new | show | ask | jobs Github

gyomu 6 hours ago

> social change caught up and imposed a more equitable distribution of the dividends.

That’s a very nice way to say “the workers put the fear of God in the heart of capital owners, and lots of people died”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canut_revolts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asturian_Revolution_of_1934

etc.

▲

petra 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

What put the fear of god in governments, was the great depression(which is an indirect a result of the industrial revolution), terrible leaders rising because of it, and WWII as the result.

We already have terrible leaders in many places, war(mostly economic, some physical), and that's even without the huge unemployment wave that is coming.

▲

Gooblebrai 30 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Which I'm not sure it happens that often anymore because it's easier to just complain on social media

	▲	hypfer 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Only as long as you still have enough cash to order uber eats.

▲

gigel82 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Nothing says "social change" like building a Flock of predictive-surveillance cameras capable of spotting the revolt before the flock even knows it’s a flock.

	▲	metek 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The fascist leader needs to catch every single revolutionary group every single time. But a single revolutionary with a pistol only needs to catch the leader ONCE.

▲

bko 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think it's more competition for labor. Why is anyone paid above minimum wage? It's not through charity or "fear" that employees will revolt. It's that there's competition for that labor.

Suppose a worker is worth $20 per hour to a capitalist. How much should they pay? As little as possible, sure, but anything up to $20 per hour is worth it. You'll hire up to that point to maximize profit. Suppose you hand somewhere at $15 per hour, another capitalist will look to lure your employees away by paying them more.

Of course pay isn't the only consideration when working. Workers consider things like paid time off, benefits and how much they like their boss and coworkers. These are all part of the bargain.

It wasn't "society". It was competition. Consider the Ford $5 day, where Ford doubled wages because he realized turnover and poor morale cost him money:

> Ford workers disliked the new assembly line methods so much that by late 1913, labor turnover was 380 percent. The company's announcement to pay five dollars for an eight-hour day compared to the previous rate of $2.34 for a nine-hour day made many workers willing to submit to the relentless discipline of the line in return for such high wages.

https://www.thehenryford.org/collections/explore/sets/detail...

	▲	marcus_holmes 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This breaks down if there is less competition for labour, and we enter a new Depression era. Under your logic, capitalists will pay nearly nothing for labour because there is so much of it. Then "society" has to step in and not-so-gently point out that these are people we're talking about, and they need things like dignity, time off, good health, good working conditions, as well as money. We have to remember that people are the point of the economy: the economy exists to provide for all the people, people don't exist to be economic assets. There is a tendency for capitalists to forget this, and then we have to prod them with pitchforks to remind them.