Political organizing around unions, state regulations of the labour market, and agitational political parties did nothing to prevent the severe decline of clothing quality that was the Luddites were advocating against. But of course, propaganda has very successfully reduced their entire platform to "worker's pay" alone, which is an even easier line to feed to people that over the decades have become accustomed to literal slop as apparel. And I mean that very literally - clothes that straight-up lose their structural integrity after a handful of laundry cycles.

Of course, there's definitely absolutely nothing about the state of the garment industry that's applicable to the current discussions about AI re: software quality and worker compensation. It's not as if this industry has not already seen its fair share of quality going to the dogs with only a small handful of people still knowing and caring enough to call it out while most others cheer for the Productivity™.