Early 20th centruy industrialists also had to deal with the looming threat of anti-trust regulations. These days it's almost a joke. There is no trust-busting anymore. The monopolies control foreign and domestic policy through massive lobbying efforts.

Your argument has no relevance to the comment you are responding to as the point being made was it is human nature for (some) people to get complacent regardless of the circumstances.

contextualizing a point is just as legitimate as responding to it directly and this particular comment is relevant

perhaps some people will always grow complacent but you could just as easily make an essentialist argument about the corporation: maybe some employers will always abuse their employees, certainly some deliberately make it difficult to distinguish worker complacency from legitimate complaint, which bears directly on the original claim about human nature

It's also human nature to grumble about one's job. Heck, I do it too, even though I work for free.

On the other hand, they could just beat up or kill their disgruntled employees... I think things have improved and not regressed since then.

> People need to read some history.

But they'll get distracted before getting around to it. Gore Vidal wasn't kidding when he used the words "United States of Amnesia" in his essays.

(Also, "our owners". Good stuff, tangy with aristocratic vinegar - acerbic, I believe the tasters call it.)

or acetic ;)

These two words (like acid, acrid, and vinegar) come from the same root.

> The early 20th century industrialists talked about all the same stuff.

Yeah, this is just capitalism at work.

> People are fickle and managing them at scale is hard.

Well I guess that’s an alternative lesson to take away from this.