4 ms·

This was the Luddites’ position. Organised labour should one again take up this principled position. Join a trade union!

breakyerself 1y ago
Software engineers needs a lot more organization
WalterBright 1y ago
Do you really want a return to the days when "women's work" was spending every free moment spinning and weaving cloth by hand? When cloth was so valuable there was a profession called "rag pickers"? Where new clothes were rare, hand me downs were the usual, and people wore clothes until they disintegrated? And poor people made clothes out of flour sacks?
- dontlaugh 1y ago
  That’s not what the Luddites wanted. They praised the technology itself and recognised it would save a lot of time. But they also recognised that they the workers wouldn’t reap any of those benefits, they’d just lose their jobs. Do you really think capitalists would choose to shorten the working day with no loss of pay as productivity increases? If so, you are incredibly naive.
  - WalterBright 1y ago
    The workers did reap the benefits. The Law of Supply and Demand ensures it. 1.1% of the US labor force works at minimum wage jobs. When wages are raised by the government, job losses happen. 16,000 to 36,000 people lost their jobs when California raised the minimum wage for fast food workers. > Do you really think capitalists would choose to shorten the working day with no loss of pay as productivity increases? During WW2, production needed to increase, so hours were increased to 60 hour weeks. The labor force, very patriotic, was all for this. Production increased for a few weeks, and then fell below what was produced in a 40 hour week. Companies wanting to maximize profits are aware of this effect. Also, if you track employee total compensation (not just wages) against productivity increases, the two lines form the same curve. The reason for this is the Law of Supply and Demand pushes those two lines together. The more productive a worker is, the more they get paid, as such workers are more in demand.
    - schmidtleonard 1y ago
      > if you track employee total compensation (not just wages) against productivity increases, the two lines form the same curve If you count inflation in medical and housing costs as an increase in wages, the "wedge" disappears, yes -- but why would you do that for any other purpose than making the wedge disappear? No, it's very telling that labor saving devices, which have squished the largest industry into economic insignificance many times over, have not resulted in the ability for normal people to work less. Clearly, the benefits have gone elsewhere. "The benefits went into technology! Think of the iPhones!" The median financed smartphone is 1/50th the cost of median rent, try again.
      - daedrdev 1y ago
        employers pay for the massively increased medical costs directly though? Its not hard to see that when medical costs increase by 6-10% they would hesitate to increase wages
        immibis 1y ago
        Put it this way: If the government increases my tax by $10k per year and my employer increases my gross salary $10k per year in response, did I get a pay raise? Also, it's known that as medical prices rise, the percentage of the prices that insurance actually pays goes down. Are you sure they're paying more? Also, why do countries with universal healthcare have such cheaper healthcare of a similar quality?
    - WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
      > The workers did reap the benefits. The Law of Supply and Demand ensures it. 1.1% of the US labor force works at minimum wage jobs. Minimum wage is one indicator of critically substandard living. Here is a small sampling of some others: well over minimum wage + below the poverty line no discernible exits off path to unhoused retirement current, recurring or impending homelessness food insecurity and recurring hunger medically triggered impoverishment only possible caregiver for loved one with medical issues
    - 1y ago
- nancyminusone 1y ago
  Sure would be nice to make clothes from flour sacks again, but alas; today's sacks are made of polypropylene.
- lucas_membrane 1y ago
  Those days were after the rich had commenced urbanization by driving the agrarian workers off the land and encouraging them to find work at dismal wages in the city, made it a crime to be a vagrant, and funded charities that collaborated with judges to force the poor into workhouses where they could enjoy abuse, degradation and misery from cradle to early grave.
Cthulhu_ 1y ago
Even unions are up against it though. in the Netherlands, there have been multiple strikes from e.g. the train operators; they demand a 10% wage increase, after the train company downsized a lot during the pandemic, but who were then unable to upsize again as traffic resumed and who even now don't have the same amount of travelers as they did in 2020. But they're not profitable. They've made a loss for five years in a row, requiring government subsidies to stay operating (because them going bankrupt would make big parts of the country grind to a halt). Ticket prices are so high that it's barely cheaper than driving, and as soon as you travel with two or more people it's cheaper to just own a car. (Or even rent one; I traveled to the other side of the country once for a concert, my own car was in the garage. Did the math, it was cheaper and more convenient (door-to-door) to rent a car, pay the surcharge for long distance, pay the €35 in fuel, etc than it was to buy return tickets for three people) The answer (I think, I'm no economist / politician / etc) isn't unionising and demanding better treatment, because the limits of the capitalist system they operate in have been reached. The answer is to stop trying to make it profitable. Re-privatize it: trains and public transit are a huge and hugely important nationwide economic driver, an essential service that capitalism can't be trusted with because the owners will try and get as much money out of it as possible, the employees get overworked and exploited and will shut the system down (as is their right) out of protest, and the people will have to deal with the consequences. Just in my small bubble, the train strikes led to people not going to the office, missing events, lunch orders that either had too much stock that had to be discarded or that were cancelled entirely, costing that company thousands in income, etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-union. I'm anti-capitalist though.
- dontlaugh 1y ago
  You’ll often find trade unionists are also anti-capitalist, some are even socialists or communists.

breakyerself 1y ago

Software engineers needs a lot more organization

WalterBright 1y ago

Do you really want a return to the days when "women's work" was spending every free moment spinning and weaving cloth by hand? When cloth was so valuable there was a profession called "rag pickers"? Where new clothes were rare, hand me downs were the usual, and people wore clothes until they disintegrated? And poor people made clothes out of flour sacks?

dontlaugh 1y ago
That’s not what the Luddites wanted. They praised the technology itself and recognised it would save a lot of time. But they also recognised that they the workers wouldn’t reap any of those benefits, they’d just lose their jobs. Do you really think capitalists would choose to shorten the working day with no loss of pay as productivity increases? If so, you are incredibly naive.
- WalterBright 1y ago
  The workers did reap the benefits. The Law of Supply and Demand ensures it. 1.1% of the US labor force works at minimum wage jobs. When wages are raised by the government, job losses happen. 16,000 to 36,000 people lost their jobs when California raised the minimum wage for fast food workers. > Do you really think capitalists would choose to shorten the working day with no loss of pay as productivity increases? During WW2, production needed to increase, so hours were increased to 60 hour weeks. The labor force, very patriotic, was all for this. Production increased for a few weeks, and then fell below what was produced in a 40 hour week. Companies wanting to maximize profits are aware of this effect. Also, if you track employee total compensation (not just wages) against productivity increases, the two lines form the same curve. The reason for this is the Law of Supply and Demand pushes those two lines together. The more productive a worker is, the more they get paid, as such workers are more in demand.
  - schmidtleonard 1y ago
    > if you track employee total compensation (not just wages) against productivity increases, the two lines form the same curve If you count inflation in medical and housing costs as an increase in wages, the "wedge" disappears, yes -- but why would you do that for any other purpose than making the wedge disappear? No, it's very telling that labor saving devices, which have squished the largest industry into economic insignificance many times over, have not resulted in the ability for normal people to work less. Clearly, the benefits have gone elsewhere. "The benefits went into technology! Think of the iPhones!" The median financed smartphone is 1/50th the cost of median rent, try again.
    - daedrdev 1y ago
      employers pay for the massively increased medical costs directly though? Its not hard to see that when medical costs increase by 6-10% they would hesitate to increase wages
      - immibis 1y ago
        Put it this way: If the government increases my tax by $10k per year and my employer increases my gross salary $10k per year in response, did I get a pay raise? Also, it's known that as medical prices rise, the percentage of the prices that insurance actually pays goes down. Are you sure they're paying more? Also, why do countries with universal healthcare have such cheaper healthcare of a similar quality?
  - WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
    > The workers did reap the benefits. The Law of Supply and Demand ensures it. 1.1% of the US labor force works at minimum wage jobs. Minimum wage is one indicator of critically substandard living. Here is a small sampling of some others: well over minimum wage + below the poverty line no discernible exits off path to unhoused retirement current, recurring or impending homelessness food insecurity and recurring hunger medically triggered impoverishment only possible caregiver for loved one with medical issues
  - 1y ago
nancyminusone 1y ago
Sure would be nice to make clothes from flour sacks again, but alas; today's sacks are made of polypropylene.
lucas_membrane 1y ago
Those days were after the rich had commenced urbanization by driving the agrarian workers off the land and encouraging them to find work at dismal wages in the city, made it a crime to be a vagrant, and funded charities that collaborated with judges to force the poor into workhouses where they could enjoy abuse, degradation and misery from cradle to early grave.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago

Even unions are up against it though. in the Netherlands, there have been multiple strikes from e.g. the train operators; they demand a 10% wage increase, after the train company downsized a lot during the pandemic, but who were then unable to upsize again as traffic resumed and who even now don't have the same amount of travelers as they did in 2020. But they're not profitable. They've made a loss for five years in a row, requiring government subsidies to stay operating (because them going bankrupt would make big parts of the country grind to a halt). Ticket prices are so high that it's barely cheaper than driving, and as soon as you travel with two or more people it's cheaper to just own a car. (Or even rent one; I traveled to the other side of the country once for a concert, my own car was in the garage. Did the math, it was cheaper and more convenient (door-to-door) to rent a car, pay the surcharge for long distance, pay the €35 in fuel, etc than it was to buy return tickets for three people) The answer (I think, I'm no economist / politician / etc) isn't unionising and demanding better treatment, because the limits of the capitalist system they operate in have been reached. The answer is to stop trying to make it profitable. Re-privatize it: trains and public transit are a huge and hugely important nationwide economic driver, an essential service that capitalism can't be trusted with because the owners will try and get as much money out of it as possible, the employees get overworked and exploited and will shut the system down (as is their right) out of protest, and the people will have to deal with the consequences. Just in my small bubble, the train strikes led to people not going to the office, missing events, lunch orders that either had too much stock that had to be discarded or that were cancelled entirely, costing that company thousands in income, etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-union. I'm anti-capitalist though.

dontlaugh 1y ago
You’ll often find trade unionists are also anti-capitalist, some are even socialists or communists.