 40). You are missing the part of the story where that happened in europe, and people fled europe to go to the US where those things did not happen at all, and where even Marx said that the government was not oppressing its people like they did in England. Maybe it had something to do with europe being an aristocracy back then.
- lovich 8y ago
  Are you actually arguing that workers were not oppressed in the US during the industrial Revolution? Here's a few examples off the top of my head. Threw in a modern one with wage theft just in case you think times have changed as well [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi... [3]https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/militia-slaughters-strikers-at-ludlow-colorado https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/militia-slaughte... [4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_th... [5]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store [6]https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-theft-protect/ https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-th...
  - Turing_Machine 8y ago
    > Are you actually arguing that workers were not oppressed in the US during the industrial Revolution? Compared to the manual subsistence farm labor they were doing before, you mean? Rural workers flocked to the new factories because it was better than what they had before. You see the exact same process playing out in China right now. Most of the Amazon warehouses are located in semi-rural areas that didn't have available jobs of any sort before.
    - lovich 8y ago
      It may have been less oppressing but it was still oppression. Also I'd argue that they _thought_ it would be better, not that it was. We don't have perfect information to make rational choices and they certainly didn't have it back before a global communications system existed. The factory owners routinely lied and changed the deal on employees. Regardless you stated that none of the opression that happened in Europe to workers happened in the US and that is probably false. If you had a source for that quote from Marx, I would like to see it
      - Turing_Machine 8y ago
        > It may have been less oppressing but it was still oppression. Well, by that argument anything short of perfection is unacceptable. > Also I'd argue that they _thought_ it would be better, not that it was. It was demonstrably better. Median income (measured in constant dollars), lifespan, and education levels all took a dramatic jump over the course of the 19th Century, both in the U.K. and the United States. > Regardless you stated that none of the opression that happened in Europe to workers happened in the US and that is probably false. I stated nothing of the sort. You're confusing me with another poster.
        lovich 8y ago
        You are correct on me confusing you with the poster I originally replied to, my bad
  - 8y ago
- otakucode 8y ago
  The New Deal occurred in the USA, not Europe. It was in the USA as well as Europe that the economy was abusive and exploitative of workers. The New Deal never would have even happened if there weren't social movements to end child labor, to have a single person paid so much for only 40 hours of work that they could raise an entire family comfortably on a single income. It was the whole point.
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    The new deal happened because of the depression, not because of social movements. No depression , no New deal. It was also the winds of the time to turn to welfare states.

conanbatt 8y ago

> When the Industrial Revolution came around, society said 'theyre not even doing the work, machines are! The workers don't deserve more pay!' and employers were more than willing to progress to the point where entire families, children included, worked 16 hour days 6 days a week just to be able to feed themselves. Then there was the New Deal which basically forced employers to pay 600% more for their workers practically overnight (rough numbers, reducing number of workers per family from 4 to 1 and hours worked from 96 to 40). You are missing the part of the story where that happened in europe, and people fled europe to go to the US where those things did not happen at all, and where even Marx said that the government was not oppressing its people like they did in England. Maybe it had something to do with europe being an aristocracy back then.

lovich 8y ago
Are you actually arguing that workers were not oppressed in the US during the industrial Revolution? Here's a few examples off the top of my head. Threw in a modern one with wage theft just in case you think times have changed as well [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi... [3]https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/militia-slaughters-strikers-at-ludlow-colorado https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/militia-slaughte... [4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_th... [5]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store [6]https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-theft-protect/ https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-th...
- Turing_Machine 8y ago
  > Are you actually arguing that workers were not oppressed in the US during the industrial Revolution? Compared to the manual subsistence farm labor they were doing before, you mean? Rural workers flocked to the new factories because it was better than what they had before. You see the exact same process playing out in China right now. Most of the Amazon warehouses are located in semi-rural areas that didn't have available jobs of any sort before.
  - lovich 8y ago
    It may have been less oppressing but it was still oppression. Also I'd argue that they _thought_ it would be better, not that it was. We don't have perfect information to make rational choices and they certainly didn't have it back before a global communications system existed. The factory owners routinely lied and changed the deal on employees. Regardless you stated that none of the opression that happened in Europe to workers happened in the US and that is probably false. If you had a source for that quote from Marx, I would like to see it
    - Turing_Machine 8y ago
      > It may have been less oppressing but it was still oppression. Well, by that argument anything short of perfection is unacceptable. > Also I'd argue that they _thought_ it would be better, not that it was. It was demonstrably better. Median income (measured in constant dollars), lifespan, and education levels all took a dramatic jump over the course of the 19th Century, both in the U.K. and the United States. > Regardless you stated that none of the opression that happened in Europe to workers happened in the US and that is probably false. I stated nothing of the sort. You're confusing me with another poster.
      - lovich 8y ago
        You are correct on me confusing you with the poster I originally replied to, my bad
- 8y ago
otakucode 8y ago
The New Deal occurred in the USA, not Europe. It was in the USA as well as Europe that the economy was abusive and exploitative of workers. The New Deal never would have even happened if there weren't social movements to end child labor, to have a single person paid so much for only 40 hours of work that they could raise an entire family comfortably on a single income. It was the whole point.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  The new deal happened because of the depression, not because of social movements. No depression , no New deal. It was also the winds of the time to turn to welfare states.