“By the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. The most successful entrepreneurs and industrialists鈥攖he first tech titans, we might call them鈥攈ad accumulated impressive stores of wealth and power, and more followed in their footsteps. Entrepreneurs and businessmen were mechanizing work in England鈥檚 largest industry, automating jobs that had been bound by tradition for generations, and building new monuments of power and production. Political unrest was rampant, labor organizing and radical speech were forbidden, and an unpopular war was about to enter its third decade.”
That was the end of 18th century. Doesn’t it sound too familiar nowadays?
From Brian Merchant‘s “Blood in the Machine”
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/
