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.

81 points
*

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.

permalink
report
reply
10 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

Automation hasn’t shown a marked difference in employment, scaling up means more productivity.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points
*

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
49 points

In short: the Luddites were wrong to oppose new technology, but right to oppose the surplus value created by that technology being captured entirely by the capitalist class.

permalink
report
parent
reply
33 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
14 points
*

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!

permalink
report
parent
reply
13 points
*

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

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

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point
*

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
-2 points

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?

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

What does AI technology do for society that is comparable to textile machines? Write your 3-paragraph essay for you?

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

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.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

they opposed machines that destroyed their livelihoods

Yep, in the same way that horse breeders opposed motorized busses and trolleys.

permalink
report
reply
4 points
*

No, not the same way at all (edit: similar, yes but I take issue with calling them identical). The Luddites fought against machines that exploited workers and destroyed communities, targeting the systems of inequality behind them. Horse breeders opposed motorized buses purely to protect their market share. One was a fight for justice; the other was just economic self-interest.

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points
*

No, not the same way at all. The Luddites fought against machines that exploited workers and destroyed communities, targeting the systems of inequality behind them.

‘Exploited workers’

By that, of course, you mean ‘undermined the system of cottage industry which had been monopolized by a relatively small group of semiskilled families which resented the influx of unskilled workers in the region’.

But hey, as long as it’s exploitation WITHIN the family, that’s better, right? And fuck those unskilled workers.

Horse breeders opposed motorized buses purely to protect their market share. One was a fight for justice; the other was just economic self-interest.

The Luddites were not some crusaders for justice. If you want to lionize them, at least get the fucking history right. They were acting in their economic self-interest.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points
*

By that, of course, you mean…

No, I mean exploited workers. The Industrial Revolution drove down wages for both skilled and unskilled laborers. Factory owners took advantage of this by pocketing the “savings” from lower wages (edit: known as profit) while workers saw little benefit. If you’re unclear about what I mean, feel free to ask rather than assuming—thanks!

The Luddites were not some crusaders for justice. […] They were acting in their economic self-interest.

These two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Yes, the Luddites were fighting to protect their livelihoods, but their resistance also came from a legitimate concern about systemic injustice. Economic self-interest can align with justice, especially when the system is exploiting workers across the board.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point
Deleted by creator
permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

They were both actually: tech haters and system critics.

permalink
report
reply
8 points
*

When huge majority of technology at the time industrial technology was designed to drive wages down, yeah, people are going to become industrial “tech haters.”

Not many realize how new this tech and type of mechanical exploitation was to those people, and how it was concentrated on simply extracting value from them.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

Not many realize how new this tech and type of mechanical exploitation was to those people, and how it was concentrated on simply extracting value from them.

… you do realize that the entire textile industry which the Luddites’ cottage-style industry was based on was, itself, formed on ‘mechanical exploitation’ almost a century old at that point, right?

… right…?

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

Yeah, exactly! The early mechanization wasn’t focused on exploiting workers—it was about improving productivity alongside them. This contrasts sharply with the mechanized exploitation of the Industrial Revolution, where the focus shifted to reducing labor costs and extracting value from workers.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

I wonder what the artist, script writers and a litterny of other skilled workers will be called after the anti ai revolution…

permalink
report
reply
8 points

They’ll be called artists, script writers, and their other respected titles. The market value of any AI art is zero, as its supply is effectively infinite. If a piece can be churned out for a few pennies of electricity, then the market value of that piece is just a few pennies. Inevitably, the kind of art that can be produced by AI models will, and already is, regarded as cheap worthless schlock. Human artists will instead focus on those things that AI can’t mass produce, and those will retain value.

The market value of any product or service produced by an AI algorithm is zero.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

I’m not talking art gallery or famous writers and I am not speaking of current AI either, with the rapid speed AI has moved with in the last 10 years I can’t see commercial artists, game writers continuing as they are. They will become the etcy seller selling hand crafted niche as the profit margins of incorporating AI is too lucrative and is something we see currently.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Maybe with some far future AI we have no idea how to create. But what we have now is just the averaging and amalgam of the work of countless artists. This is why AI art is so bland and soulless; it’s like asking a work of art to be made by a committee of a hundred people. The end result is always bland. Yeah, you can tell it to do it in a certain style, or even the style of a specific artist, but that’s still just copying. It has no original creativity or idea of its own. And that’s before we get into corporate censorship which is the anathema to art. It’s hard to see AI art pushing out any biting criticisms of the rich and powerful.

Why can’t commercial artists like game writers continue? Again, the market value of any AI-produced game is zero. This stuff is a field of academics, the big AI companies can brute force their way to superior models right now, but the smaller models able to run on individual desktops isn’t far behind. And the hardware is only getting better. A few years after OpenAI can do something, the average person can do something similar on their own hardware.

The point is, you’re imagining this future where game companies are going to keep making games, and gamers keep buying them, but that the game writers are fired. But why would anyone pay money for that game? If an AI exists that can churn out entire games, the market value of those games becomes zero. I can generate my own AI schlock. I don’t need to pay someone to give me AI slop. So game studios will naturally focus only on those things that can’t be churned out on mass. There will inevitably be some areas that the AI algorithms fail at, and that is what “real gaming” will be.

AI art will be seen like clipart. Yes, you can use MSWord clipart in your publication. But it’s seen as cheap and tacky. The same will be the case for AI art. It’s market value is zero.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

There are going to be two kinds of people: those who see value in AI and will pay market rate, and those who see AI for what it is and can create new value outside of what AI can produce. And you seem to think artists are inclined to do the first over the latter? Only the ones to be forgotten by history think that way.

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

This is completely missing the point that many artists have already lost their jobs because companies are increasingly using AI for their graphic designs.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Yeah. I upvoted WoodScientist because they are technically right. But in a real economy? There isn’t a significant enough of a demand for human creativity and so it plays out completely opposed to what they were saying.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

I’m curious about the data behind this statement. I can’t imagine that a company replacing artists with pure AI was ever actually hiring good artists in the first place. I’d think any company that’s ok with the quality coming straight from AI was paying for similar quality stuff from cheap “artists”. Any company that was willing to pay a premium for quality art won’t suddenly lower their standards because AI exists. Just my intuition and I’m genuinely curious to see if I’m wrong.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Thanks for this. More incite:

Marx’s point against the Luddites is well meant; but there’s a sense, too, in which he underestimated the Luddites’ anti-capitalist stance, giving short-shrift to their ties to nascent trade unionism and to the growing workers’ underground. Arguably, the Luddites offered a way into attacking not just the material instruments of production but also the form of society that utilised them. To that degree, their agitation and activism remains instructive, maybe even inspiring, in our own abrasively technocratic and technological age.

permalink
report
reply

Political Memes

!politicalmemes@lemmy.world

Create post

Welcome to politcal memes!

These are our rules:

Be civil

Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.

No misinformation

Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.

Posts should be memes

Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.

No bots, spam or self-promotion

Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.

Community stats

  • 7.7K

    Monthly active users

  • 3.2K

    Posts

  • 129K

    Comments