[grafmax]

Yeah people look at the rise in quality of life in this period and through a simplistic view misattribute it to “factories”. Factories initially lowered living standards among workers and increased productivity. That’s because gains in productivity went to the owners. It’s only the labor movement that was able to shift some of that new productivity to the people who did the actual work and pull the working class out of the horrific conditions capitalism had created - through collective bargaining and the reforms instituted under pressure from labor.

[exasperaited]

Exactly this. The early factory environments were more terrifying than contemporary war zones; objectively dangerous, non-stop, deafening machinery with no safety mechanisms where some jobs done by children were literally life-and-death.