• @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      294 months ago

      The Luddites had a point about the ‘de-skilling’ of work and the alienation of labor. And they regularly cross-dressed.

      These people are just obsessed with enforcing misery.

    • Drusas
      link
      fedilink
      13
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      The Luddites weren’t wrong. Their name has been badly misused. They were skilled professionals who were concerned that they would no longer have work as a result of the industrial revolution. They were largely right in that assessment. That doesn’t mean you should try to hold up societal/technological progress like they did, but their concerns were valid. They weren’t just afraid of technology as they are generally portrayed.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            64 months ago

            Depends on the country, but that was not my point. Overall employment has not suffered at the hands of technology; it improved efficiency, yes, and resulted in some occupations needing fewer (or no) people, however people found work in other areas.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            34 months ago

            Those aren’t skills. Driving a truck is a skill, and there’s no shortage of demand for truck drivers today.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          54 months ago

          Sure but sometimes individuals do lose their jobs so it would have been ethical to stop technological progress back in the 1800’s

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            54 months ago

            It would not have been ethical with increasing populations and no means to scale up effectively to meet their needs. Individuals, sure, but not overall; technology has replaced people in specific situations, people who then went on to get employment in other areas.

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                24 months ago

                Looking at the bigger picture… layoffs happen all the time for many reasons. Overall, technology has not increased unemployment.

                • @[email protected]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  44 months ago

                  layoffs happen all the time for many reasons

                  Layoffs are the result of primitive capital being monopolized through enclosure and the local labor force being corralled into industries that generate more goods than the deflated economy can absorb.

                  There’s no layoffs for yeomen farmers and independent craftsman. You only experience the phenomenon when land barons control the property and dictate how many people they wish to employ.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          44 months ago

          Industry consolidation and outsourcing reduces the local labor demand by setting monopsony rates for workers.

          This consolidation is often facilitated by legal enclosures, environmental degradation, and state subsidies/contracts for political insiders.

          So you end up with working people who lose access to primitive accumulation, while big industrial owners are able to undercut skilled tradesmen with below cost merchandise in a recessionary economy.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        34 months ago

        That doesn’t mean you should try to hold up societal/technological progress like they did

        A lot of what they protested was industry consolidation and price fixing.