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The idea of human rights is simple, fairly modern, and very important -- one of the most important today.

fao_ 7y ago
I mean, it only takes a glance through Kenny's history of philosophy books to see that as a concept, it's not a very modern idea. It's just that it's only in the 1800s and 1900s that general strikes forced the idea to actually be implemented. Before industrial work, if you stopped working the land you could be replaced (Strikes did still happen, but they were easier to deal with). The introduction of industrial work makes strikes harder to deal with, because instead of having to come up with 10 or 20 men for the fields, or exerting your force over them, you have to come up with a couple of hundred or a couple of thousand men to work the factory, or find a way to exert force over them. And while the labour is 'unskilled', you still need a certain level of understanding about, say, making steel, to avoid killing yourself and to properly manufacture the materials. And then in the 20th century, globalisation -- or more accurately -- the resulting specialisation of facilities, made striking even more effective. To quote Tony Cliff: When 3,000 General Motors brake parts workers went on strike in Dayton, Ohio, in 1996, they shut down General Motors operations across the United States, Canada and Mexico. Over 125,000 General Motors workers were laid off within days. The strike cost the company around $45 million a day, and the Clinton government screamed at both sides to settle. When an almost general strike took place in Denmark, Saab was forced to stop car production in Sweden because it ran out of essential components from Danish suppliers. The assembly of Saab’s convertible motors in Finland was also forced to stop. Volvo also announced that its production lines in Sweden and the Netherlands had been very badly affected. In 1988, when Ford workers in Britain struck, they brought the whole of Ford Europe to a halt within three or four days. (https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/2000/millennium/chap04.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/2000/millennium...) As I mentioned in another comment, the things that we take for granted: the ability for working men to vote (Something won by the Chartists in the 1800s), the ability for women to vote, human rights laws, worker's rights laws, the NHS, etc. were all given to us by strikes.
Synaesthesia 7y ago
I think it’s not such a new idea, I mean there was the Magna Carta

fao_ 7y ago

I mean, it only takes a glance through Kenny's history of philosophy books to see that as a concept, it's not a very modern idea. It's just that it's only in the 1800s and 1900s that general strikes forced the idea to actually be implemented. Before industrial work, if you stopped working the land you could be replaced (Strikes did still happen, but they were easier to deal with). The introduction of industrial work makes strikes harder to deal with, because instead of having to come up with 10 or 20 men for the fields, or exerting your force over them, you have to come up with a couple of hundred or a couple of thousand men to work the factory, or find a way to exert force over them. And while the labour is 'unskilled', you still need a certain level of understanding about, say, making steel, to avoid killing yourself and to properly manufacture the materials. And then in the 20th century, globalisation -- or more accurately -- the resulting specialisation of facilities, made striking even more effective. To quote Tony Cliff: When 3,000 General Motors brake parts workers went on strike in Dayton, Ohio, in 1996, they shut down General Motors operations across the United States, Canada and Mexico. Over 125,000 General Motors workers were laid off within days. The strike cost the company around $45 million a day, and the Clinton government screamed at both sides to settle. When an almost general strike took place in Denmark, Saab was forced to stop car production in Sweden because it ran out of essential components from Danish suppliers. The assembly of Saab’s convertible motors in Finland was also forced to stop. Volvo also announced that its production lines in Sweden and the Netherlands had been very badly affected. In 1988, when Ford workers in Britain struck, they brought the whole of Ford Europe to a halt within three or four days. (https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/2000/millennium/chap04.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/2000/millennium...) As I mentioned in another comment, the things that we take for granted: the ability for working men to vote (Something won by the Chartists in the 1800s), the ability for women to vote, human rights laws, worker's rights laws, the NHS, etc. were all given to us by strikes.

Synaesthesia 7y ago

I think it’s not such a new idea, I mean there was the Magna Carta