Warner's Home Entertainment Division Hit with Massive Lay-Off's

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by CHEЯNOБLY!

It's not just about pure unemployment numbers, but the quality of jobs that are available. The areas opening up in tech, health care, etc. are not enough to offset the loss of middle class jobs in other areas, like manufacturing, which have disappeared in large part do to automation and the shrinking globe, i.e. it is just as easy to have someone in China manufacture something as it is an American, or how the internet makes location for a lot of jobs irrelevant. Couple that with a population that is ever expanding, you have problems.

The Industrial Revolution also caused massive pain to a lot of people.

I don't agree with some of the things (several flaws in your logic and goes against Economics 101) you are saying and the Industrial Revolution is one of the greatest things to ever happen as it transformed and greatly improved the standard of living and overall economy. Try living before the Industrial Revolution and let me know how that goes for you (and your watching of Blu-rays for that matter lol).

[CHEЯNOБLY!]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

I don't agree with some of the things (several flaws in your logic and goes against Economics 101) you are saying and the Industrial Revolution is one of the greatest things to ever happen as it transformed and greatly improved the standard of living and overall economy. Try living before the Industrial Revolution and let me know how that goes for you (and your watching of Blu-rays for that matter lol).

Just because we a reaping some of the benefits of the post-industrial revolution does not mean that it did not cause a massive social upheaval that most were ill-prepared for, over population, squalid living conditions, and massive unemployment in some sectors. There were "growing pains" for massive sections of society that were used to an old, traditional way of life, just like there will be "growing pains" for massive sections of society during this digital revolution/information age.

It wasn't a walk in the park for all those who actually lived through it...it actually sucked for the average person.



Where are all the jobs going? Lessons from the first Industrial Revolution and 150 years of pain:

Due to a collective amnesia and lack of historical awareness, this view forgets about the disastrous, multi-generational, consequences that rapid industrialisation had for the have nots, not just in societies that were experiencing industrialisation, but also for countries that did not industrialise at all.

The Industrial Revolution, starting in Great Britain, resulted in widespread pain and unemployment, followed by significant prosperity and a golden age for those countries that experienced it first. People who live in the developed world today have inherited a world that was built on an early mover advantage over the rest of the world and have forgotten the initial growing pains. We have a material quality of life that is perhaps the highest it has been in history. We are lucky. Few of us would chose to live in 1800, rather than in 2012.

This column goes back to the first Industrial Revolution, starting in 1776, and follows the impact of rapid changes in employment to people in the West and in the rest of the world to show why this second Industrial Revolution will be as uncomfortable a revolution as the first.

When you read these books and novels of the time, it is clear that industrialisation was extremely painful for many people. Why? It made people who had previously been gainfully employed suddenly become unemployed. The 1811-1817 Luddite movement, now permanently synonymous with backwards thinking people, was a symptom of a serious social crisis. Millions of people moved from the countryside into the cities. In the countryside they had had farming, garden farming and cottage industry to sustain them economically. While life was no picnic, being evicted from your land and being forced to work in an early 19th century factory or being forced into prostitution was even worse. This process was not quick. It was not a brief recession, followed by years of prosperity. It lasted from the late 1700s to the end of the Second World War: over 150 years.

Europe was convulsed during this period by multiple revolutions and upheavals. The French Revolution, inspired by the French backed American Revolution, set the stage for the concept of nationalism with the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1848 multiple governments across Europe were toppled by revolutions. Many of these revolutions were caused by an influx of new ideas and a drop in the numbers of jobs. This process only accelerated towards the second half of the 19th century which saw millions of Europeans flee conditions at home to lives of hoped for prosperity in America, Canada, Argentina and eventually Australia. Life in Europe had become unbearable and the value of life had dropped with it. 19th century European factories were able to be so inhuman and awful because the products that they produced were so cheap that they destroyed all of the cottage industries and jobs that had previously existed, leaving people with few alternatives.

And this pain was for the successful, early industrialising countries. The rest of the world had it even worse: subjugation and colonisation.

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND "THE SOCIAL QUESTION":

One of most dramatic (and disruptive) aspects of this new system of production was the disappearance of the traditional household, in which work and family life were intertwined. The industrial factory was separate and often distant from the home.

The machinery and new sources of power required large concentrations of labor within factories. Factory production created working and living conditions that were much worse than what had been the norm in rural life. Early factories and mines were crowded, dirty, and dangerous. The usual workday was twelve to fifteen hours long. Workers' families were crowded together in dark, damp quarters.

Factory discipline could be severe - workers were often expected to pay for broken equipment out of their own wages. Harsh conditions were only natural considering the increasingly dehumanized industrial vision of the proletariat. The famed English manufacturer Josiah Wedgewood notoriously proclaimed his desire to make perfect machines out of his workers. Due to the great reserves of labor (thanks to rising populations and a shortage of land and jobs in the countryside), and in the absence of workers' unions, employers could get away with paying their workers minimal salaries, barely enough to support a family.(In what ways did factory labor disrupt traditional social organization? What were its costs? What were its benefits?)

The cities of Europe were not prepared for the population boom of the 19th century: streets were narrow and poorly lit, if at all; clean water was limited; and sanitation, or the lack thereof, was sickening (open cesspools might be emptied only a few times a year). In due course, epidemics ravaged Europe's cities; in some cities only the continuing migration from the countryside counterbalanced the unhealthy conditions within. Cholera, a new disease from Asia that involved massive diarrhea and fatal dehydration within a few days of onset, was a particularly deadly visitor in the 19th century (a million Russians died in the cholera epidemic of 1847-1851). Under these miserable conditions, social ills such as crime, prostitution, and drunkenness exploded. Cities not only lacked street lighting, sewer systems, paved streets, and adequate fire protection, but few had enough police forces to cope with the flood of new inhabitants. The living conditions of the working class began to improve noticeably after 1850, but for many decades, the Industrial Revolution brought little but misery to the ever-expanding urban working class.

New methods of production especially affected those who still relied on traditional techniques. Although the new, crowded conditions of the factories, industrial cities, and coalmines captured public attention, workers in pre-industrial occupations - such as spinners or handloom weavers working out of their homes - often suffered far more, even if their plight remained less visible. England's handloom weavers, for example, were once a reasonably well-off group of workers; however, they became desperately impoverished after the 1820s as more efficient factory weaving produced far more cloth in far less time.

The largest number of workers were still employed in the countryside, even in industrializing Britain. The widespread enclosure of common land in the late-18th century had deprived many independent but poor farmers of the gardens, wood, and grazing rights they had enjoyed and compelled them to sell their own inadequate, small lots and become hired laborers for wealthier farmers. Even if their standard of living remained roughly the same, they often felt the loss of independence. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the resumption of grain imports from the European continent into Britain, their income fell sharply as grain prices and wages collapsed. Many were released from their jobs and joined the ranks of the long-term unemployed. Some sought to organize early labor organizations but the Tory governments severely persecuted these efforts and their protests.

[BobbyMcGee]

I know a number of people who work in post-production for a number of different companies, when its slow in late summer they lay people off and when it gets busy in the fall they just hire more people. That's the business.

Pretty brutal IMO but i'm not in the business so perhaps I am not seeing the larger picture as to why you can't pay a few people for a couple of months when its slow.

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by CHEЯNOБLY!

Just because we a reaping some of the benefits of the post-industrial revolution does not mean that it did not cause a massive social upheaval that most were ill-prepared for, over population, squalid living conditions, and massive unemployment in some sectors. There were "growing pains" for massive sections of society that were used to an old, traditional way of life, just like there will be "growing pains" for massive sections of society during this digital revolution/information age.

It wasn't a walk in the park for all those who actually lived through it...it actually sucked for the average person.

Great post.

[Todd Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by BobbyMcGee

I know a number of people who work in post-production for a number of different companies, when its slow in late summer they lay people off and when it gets busy in the fall they just hire more people. That's the business.

Pretty brutal IMO but i'm not in the business so perhaps I am not seeing the larger picture as to why you can't pay a few people for a couple of months when its slow.

I work in that industry and most of us are freelance these days. That means we get hired for weeks, moinths, sometimes years at a time, but there is no long term job security anymore in the creative industries. On the other hand, if you don't like a job you always know that you'll leave soon again.

[HeavyHitter]

Just because we a reaping some of the benefits of the post-industrial revolution does not mean that it did not cause a massive social upheaval that most were ill-prepared for, over population, squalid living conditions, and massive unemployment in some sectors. There were "growing pains" for massive sections of society that were used to an old, traditional way of life, just like there will be "growing pains" for massive sections of society during this digital revolution/information age.

It wasn't a walk in the park for all those who actually lived through it...it actually sucked for the average person.

I'm not saying it wasn't easy during the transition, only that we greatly overall benefited from industrial and technological progress despite some flaws or imperfections. All I am saying is you cannot limit progress and technological advancement as that is an extention and growth of the human mind. I also don't describe to the negativism/defeatist attitude in this thread either. There will only be growing pains for those who refuse to learn the skills and gain the knowledge they need for today's and the future's job market. If the type of job you do no longer exists, then you better get yourself educated for something that does. If you are expecting someone to do it for you or the federal government, good luck with that.

Anyway, I'm done responding to this thread and will stick with Blu-ray conversations instead. None of this has anything to do with Warner's issues right now.