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What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

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Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#561
This came up in a few responses below as various roles have been replaced by machines (gas station attendants, printers, travel agents...) so I'm responding in a new thread.

When it comes to revolting against industry change, there's a good paper by Eric Hobsbawm called The Machine Breakers. Yes, he's focused more on the Luddite-style reaction of destruction. But interestingly, he notes two types of machine breaking.

There is the type that is not hostile to the machine itself, but which was used to coerce employers to improve conditions and pay. Unpopular employers and owners were often the ones targeted with what has been called “collective bargaining by riot.” Those machine breakers were more pro trade-unionist than anti-machine.

Hobsbawm mentions that a benefit of machine breaking was that destruction built the “habit of solidarity which is the foundation of effective trade unionism.” That solidarity was more naturally built in places like coal mines where workers were closely collocated and was more difficult to build in framework knitting, where workers were scattered.

But the second type of machine breaking was more about resistance to machines themselves, especially those that were labor-saving devices. That type of anti-tech Luddism is where I’ve mostly focused my own recent research. For that second type, Hobsbawm notes that workers, manufacturers, and the general public often shared in the discomfort of machine impact on peoples’ livelihoods.

Unlike the conditions and pay, this other type of machine-breaking helped workers slow down the loss of control on their employment. That included situations where machines made workers more productive and where, as a result, fewer of them were required. Or situations where machines enabled pay to decrease, as highly-skilled and highly-paid workers were replaced by less-skilled and lower-paid workers.

The alternative was the impossibility that Hobsbawm describes as follows: “The small shop-keeper or local master did not want an economy of limitless expansion…. His ideal was the secular dream of all 'little men,' … a small- scale society of modest property-owners and comfortably-off wage- earners, without great distinctions of wealth of power.”

I'm due to update this, but I've been keeping a running list of examples: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M_UjOPxpbKMYes5CcWRW...

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#562
post #540

Addressing the question in the title, "What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers", look at what happened to printers. That was a good skilled trade for centuries. Then it just went away. Phototypesetting took the high volume end. Desktop publishing took the low end. Computer-controlled presses took press operators. And then the newspaper business died. I've heard homeless former printers…

Give the author a break he is hopefully coming to the realization that your job is not where you should find meaning. If your in a role where it might, some doctors, some teachers, etc. great for you -- that is a perk much of the world does not have. A bricklayer can be excellent at his job. He can work hard to become so (to paraphrase Inigo Mendoya). He should pride himself on this excellence, but it is unlikely he…

> The despair of the the unemployed skilled laborer is that losing his livelihood imperils the things he does value, family and the ability to provide for them.

Isn't that exactly a concern for those who find meaning in other things than their job? If you find meaning in your job then getting paid enough to support your family is obviously important, but it is ultimately a secondary concern.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#564

Addressing the question in the title, "What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers", look at what happened to printers. That was a good skilled trade for centuries. Then it just went away. Phototypesetting took the high volume end. Desktop publishing took the low end. Computer-controlled presses took press operators. And then the newspaper business died. I've heard homeless former printers…

Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu documents the last day of hot type at The New York Times before the digital changeover. It's one of my favourite documentaries, everything feels so vivid and alive: https://www.nytimes.com/video/insider/100000004687429/farewe...

I found this on Vimeo. Very interesting.

https://vimeo.com/127605643

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#567
post #423
post #85

Long long time ago people in tech were in tech because of the tech. Then, at some point, being in tech became a gilded profession and everyone: salesmen, artists, clerks etc. joined in. Not because they wanted to be in tech. They wanted gold. For years it was working, but right now things shifted. You can no longer just do the thing you learned for a job and continue doing so, because landscape shifted. So they're mi…

>For people I know who are in tech for the tech nothing changed. Yeah it did. The environments became a lot more toxic and the decisions became a lot more stupid. I also miss working with people who actually cared about the craft. They exist on the IC level but they're burned out and on the executive level it's mostly just insecure morons these days.

It’s great to care about the craft as long as someone else is paying for it. I think most software developers are waking up to the reality that they were always just holding business at ransom with their craft. Software is a grudge purchase for businesses. No one has ever cared about the craft except the craftsmen.

Re: What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers

#568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu documents the last day of hot type at The New York Times before the digital changeover. It's one of my favourite documentaries, everything feels so vivid and alive: https://www.nytimes.com/video/insider/100000004687429/farewe...

Since you mentioned Etaoin Shrdlu and hot type / linotype... There are a lot of industries (at least historically) that have organized labor. In the UK, there was the “Wapping Dispute” in 1986 when computer technology enabled journalists to type in their copy directly, doing away with the need for workers to set type using linotype printing. Linotype was a big improvement on the older letter-by-letter typesetting and…

Not doing the strike would have had similar job losses. People who have nothing to lose can at least spread the pain out.
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