• possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    In retrospect what they argued would happen, whether one considers it good or bad, did come true. Machines allowed unskilled laborers to produce more, and for capitalist owners of the means-of-production to steal a greater portion of the fruit-of-the-labor. This then undercut skilled labor, rendering them equivalent to unskilled labor almost overnight, and it furthermore resulted in a poorer quality of product. The Luddite protests were an early union action by organized tradespeople.

    It’s hard to not use it with the meaning of technological-regressive, for me too, but it does work to erase the class struggle context behind the movement. All war is class war, right?

    • XTL@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      So, unnecessary, stressing, repetitive, and dangerous work should still be done manually with worse results?

      • possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        The whole point of my comment was to help dispel that misunderstanding. Somehow, I don’t think you actually missed that…

        The factory work was much more dangerous - and arguably all of your other points - than that of artisans’. As for the results? Despite my short comment, this was already addressed:

        resulted in a poorer quality of product

        The only ones who benefited from the changes were the capitalist elites, who relegated the artisans from working with/for their own means to becoming a part of the working class who labored for the factory owner’s profits and growing social inequity instead.

        Maybe you think the Luddites should have been anti-technology in such a situation and so project that onto them. But it’s not the historical reality of the movement.