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Comment by monochr | Hacker News Reader

The funny thing about articles like this is that the same articles were popping up a century or two ago for farmers forced of their land and made into "salaried slaves" where they had no choice but to hire out your labor in ways they had no control over, as opposed how they worked on the farm where they were masters of themselves.

Given that it took 50 years of constant strikes and close to 1,000 killed to get people acclimatized to salaried work I'd say the sharing economy is doing a marvelous job so far.

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"To get people acclimitized to salaried work", really?

Most people would say it took 50 years of constant strikes to force owners/employers to _change working conditions_ enough so people people in waged work (most of those people striking weren't 'salaried') had sufficient dignity and basic needs being met, resulting in some degree of social calm.

But you're suggesting they were striking simply because waged work was unfamiliar to them, and eventually they got 'acclimatized' (I think you mean 'acclimated'?), got used to it, and stopped striking? Rather than because their strikes actually succeeded in changing conditions?

Not sure exactly which way the author meant it, but the phrase "get people acclimatized to salaried work" could be interpreted as including society at large (both the owners/employers and the employees).

19th Century people had a much different attitude about death. There was an honor culture - what mattered was dying well. Yer basic Wobbly was all about the sort of thing Chomsky speaks now about "wage slavery". The Wobbly Way didn't work.

What worked was more like the IBEW - lineman mortality was 50% until industrial safety education and practices became a thing. My Dad was a telephone lineman ( and then moved to inside work ) - he was serious about this.

I think you have to realize that in absolute terms, industrial work was still much more rewarding than farm work. That a few Henry Frick figures existed ( and Carnegie disavowed Frick eventually ) does not mean that the "exploited" did not participate in their exploitation.

I wish there was a better literature about labor. So much - from both sides - is propaganda. The "evil Capitalist" meme is tired.

It would appear you have a somewhat skewed understanding of history. Recall that in Europe enclosure of the commons predates the Industrial revolution. Feudalism. As the Industrial Revolution ramped up no one was 'forced off their land', rather people chose to leave their farm jobs because they perceived employment conditions in the cities to be better. Lander owners kept their land and bought machinery to work it. It's been a very long time since the common people worked the commons. Suggest you have a look at Deirde N. McCloskey's 'Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World', it does a decent job of dispelling every economic myth.

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