| ▲ | satvikpendem a day ago |
| Due to said industrial revolution, people's quality of life went up a thousandfold, same as in China and other countries now adopting capitalist principles. |
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| ▲ | dofm a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| Not at all quickly. People's lives got immediately worse — well within a working lifetime. Life expectancy fell and infant mortality worsened for well over a hundred years. In particular the quality of life for people displaced by the second agricultural revolution degraded radically. It took until the early 1900s for people in cities in the west to be as healthy as a pre-industrial revolution farm worker. |
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| ▲ | satvikpendem a day ago | parent [-] | | China did it in a generation. It is not like it was before, we have the economic tools and knowledge to accelerate it. | | |
| ▲ | dofm a day ago | parent [-] | | 1978 is two generations ago, really, and things are not better for everyone now. Working days are long, six days a week, pay is poor enough that people are living in dormitories or company housing, effectively indentured still. And the question with the AI thing is: when you take some chunk of labour out of the employment market entirely (such is the promise of AI across all sectors — hire fewer people), where will the "economic tools" come from. Because you'll trigger demand collapse. It is a fantasy. And even then, you're talking about a technological change that will ruin a very large number of people's livelihoods and economic security for decades as if it is just something someone will have to fix. | | |
| ▲ | satvikpendem a day ago | parent [-] | | That's true, but any system has issues, there is no silver bullet. And yes, with the rate AI is going, among others, it is something someone will have to fix, I don't see what the alternative of not fixing it would look like. |
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| ▲ | andy_ppp a day ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Not true, that was WW2 and high taxation on the rich that created the middle class. The Industrial Revolution was 1750 onwards so maybe you’re okay with it taking nearly 200 years to get a good settlement for working people but I am not! If you look at most of the world, Nigeria or India say you’ll see disgraceful levels of poverty and a small number of people who are ultra wealthy. This is where we are heading in the west if we can’t prevent the rich from inflating and buying all the assets you will own nothing and rent everything from them. |
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| ▲ | satvikpendem a day ago | parent [-] | | India and Nigeria made many economic mistakes. My comparison is China and Vietnam who reduced poverty manifold in a single generation. | | |
| ▲ | dofm a day ago | parent [-] | | So as long as nobody makes major economic mistakes it's fine? | | |
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