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I can guess the modern slaves producing our cheap clothes would have an opinion on that.

It's true that a lot of the fashion industry appears to be pretty disgusting. But that doesn't mean that it would be better if fewer of the steps were automated.

Local communities would be stronger and more resilient with more local crafts-people providing meaningful labor within said communities.

Currently, everything is extraction and the US is rotting from the inside out because of it.

People can do that right now; they just choose not to. I don't think you can do simple moralising at the state of things and point the blame at a single cause.

Or people would consume less and therefore be poorer.

So you read the comment which specifically made the argument that they didn't want to prevent the new looms from being used and concluded that they wanted to prevent the new looms from being used?

It's probably also opened up a whole niche market for artisan "handwoven" fabrics.

Sadly that's probably a modern thing and not something that people wanted / cared about immediately once everyone lost their jobs.