[Legend2440]

Prior to industrialization everyone was broke and people regularly starved.

If the loom smashers had their way, we'd still be dirt farmers living in abject poverty.

[tadfisher]

Perhaps. On the other hand, the limiting factor for automation was never human labor, it was energy input. We went all-in on oil extraction and transformed it into energy and plastics and crops, to push the human population to 10x its size. Ironically, doing so multiplied the absolute number of people living in abject poverty.

[inigyou]

Post-industrialization, same thing but the starving broke people are far away and speak a different language