First, watch this short video:
Progress And Importation Of Low Cost Manufactured Goods
Mostly summarized from the Luddites at 200 website:
Over history, technological progress has lifted up everyone over the long run.
But people sometimes consider technological progress a threat because some current jobs will be lost.
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One example happened in England in the early 1800s.
Jobs of skilled fabrics knitters were being eliminated by the invention and spread of weaving machines that could produce textiles using fewer skilled workers at much lower cost.
Displaced workers violently revolted against the new technology.
They smashed the weaving machines used in wool and cotton mills and even set fire to the homes of mill owners.
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The Luddite uprising began in Nottingham in November 1811, and spread to Yorkshire and Lancashire in early 1812.
The Luddites’ main tactic was to warn the owners to remove the machines from their factories, if the owners refused the Luddites smashed the machines in night raids using sledgehammers.
The name “Luddite” is said to derive from Ned Ludd, an apprentice weaver, likely fictional, who some years earlier smashed a loom in a rage at his supervisor who had beaten him.
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The Luddites wanted the British government to save their jobs by restricting the spread of the new technology.
Instead, the Parliament acted against the Luddites.
Thousands of troops were sent to suppress the Luddite riots.
Parliament made destroying machines a crime punishable by execution.
In 1813 seventeen men were hanged for the offense and many were sent to prison including in Australia.
Today, the term “Luddite” is often used to refer to those who oppose technological progress.
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Figure 1
Incomes have gone up in advanced countries, but in Third World counties income level largely remains at the pre-Industrial Revolution level.
The main cause of the poverty is cultural opposition to modernity, including rejecting new technologies and international trade.
These rejections empower and enrich corrupt government and business elites, on-going corruption further impoverishing the general population.
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Figures 2 and 3
Since 1948 the unemployment rate in the USA has hovered around 5%, despite advancing technology and increasingly open international trade.
Old jobs moving overseas result in many benefits for Americans, including:
-lower prices of goods
-creation of new and better jobs with resulting rise in personal incomes
-increasing income and wealth for foreigners, enabling them to buy more products from the USA and invest in businesses in the USA
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Those who oppose increased imports of low cost goods can be thought of a type of Luddite.
The effect and result of low cost imports are the same as with improved technology: prices are reduced and product quantity and quality are increased.
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