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From: rstevew@armory.com (Richard Steven Walz)
Subject: Re: Does Automation Take Jobs Away?
Organization: The Armory
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 17:49:32 GMT
Message-ID: <CtGHIM.98K@armory.com>
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In article <30q73p$s0l@unix1.cc.uop.edu>,  <rkyker@vms1.cc.uop.edu> wrote:
>OK here's my $.02. Question is doesn't the refusal to automate when automation
>increases productivity decrease the job market? If jobs go abroad due to the
>lack of automation then automation is a positive thing. 
>
>I think about a 100 years ago a group of workers got mad and destroyed
>some new looms. They are called Luddites. You might find some interesting 
>history on this concerning industrial automation. Luddites is now used 
>as a term for the fear of technology. 
>
>Ron
----------------------------------------
And a mistaken one. Yes, this happened, but only after the owners wouldn't
hire and keep the weavers on as automated loom repair folk or share the
wealth! The weavers weren't as mad at the machines as they were afraid that
if management did that, their children would starve, which they WERE doing!
It was a limited action on several fabric houses, and it simply persuaded
the owners to find a way to spread the wealth or else pay the price for
their families to relocate or to remain on a stipend. Many stayed on
stipend for decades, and it was cheaper than paying them full time. They
found other work in time, or else took up other trades because of the
security their families had on the stipend!! It was the first form of
industrial unemployment insurance. THAT's what the Luddites were about.
Many of them had built the VERY machines they had first wrecked, so they went
into competition with their old bosses. They WERE weavers after all, and
they had been using automated power looms for quite some time and didn't
want that boredom any more!! It wasn't as though this happened suddenly and
they didn't understand. It took about 30 years to come to a head!
They just didn't liked being tossed out with nothing. And many of them had
assisted in the automation processes in their factories. Engineers needed
to ask weavers the ins and outs so to speak. (Ouch!) And the straw that
broke the camel's back was the complex weaving being taken over by the
wooden card process by Jacard, mainly because this put the WOMEN out of
work! We couldn't have THAT now, COULD we?? ;-)
-Steve Walz   rstevew@armory.com

