The Industrial Revolution upended traditional ways of working. In its early stages, farmers and weavers who had once sold their goods locally found themselves undercut by machinery that churned out more at lower prices. With fewer customers and dwindling earnings, these people became part of a restless mass whose livelihoods had been overturned in the pursuit of efficiency. It’s crucial to remember that the new factory jobs which eventually replaced older roles did not appear overnight. Rather, they arrived slowly, in dribs and drabs, while the displaced workers struggled to pay rent or even secure a hot meal. That gap – between the promise of future prosperity and the immediate reality of being unable to make ends meet – created a tinderbox of public anger. Coupled with inadequate social support and a rapidly expanding wealth divide, the situation lit the fuse of protest and, in some instances, revolts. The lesson is that disruption on this scale rarely proceeds without resistance from those bearing its harshest consequences.
History is littered with evidence that real revolutions often break out when the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” becomes untenable, and when everyday people lose faith in the system meant to protect them. It’s not just about jobs; it’s about dignity and survival. Hungry families cannot wait for a vague pledge that the future economy will need new skill sets. When governments or elites tell them that better times are coming – if only they learn to code or settle for precarious gig work – these citizens might not remain patient. Anger builds as soon as people suspect that others far removed from their struggles are the ones benefiting from technological change. It’s that sense of betrayal that often triggers uprisings: a palpable frustration at being left behind by forces outside one’s control, and by institutions that appear unwilling or unable to soften the blow. From the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution to the bread riots of Tsarist Russia, revolutions are rarely driven just by lofty ideology; they’re driven by urgent concerns of hunger, inequality and a broken social contract.
In our own time, AI and robotics threaten to transform everything from manufacturing to retail and even creative industries. Advocates of these technologies point out that new roles will appear – jobs we can’t yet imagine or that seem trivial until they suddenly become lucrative. That’s what happened when steam-powered factories gave way to railways and steel mills, which in turn led to whole new professions. The trouble is that we could be in for a couple of rough decades while that transition shakes out. If entire regions lose their economic anchors, or if swathes of office jobs vanish before the workforce can adapt, real hardship could follow. People need ways to keep food on the table and the heating on long before the promised windfall of a smarter, fully automated future.
One proposed solution to buying time is a universal basic income. By guaranteeing every citizen a modest financial floor, we might provide the breathing space necessary for workers to retrain or move to a sector where automation isn’t yet dominant. It’s also a crucial buffer against social unrest, because if large sections of the population feel they’ve been cut loose to fend for themselves, they’ll have little incentive to trust in the stability of the system. While UBI alone won’t solve all the problems posed by automation, it could mitigate the sharp edge of job displacement, ensuring that families don’t slide into desperation while industries reorganise themselves around new technologies. The real question is whether societies are prepared to bear that cost up front, or whether political reluctance and corporate lobbying will block such measures until it’s too late to prevent an explosive backlash.
If the Industrial Revolution and other historical upheavals teach us anything, it’s that rapid technological change without sufficient social safeguards can spark unrest. People may accept new machines, but they won’t accept watching their communities crumble and their prospects vanish as the world moves on. Even after two or three centuries of progress, the fundamental lesson remains the same: no matter how advanced the machines become, you cannot eat promises of a brighter tomorrow.