> Remember that inequality was huge way before the industrial revolution. You know how feudalism worked, right? A few dozen filthy-rich noble families + 99% of population in abject misery, was the rule for most of Europe in the best part of the previous couple millennia.
I'm going to ask for a source on this, because this smacks of hyperbole or at least ignorance. It seems that when you refer to feudalism [1], you may mean manorialism [2] and more specifically the institution of serfdom [3]. First, I am not arguing that the life of a serf was in any way ideal. They were the lowest caste of society and were afforded very little in the way of self determination, but they were not wholly without legal protections and rights, they were often paid a wage for their labour or could at the very least pay their debts directly with their labour, and it was generally in the direct interest of their lord to uphold their end of the contract by providing compensation, protection, court hearings, and facilities for processing and storing the food produced on their lands.
While it would obviously have made for an extremely poor life had one been born on land held by a cruel or careless lord I wouldn't say that living and working in a workhouse [4] or mill would have been much better, at least as a serf you would have a right to live with your family in a hovel and work a portion of the land for your own benefit. 12 hour days in a dark, loud, and extremely dangerous textile mill and going home to an equally dark, loud, and stinking tenement room shared with a dozen other people sounds more like abject misery to me.
The beginnings of improvement in personal rights and freedoms began more so with Magdeburg rights [5] and town law, providing an alternative for serfs who were able or fortunate enough to exchange their tenure, buy out of it, or simply flee it for life in a town. That was as early as the 10th century. Things improved even more during the Renaissance and after the Black Death which resulted in an increase in the value of labour and saw the decline of serfdom in Western Europe.
I would argue that a deterioration in living conditions for skilled labourers brought on by the industrial revolution [6] and the end of the open field system [7] resulted in a greater necessity to organize to avoid further deprivation. Also, peasant revolts were not unheard of [6] and often began in the villages that formed the centre of life on the manor estate.
The life of a serf was far from pastoral but the change in living conditions from the late Roman Empire up to the modern era has not followed a constant upward trend and even today our society is quite capable of reaching local minima.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manorialism
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workhouse
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdeburg_rights
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_field_system
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_peasant_revolts