@Wolven @volkris The irony of the whole debate is, it isn't an either-or proposition. If the money made from the machines went to the people they replaced, instead of to some 3rd party investor who did nothing but have money already, then improving society could happen without impoverishing a group of people. If industrialism had manifested as worker cooperatives instead of capitalist enterprises, this would have been the natural outcome. But some rich dudes figured out how to stick their fingers in the pie and call dibs, and here we are, still dealing with the same ridiculous issues.

@hosford42 "nothing but have money already" is no trifle.

Those people sacrificed for the greater good, turning down other opportunities to benefit with that money, putting it toward society-improving projects instead.

To be clear, I'm not saying it was charity or that they were good people or anything like that, but for them to forego their own immediate benefit for the sake of a project for the greater good is itself something we should be glad happened.

If industrialism had manifested as worker cooperatives instead of capitalist enterprises then society as a whole would have probably been worse off.
@Wolven

@volkris @Wolven Sacrificed? For the greater good? Those are some interesting tinted glasses. Investment has never been about self-sacrifice or the greater good. It has always been about *opportunity* for investors to secure a source of income for themselves. That favorite word of capitalists, "profit". Just because they had the self-restraint to wait for their delayed gratification doesn't make it any less gratifying.

Imagine if instead of owning the company as a result of their investment, they had only owned interest on a loan -- a sane compensation -- forgoing permanent control over other people's livelihood and permanent rent collection on every transaction those people partake in, in the form of profit, ever after. That still wouldn't have counted as sacrifice. And it would have still enabled the industrial revolution to take place -- without maintaining the status quo of aristocracy hoarding wealth and power at the expense of commoners like us.

@volkris @Wolven Workers got scammed out of control of the means of production and suckered out of their wages indefinitely, for what should have been nothing more than a loan paid back with interest. I'll never mistake that for sacrifice for the greater good on the part of the wealthy.

@hosford42 that is literally not what happened.

@Wolven

@volkris @Wolven If your whole argument amounts to, "Nuh uh," then I guess we have nothing more to say to each other.

@hosford42 fortunately that's not my whole argument.

@Wolven

@volkris @hosford42 @Wolven At least in one sense you're right that that's not what happened. Workers weren't scammed out of control of the means of production, they were robbed of it at gunpoint and kept away from it at gunpoint on to the present day. Somehow though I don't think that's your point of disagreement.

@volkris @Wolven @hosford42

Even setting aside the fact that investment is not drawn from pre-existing stocks amassed by the investor by deferring consumption—that’s not how investment works—the idea that *wealthy British elites in the late 18th and early 19th centuries* were sacrificing for the greater good is particularly fucking absurd.

Where did those fortunes come from, qoto.org?

@HeavenlyPossum

How is it not how investment works?

How do you think it works?
@Wolven @hosford42

@volkris @Wolven @hosford42

Workers constantly advance each other product and labor in a network of credit.

Capitalists do not provide anything in that process; they simply monopolize control over that credit creation process.

Even if they didn’t, the British elites who owned the labor of the Luddites and their contemporaries did not build their fortunes by deferring consumption. They built them on the backs of slaves, enclosed and immiserated workers, and colonial expropriation.

@volkris @Wolven @hosford42 Worse off? like exploited domestic and foreign labor and destruction of the environment for profit? People are innovative and discoveries often happen in spite of the for proti model, not because of. Co-ops would have gladly taken to tech as they would have been the beneficiaries. Also, what kicked off the second industrial revolution was replaceable machined precision parts, Something driven by the ingenious concept that any invention discovered by someone with a government contract became free and open source which causes massive explosion of shared ideas and innovation. The same was true with software until Gates innovated the mob tactics of protecting his IP religiously, never mind that he designed it on tax payer paid free computer time. Currently we have not innovation, just more ways to extract money because we are in a second gilded age. It wasn't until workers organized that people started enjoying the benefits of those things we worked hard for and paid money for pure science research on instead of all that money going toward and handful of the few.

@anubis2814

Gates innovated the mob tactics of protecting his IP religiously? No, that's not how that works in reality.

In reality, the same governments who provided that free computer time also provided the IP structure and restrictions on usage of ideas.

That's not up to Gates but to our active support and reelection of the politicians who implement those policies.

We get the government we vote for as we keep reelecting the same types of folks with the same bad ideas.
@Wolven @hosford42

@volkris @hosford42 @Wolven

Sacrifice?!

These people already have more resources than they could ever use, much less appreciate, in a thousand lifetimes-- but you think occasionally spending some of it in ways that would contribute to the stability and sustainability of humanity's future (thereby ALSO BENEFITING THEM by building a world that would be less the fuck ON FIRE) instead of just using it on MORE bookers, blow, and stock buybacks is some kind of gracious "sacrifice"??

I'm not sure whether to laugh or be sick.

@violetmadder nope.

You misunderstand what I wrote above.

@hosford42 @Wolven

@Wolven @volkris @violetmadder @hosford42

It’s cartoonish bootlicking. Propertied elites, wealthy on the backs of slaves and enclosure and colonialism, buy the labor of expropriated peasants and this is somehow supposed to be *selfless sacrifice for public benefit*?

@HeavenlyPossum selfless?

Whoever said selfless?

No, it's even better, it's an alignment of interests.

No need to rely on selflessness that might disappear from day to day.

@volkris

“Those people sacrificed for the greater good”

Those are literally your words.

@abucci what? I'm referring to them foregoing immediate benefit for the sake of a project for greater good.

That's the whole point.

@hosford42 @Wolven

@Wolven that's not what happened

@Wolven in this case it is.

Sometimes society is improved by its resources going toward better uses. We should not be spending society's resources maintaining production of buggy whips, for example, when we no longer have such need for horse drawn buggies.

So it is here. Society found better ways to direct resources, ways that benefit more people better, spreading more wealth throughout society, even as this relatively small group of laborers wanted to protect their jobs against advancement.

We should focus on building up, finding them better ways to use their labor, rather than tearing down, costing everyone the opportunities to benefit from advancement.

@volkris @Wolven

Now do this for bitcoin

@HeavenlyPossum

Sure: people continue to find value in Bitcoin, which is why they trade for it.

Can't really say there much of a market for buggywhips, though.

@Wolven

@Wolven @volkris

We have no more need for bitcoin than we do for buggies and their accoutrements. You did not make an argument about value; you made an argument about redirecting resources to meet public needs—one might say an argument about *efficiency*—that you decline to apply to bitcoin for some reason.

@Wolven @volkris if I improve my employees productivity with technology then why should employees, who did not do that, benefit.

@Moon @Wolven @volkris when you clean your room yourself, you are depriving a maid of her job. In a just society you would have 12 maids.

@lain @Wolven @volkris @Moon What's your wife's salary, is it equitable?

@nazgul nope.

The technological advancements meant that less work was needed to supply goods for society.

If parents and children started dying in sweatshops 7 days a week that's a different problem that the technological advancements made less necessary.

If it happened anyway don't blame the technology that offered an alternative.

@Wolven

@volkris @Wolven You can’t divorce technology from how it is used in a capitalist society. You’re denying history and reality. If it can be used to abuse people, it will be used to abuse people.

That’s like releasing software with no security and then claiming it’s not your fault that someone broke into your customer’s site.

@nazgul of course you can divorce technology from how it's used in a capitalist society!

I mean, if you're rational.

They are entirely separate questions that a reasonable person can weigh separately.

@Wolven