36 ms·

Was the industrial revolution the beginning of a race to the bottom, or the first step from agrarian poverty to modern prosperity?

by nickff 13y ago

ItendToDisagree 13y ago
For a great many people a 'race to the bottom' scenario can easily be posited. Especially for those who are exploited to make the super cheap products (particularly electronics) everyone prosperous is supposed to enjoy. Someone is always going to be getting screwed in the name of ever increasing growth/profits and ever declining costs. That is until we reach a sweet Sci-Fi robots doing all the work scenario! :)
VLM 13y ago
There is a peculiar history revisionist outlook that farmers were fired and then lacking any opportunity to farm, they moved to a factory. Sometimes this happened. Usually not. Reality, as anyone who is related to a farmer knows, farming is very hard work and a factory job is generally better. They were upgrading, not getting downsized. Also modern prosperity only came after labor riots where lots of people suffered intensely and died in strike violence. Obviously a lot more violence is on the way, which I think sucks. Unfortunately that seems to be the only way things actually get fixed. History shows some really awful stuff has been done in the name of "gotta do whatcha gotta do to feed the family". So... go ahead, push a couple tens of millions of desperate people into a corner, what could possibly go wrong? I mean, its not like the US populace is extremely heavily armed, or has a cultural predisposition to consider violence as entertainment, or has what boils down to a martyr as a religious symbol...
- ItendToDisagree 13y ago
  I seem to remember a famous rapper named Upton Sinclair who talked about this sort of thing and its effect on lower class workers. "It's like a Jungle sometimes. It makes me wonder how I keep from going under."

36 ms·

Was the industrial revolution the beginning of a race to the bottom, or the first step from agrarian poverty to modern prosperity?

by nickff 13y ago

Was the industrial revolution the beginning of a race to the bottom, or the first step from agrarian poverty to modern prosperity?

ItendToDisagree 13y ago
For a great many people a 'race to the bottom' scenario can easily be posited. Especially for those who are exploited to make the super cheap products (particularly electronics) everyone prosperous is supposed to enjoy. Someone is always going to be getting screwed in the name of ever increasing growth/profits and ever declining costs. That is until we reach a sweet Sci-Fi robots doing all the work scenario! :)
VLM 13y ago
There is a peculiar history revisionist outlook that farmers were fired and then lacking any opportunity to farm, they moved to a factory. Sometimes this happened. Usually not. Reality, as anyone who is related to a farmer knows, farming is very hard work and a factory job is generally better. They were upgrading, not getting downsized. Also modern prosperity only came after labor riots where lots of people suffered intensely and died in strike violence. Obviously a lot more violence is on the way, which I think sucks. Unfortunately that seems to be the only way things actually get fixed. History shows some really awful stuff has been done in the name of "gotta do whatcha gotta do to feed the family". So... go ahead, push a couple tens of millions of desperate people into a corner, what could possibly go wrong? I mean, its not like the US populace is extremely heavily armed, or has a cultural predisposition to consider violence as entertainment, or has what boils down to a martyr as a religious symbol...
- ItendToDisagree 13y ago
  I seem to remember a famous rapper named Upton Sinclair who talked about this sort of thing and its effect on lower class workers. "It's like a Jungle sometimes. It makes me wonder how I keep from going under."