Everything You Have Ever Wanted to Know About Luddites but Was Afraid to Ask...

Rage Against the Machine

In 1812, England was in turmoil--Napoleon ruled Europe and English troops were engaged in a far-flung, confused, and fruitless war in North America. At the same time in the cities, towns, and countryside of England, the industrial revolution was drastically reshaping the fundamental nature of traditional economic and social relationships. In Nottingham, Lancashire, Leeds, and a few other cities in England, these changes met with bitter and sporadic well-organized resistance.

For at least three hundred years the weavers from in and around the central English town of Nottingham, though commoners, enjoyed the status and rewards accorded to fine craftsmen. The weavers of Nottinghamshire produced lace and stockings that dominated the English markets and were prominent items in export trade. These products were handmade, often in the weaver's home. Today, it would be called a cottage industry. The weavers worked mainly as independent contractors, not as employees of a factory owner. Apprenticeships, family tradition and community values insured a product of high quality. The weavers of Nottingham could afford to practice their craft with care; prices for their products, as well as for their expenses and the support of their families did not vary with the market conditions, but were governed by tradition. And the weavers had the additional protection of an ancient royal charter restricting certain kinds of textile production in England to within ten leagues of the town of Nottingham. The weavers and their families were reasonably secure in their modest lifestyle.

In the first years of the 19th century, stocking frames and the early automation of the power loom threatened this long-standing way of life. Because the new equipment was expensive, the weavers could not afford to purchase it themselves and the balance of power shifted away from the weavers to the factory owners. Simultaneously, the Tory government adopted a laissez-faire economic policy. For the weavers, this meant that they were asked to endure a drastic decrease in income and to submit to the regimented and unpleasant atmosphere of a factory, while the price for their food, drink, and other necessities of life increased. The weavers complained bitterly that the machines made mass produced products of shamefully inferior quality. Naturally, the weavers saw the new technology as the most powerful tool of their new oppressor, the factory owner. A vulnerable tool.

Legend has it that about this time, a "feebleminded lad" by the name of Ned Ludd broke two stocking frames at a factory in Nottingham. Of course, he meant no harm, and could hardly be punished for his innocent act of clumsiness. Henceforth, when an offending factory owner found one of his expensive pieces of machinery broken, the damage was conveniently attributed to poor Ned Ludd.

During a short period, climaxing in the spring of 1812, inspired perhaps by the French Revolution and the writings of Thomas Paine, the weavers formed into something akin to a guerrilla army and took substantial control over the territory near Nottingham and several neighboring districts. Their army was a secret army. They controlled the night; they knew the back trails between villages. If threatened by government troops they would simply disappear into the same hills and forests that fostered the legend of Robin Hood. Most of all, they enjoyed almost universal support of the local people.

The Luddites often appeared at a factory in disguise and stated that they had come upon the orders of General Ned Ludd. These demands included restoration of reasonable rates of compensation, acceptable work conditions, and probably quality control. Faced by the intimidating numbers and the surprisingly disciplined actions of the Luddites, most factory owners complied, at least temporarily. Those who refused, found their expensive machines wrecked. At the outset, the Luddites scrupulously avoided violence upon any one person.

The non-violent period of Luddism ended at Burton's power loom mill in Lancashire on April 20, 1812. A large body of Luddites, perhaps numbering over a thousand attacked the mill, mostly with stick and rocks. The mill was defended by a well-armed privately hired group of guards. The guards repulsed the attack, and the Luddites instead burned the owner’s house. They were met up with by the military and several were killed. A government crackdown ensued, and many suspected Luddites were convicted, imprisoned, or hanged (The. http://www.usu.edu/sanderso/multinet/lud1.html Oct 27th, 2008).

This behavior is indicative to each era when a society begins to change from one economic state to another or the advancement of technology changes the way a society produces goods or changes the skills needed to perform a job.

In 1956, in the United States, researchers noticed that the number of people holding "white collar" jobs had just exceeded the number of people holding "blue collar" jobs. These researchers realized that this was an important change, as it was clear that the Industrial Age was coming to an end. As the Industrial Age ended, the newer times adopted the title of "the Information Age.”

Of course, at that time, relatively few jobs had much to do with computers and computer-related technology. What was occurring was a steady trend away from people holding Industrial Age manufacturing jobs. An increasing number of people held jobs as clerks in stores, office workers, teachers, nurses, etc. The Western world was shifting into a service economy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Age Nov 14th).

As the American population began to abandon manufacturing jobs, a curious thing began to happen. Manufacturers began looking for ways to continue their businesses. They began expanding their search beyond the borders of the nation to other places in the world where they found it was cheaper to manufacture their products and therefore increase their profits: Globalization had begun.

The term Neo-Luddites sprang from a reemergence of the distrust of technology in the Information Age. Neo-Luddites believe "globalization" refers to what they claim is a self-evident centralization and expansion of "corporate power" (a loose term that seems to cover just about all for-profit economic activity). Stopping globalization requires overlapping and related strategies which draws together a disparate collection of labor, environmental, indigenous, anti-trade, and civil rights activists.

The first step in halting globalization, say the neo-Luddites, is to slow or stop the development and adoption of all new technologies.

The second step in slowing globalization is to block the increase of free -- or, at any rate, freer -- trade. The neo-Luddites believe that trade does more than simply spread technology throughout the world; trade also empowers corporations while destroying the livelihoods of workers in both developed and developing countries.

In some ways, it is easy -- and tempting -- to write off the neo-Luddites as sad-sack ’60s refugees, aging hippies who pine away for a romantic, preindustrial idyll that never existed in the first place or, to the extent it did, was actually characterized by large-scale human deprivation. But in the wake of demonstrations in Seattle over the World Trade Organization and, more recently, in Quebec over the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, it is clear the neo-Luddite mentality is not only widespread, but a powerful motivating force in attacks on free trade and technological innovation.

As much as the neo-Luddites and the Luddites before them, might wish it otherwise, there simply is no other social and economic model of lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty than what might be called democratic, technological capitalism. If one wants effective sanitation, improved medicine, a steady food supply, convenient transport, and cheap and easy communication, there is no alternative to technologically robust, market-based societies. To the arguable extent that countries worldwide are becoming more similar, it is not because corporations are imposing some uniform set of goods and services, but because human beings share a similar set of needs and wants.

Cultural diversity and cultural identity are routinely invoked by neo-Luddites, who insist that we must respect different cultures. That is a view that proceeds directly from a belief in a universal set of human rights, including a right to self-determination. Yet, neo-Luddites deploy their ideas about diversity and identity in such a way that undermines respect for those rights; at least as they apply to individuals. People, they suggest, should not be able to "disrupt" their cultures through the adoption of new technologies that challenge the status quo.

Despite neo-Luddite fears, the rise to near-ubiquity of tech-heavy democracies has been a boon to the people of the world. It is unquestionable that in political and material terms, life is a lot better for a lot more people than it was just a century ago. Universal suffrage, nonexistent at the beginning of the 20th century, is now the norm in 120 of the world’s 192 countries. Democracy, in other words, is now the norm for human societies for the first time in history. While the connections are complicated, technological progress and the wealth it creates help make political advances possible.

Of course, when corporations try to use the political process to obtain subsidies, or enact protectionist measures that harm consumers, they should be relentlessly opposed. But in the long run, if one wants to diminish corporate power, the easiest way to do it is to reduce government power, which is something definitely not on the neo-Luddites’ agenda. Indeed, their plans are predicated upon governments with far more sweeping powers than the current ones they possess.

"This is the big wrestling match of the 21st century," declared Rifkin. For once, the man who predicted in 1979 that the world was entering a "new age of scarcity" in which we would run out of resources such as oil and timber, and who in 1995 predicted that technological innovation would soon cause massive unemployment, is indisputably correct. The hopeful future of humanity freed from disease, disability, hunger, ignorance, poverty, and inequity depends on beating back the forces of neo-Luddite reaction. The struggle for that future begins now. (Rage Against the Machines: Witnessing the birth of the neo-Luddite movement Ronald Bailey | July 2001, Nov 15th).



















Work Cited

1. The. http://www.usu.edu/sanderso/multinet/lud1.html Oct 27th, 2008
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Age Nov 14th).
3. Rage Against the Machines: Witnessing the birth of the neo-Luddite movement Bailey, Ronald | July 2001, Nov 15th