Ugh, tired of hearing this same old shit.

Do you believe the luddites would have burned the looms if instead this offer would have been on the table

"Hello, instead of being starving beggars in the street, we will offer you retraining, and provide meals while doing so"

Oh, look, a social safety net actually can benefit capital owners and keep their factories from burning.

They didn't want retraining as mill workers. It was much lower paid work. They wanted their old jobs which didn't exist anymore. I agree that the government should absolutely take care of people who lose the capitalism lottery.

They just wanted to provide for their families. The reason you don't hear about the ones that didn't is because dead men tell no tales.

I think there is a presumption that there is a caring government to take away the duties of maintaining one's livelihood, a livelihood formulated without the modern, post-Revolution (the French one) impulses that we live with today. Current western governments (particularly the social democratic Europe) are in part the result of effects of capitalism, which in the course of modern history, we can't escape so easily (I am sort of alluding to the work of Mark Fisher here.)