this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
350 points (91.5% liked)
Technology
59428 readers
3646 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Just like the industrial revolution!
To be fair, that did improve things for the average person, and by a staggering amount.
The vast majority of people working before the industrial revolution were lowly paid agricultural workers who had enormous instability in employment. Employment was also typically very seasonal, and very hard work.
That's before we even get into things like stuff being made cheaper, books being widely available, transport being opened up, medical knowledge skyrocketing, famines going from regular occurrence to rare occurrence, etc as a result of the industrial revolution.
We had been on a constant trajectory of everyone getting wealthier up until the late 1970s where afterwards we saw a sharp rise in inequality, a trend that hasn't stopped. (Thatcher and her other shithead twin Reagan?)
In the mid 70s, the top 1% owned 19.9% of wealth. Now that figure is around 53%.
Even then it is "only" the west. China was starving only two generations ago. As a whole humanity just keeps getting richer and richer. No part of what I am saying is meant to excuse the damage neoliberalism did to wealthy equality in the developed world.
Well yeah, the industrial revolution only helped the areas it affected. But that kinda goes without saying.