Read the last part of my post: It was possible to reform the mechanized labor system into something better. It wouldn't have been possible to reform the system based around change-phobic craft workers into any system where the average person could have more than one pair of shoes.
And, quite beyond clothing, mechanization makes all of the other advances we take for granted possible, leading to relatively cheap antibiotics and people not dying of simple wounds which get infected. We think MRSA is terrible, and it is, but it's mostly just a partial return to the old days, except we do have drugs which can kill MRSA. We didn't have anything in the old days.
>It was possible to reform the mechanized labor system into something better.
Too bad it didn't happen for many decades and only then against strong (and often violent) resistance from the employers themselves.
I'm not denying the benefits of mechanization in general across the centuries. I'm denying that the Luddites and the working classes at the time saw any benefit from it.
And, quite beyond clothing, mechanization makes all of the other advances we take for granted possible, leading to relatively cheap antibiotics and people not dying of simple wounds which get infected. We think MRSA is terrible, and it is, but it's mostly just a partial return to the old days, except we do have drugs which can kill MRSA. We didn't have anything in the old days.