O
Say what you will about old-timey industrialists, but as some points they realised they couldn't win and relented, even a little, before things could escalate even worse.
I think the rich of today are incapable of that. I am getting more "just before the French Revolution" vibes than "Gilded Age monopolies" vibes.
Again, I dearly hope I am wrong. It will not just be the rich who will suffer, if we're living in the days before French Revolution Two: Now It's Global.
Automation and industrialisation could always have been about making people work less.
It has been about "let's give this job to someone else and pay them less" more often than not. It has been the main direction it went, pretty much since the first Industrial Revolution.
Back then it led to workers' rights movement and that, in time, shifted things for the better, despite incredible levels of pushback.
Maybe it's time for another, bigger shift.
The irony here is that regular people were able to withstand a lot of exploitation, but the rich and powerful just kept pushing, and pushing, and pushing.
History repeats itself. Hope the bloodier parts of it do not repeat themselves, but at this point I do not see it going any other way.