General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Capitalism is NOT a dirty word. [View all]mike_c
(36,279 posts)That's one reason that European feudalism was not such a bad deal for crafts-persons and trades-persons. Prior to the industrial revolution, cloth was made by weavers and felters who either owned or rented their looms, raised or bought their fiber, etc. Smiths owned their forges, hammers, and anvils. Papermakers their beaters and vats. Tailors their shops, and so on. Printers owned their presses, and cabinet makers their saws and planes.
The industrial revolution changed that because it displaced worker ownership of the means of production with workers who had no stake in production other than the sale of their time. Even their skills were ultimately less important than the hours of their lives, which capitalism drove down the worth of to the point of slavery and which became most worker's only absolute commodity. All of their labor goes to enrich the capitalist, who owns the means of production and therefore controls the outcome of their labor while skimming off all the profit from it for himself.
This was NOT the natural order of human society for most of human history, no matter how much it looks like it through the lens of modern life. Capitalism is, in fact, a relatively new means of exploiting and oppressing workers to steal the fruits of their labor.