The Luddites weren’t anti-technology—they opposed machines that destroyed their livelihoods and benefited factory owners at workers’ expense. Their resistance was a critique of the social and economic chaos caused by the Industrial Revolution. Over time, “Luddite” became an insult due to capitalist propaganda, dismissing their valid concerns about inequality and exploitation. Seen in context, they were early critics of unchecked capitalism and harmful technological change—issues still relevant today.
Eh, their motivations were certainly understandable and their grievances valid, but their way of dealing with those grievances very flawed in my view. Producing more stuff with less labor, and allowing production to be done with less requisite training first, aren’t bad things in of themselves, they increase the potential wealth available to society at large in increasing the total output the labor pool can create (though this may not seem so apparent if that technology and associated wealth is hoarded by a few, as has and continues to be the case).
The issue was less the machines themselves and more that the wealth generated by them was not distributed equitably, trying to solve this by being rid of the automation tech is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, though it is understandable how that stuff would become the target of people’s frustrations.
They were also opposed to the machines being run by unskilled labor and children. The same children that died and maimed running the machines. The children died in such masses that they had them buried in mass graves away from the factory. There is a lot to this story and not just one thing.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/blood-in-the-machine/
This is worth a listen if you would like to hear more about the Luddite movement.
important to clarify that child labor wasn’t the primary source of the Luddites’ opposition, but was certainly a part of the system they were trying to smash!! huge and important facts, ty for sharing!
important to clarify that child labor wasn’t the primary source of the Luddites’ opposition, but was certainly a part of the system they were trying to smash!
Textile cottage industry used copious amounts of unpaid child labor, and what’s more, working families of the period and region regularly would send their children into the mines to exploit their labor for the sake of a small increase in the family’s finances, so I doubt that was particularly part of the system they wanted to smash.
Exactly.
This wouldn’t be a problem if average workers were compensated, in part, with shares of the business. When automation comes and takes your job, you lose the hourly portion of your pay. But the shares you own suddenly start paying more.
Part of the problem is that the Luddites were not the same people who were working at the machines, by and large. They were in competition with the mills.
Yep! I think this is totally a fair criticism /gen
Nowhere will you find me saying the Luddites were the perfect example of labor relations. :) As my post says, “pretty based” is about all I will allow.
It’s honestly a bit cringe how these memes always need to pull some kind of capitalist Boogeyman into the narrative where it doesn’t belong.
Marx’s entire theory of history is built in the inevitability of technological progress, and how it shapes economic and social systems. From a Marxist lens, opposing such progress is pissing into the wind. It’s worse than being an actual aristocrat in many ways, because it actively harms the progression towards the post scarcity utopia where surplus labor has no value to exploit.
There’s a reason why the USSR and China formed their entire revisionist theory around rapid industrialization to compete with more advanced capitalist societies.
a reasonable critique especially compared to the propaganda passed down to us. :) to me it really makes sense to want to destroy the exploitation machines the exploitation boss made to exploit. did it work? obviously not, lol, but the heart was in the right place and i am tired of these poor souls getting trashed ya know? it doesn’t sit well with me to have these folks’ legacy become an insult.
Yeah, and we still haven’t learned the lesson. We have people today attacking AI technology rather than the way it’s being used to funnel wealth inequitably.
It actually helps the wealthy capitalists, because they can use that sentiment to promote regulations that will entrench their positions.
i think we are certainly doing slightly better than the luddites. i see a ton of conversations about how artwork and texts are stolen, and the insane energy/water usage AI uses. those come with calls to ethically accquire training materials and to regulate eco efficiency. that’s certainly more specific than the worst possible public response of something like “ban neural networks” or something haha
Of course that’s what you see - those ideas have been planted. That’s exactly what they want, they want regulations to prevent just anyone from getting into it and making use of the technology.
OpenAI whining about not being able to make money if they can’t use the training data? That’s Brer Fox Rabbit crying “please don’t throw me into the briar patch, anything but that!” because if such regulations happen they’ll pay a fine or something and then…nobody new can compete with the established parties. They absolutely love to use regulations to pull the ladder up behind themselves so they can’t be competed with.
If anything I wonder if all the weird shit they’re pushing is just to stoke anti AI sentiment so they can get these regulations passed.
Hang on, I haven’t learned the lesson yet either. I don’t know that antibiotics, air conditioning, and Novocain (the three inventions I value most) are actually worth the destruction of our environment that came with advanced technology. For me, they’ve paid off, and for my parents’ generation, there were very few bad side effects. For the next five generations, I think it’s going to be a different calculus.
Isn’t that just a matter of opinion?
