LibAnswers: Debunk and Reveal - 2024

Who were the Luddites?

The Luddites were skilled laborers working in cottages or small shops with equipment for processing wool that, while complex, that one skilled person could operate; they lived in a triangle within five counties in Great Britain, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire, and Nottingham. “The Luddite disturbances of 1812 were part of a much older tradition of food rioting and political unrest and stemmed also from the precise status of certain forms of skilled labor in English law and society.” Jones (p. 47)

They rose in a rebellion marked by the breaking of the machines that were replacing them, night raids on factories and the homes of factory owners, a rebellion that lasted for fifteen months. “Their revolt was not against the machines themselves, but against the industrial society that threatened their established ways of life, and of which machines were the chief weapon.” Mueller (p. 14)

Luddism began in Nottingham with the death of one man in November of 1811 and ended by January 1813 with the execution of captured Luddites though there were still large scale breaking of machines in Nottinghamshire between April and October of 1814.

What is Luddism?

While the Luddites destroyed hundreds of machines, they were not indiscriminate in the machines they destroyed. They destroyed machines owned by manufactures who paid subsistence wages, or paid in goods rather than coin.

The rise of Luddism and General Ludd can be seen against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, with government outlays for the war against Napoleon at five times the rate of domestic outlays, high taxes needed for the military, and goods piling up in warehouses due to the Continental System put in place by Napoleon.

The enclosure system had brought about rent increases of 150 percent, over 300 mills had been built in the previous twenty years and with the invention of the steam engine freeing factories from the need for waterpower the number of mills increased greatly.

Who are the Neo Luddites?

Anonymous and hackers as neo-Luddites. Both movements targeted specific machines, for the Luddites, the ones that had them unemployed or working at reduced wages with no support or relief from the government while Anonymous targeted technology that restricts access to technology. Both Anonymous and General Ludd or names that different people from the same group can use.

The second Industrial Revolution occurred around 1945, there is the parallel of the enclosure system in England and the end of family farms in the U.S. and the detrimental effect on society. Part of the second Industrial Revolution was the use of advertising to create the needs for people to buy the products produced by better and more complex machines.

Computers and electronics have started a digital revolution. The social cohesion of small communities being replaced by emphasis on individualism, materialism, One of the main differences between the Neo-Luddites of the present day and the original Luddites is that computers and electronics affect workers in almost every field of human performative activity while in the early 1800s it was primarily textile workers.

References:

Sale, Kirkpatrick. Rebels against the Future : The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution : Lessons for the Computer Age. Cambridge, Mass: Perseus Pub., 1996. Print.

Mueller, Gavin. Breaking Things at Work : The Luddites Were Right About Why You Hate Your Job. Brooklyn, New York: Verso Pub., 2021. Print

Donnelly, F. K. “Luddites Past and Present.” Labour / Le Travail, vol. 18, 1986, pp. 217–21. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/25142685. Accessed 8 Dec. 2024.

Byrne, Richard. “A Nod to Ned Ludd.” The Baffler, no. 23, 2013, pp. 120–28. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43307873. Accessed 8 Dec. 2024.

Jones, Richard. “At War with the Future.” History Today, vol. 62, no. 5, May 2012, pp. 47–52. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=8d8dc601-ec9a-30e6-9a8a-1562dbe87219.

Deseriis, Marco. “Is Anonymous a New Form of Luddism?” Radical History Review, no. 117, Sept. 2013, pp. 33–48. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.sac.idm.oclc.org/10.1215/01636545-2210437.