alt Hacker NewsIn regards to both the Luddites and the farmers, you seem to forget the most important factor. Food.
In the case of the Luddites, it was a literal case of their children being threatened with starvation. "Livelihood" at the time was not fungible. The people affected could not just go apply at another industry. And there were no social services to help them eat during the transition period.
As for the farmers, any governing body realises that food security is national security. If too many people eschew farming for more lucrative fields, then the nation is at risk. Farming needs to appear as lucrative as medicine, law, and IT to encourage people to enter the field.
The luddites food requirements didn’t provide them with popular support.
Similarly US agricultural output could be cut in half without serious negative consequences. Far more corn ends up as ethanol than our food and we export vast quantities of highly subsidized food to zero benefit. Hell ethanol production costs as much in fossil fuels as we get ethanol from it, it’s literally pure wasted effort.
Rational policy would create a large scale food shortage and then let market forces take over. We could have 10 years of food on hand for every American at way less expensive than current policy with the added benefit of vastly reducing the negative externalities of farming such as depleting aquifers.