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There's an interesting parallel to the Luddites here, who smashed looms. The Luddites were not, as is commonly misunderstood, anti technology. They were a well
by Pfhreak 6y ago
There's an interesting parallel to the Luddites here, who smashed looms. The Luddites were not, as is commonly misunderstood, anti technology.
They were a well trained workforce who disagreed with the idea that improvements in technology should reduce wages. When the new looms came in, factories could produce the same goods with unskilled labor, and the owners could pocket the difference in wages.
The Luddites believed that the factory owners should still split profits with the workers and pay a skilled wage while getting the increased output the new looms could provide.
- steve_b 6y agoWho paid for the new looms?
- Pfhreak 6y agoDepends on your model of capital flow. One reasonable answer would be the factory owners or investors. Another reasonable answer is that the workers did, because their work led enabled the factory to succeed.
- jeffalyanak 6y agoWe've all paid dearly.
- lucian1900 6y agoThe workers whose labour generated the value the looms were paid for with. To some extent, also the workers that put together the looms while only being paid a fraction of the value they created.
- whimsicalism 6y agoWho founded the original 13 colonies? Is Britain still justly entitled to ownership over all that property?
- johnchristopher 6y agoThe ones not getting maimed on the assembly line.
- bigbubba 6y agoThe working conditions the Luddites faced were a huge downgrade too. Not many textile workers were getting their limbs torn off before being made to work in factories designed, owned and operated by people who had little to no regard for worker safety. All of the safety regulations we have today were written in blood; their blood. And not infrequently, the workers being maimed were children. It's easy to sneer at the Luddites today, couldn't they see that their lives would be improved by cheaper clothing? But people who sneer at Luddites should try putting themselves in the shoes of a worker who's seen children killed in that textile factory. Whose children have to work in that factory because the pay is so shit.