Luddite

 

name given to bands of workingmen in the industrial centers of England who rioted between 1811 and 1816. The uprisings began in Nottinghamshire, where groups of textile workers, in the name of a mythical figure called Ned Ludd, or King Ludd, destroyed knitting machines, to which they attributed the prevailing unemployment and low wages. In 1812 workers in Lancashire, Cheshire, and the West Riding of Yorkshire began to wreck cotton power looms and wool shearing machines. There was no political aim involved and no cohesion in the movement. Outbreaks of Luddism were very harshly suppressed by the government.

The Luddites were a social movement of British textile artisans in the early nineteenth century who protested — often by destroying sewing machines — against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt threatened their livelihood.

This English historical movement has to be seen in its context of the harsh economic climate due to the Napoleonic Wars; but since then, the term Luddite has been used to describe anyone opposed to technological progress and technological change. For the modern movement of opposition to technology, see neo-luddism.

The Luddite movement, which began in 1811, was named after a mythical leader, Ned Ludd. For a short time the movement was so strong that it clashed in battles with the British Army. Measures taken by the government included a mass trial at York in 1813 that resulted in many executions and transportations (removal to a penal colony).

Their principal objection was to the introduction of new wide-framed looms that could be operated by cheap, relatively unskilled labour, resulting in the loss of jobs for many textile workers.

History

The original Luddites claimed to be led by one Ned Ludd (also known as "King Ludd", "General Ludd" or "Captain Ludd") who is believed to have destroyed two large stocking frames that produced inexpensive stockings undercutting those produced by skilled knitters, and whose signature appears on a "workers' manifesto" of the time.

The work by historian Kevin Binfield [1] is particularly useful in placing the Luddite movement in correct historical context — organised action by stockingers had occurred at various times since 1675, and the present action had to be seen in the context of the hardships suffered by the working class during the Napoleonic Wars.

The movement began in Nottingham in 1811 and spread rapidly throughout England in 1811 and 1812. Many wool and cotton mills were destroyed until the British government harshly suppressed the movement. The Luddites met at night on the moors surrounding the industrial towns, practising drilling and manoeuvres and often enjoyed local support. The main areas of the disturbances were Nottinghamshire in November 1811, followed by the West Riding of Yorkshire in early 1812 and Lancashire from March 1812. Battles between Luddites and the military occurred at Burtons' Mill in Middleton, and at Westhoughton Mill, both in Lancashire. It was rumoured at the time that agents provocateurs employed by the magistrates were involved in stirring up the attacks.^{[citation needed]} Magistrates and food merchants were also objects of death threats and attacks by the anonymous King Ludd and his supporters. Some industrialists even had secret chambers constructed in their buildings, which may have been used as a hiding place.[2]

"Machine breaking" (industrial sabotage) was made a capital crime (Lord Byron, one of the few prominent defenders of the Luddites, famously spoke out against this legislation), and 17 men were executed after an 1813 trial in York. Many others were transported as prisoners to Australia. At one time, there were more British troops fighting the Luddites than Napoleon I on the Iberian Peninsula.^{[citation needed]} Three Luddites ambushed a mill-owner (William Horsfall) in Crosland Moor, Huddersfield; the Luddites responsible were hanged in York, and shortly thereafter 'Luddism' waned.

However, the movement can also be seen as part of a rising tide of English working-class discontent in the early 19th century (see, for example, the Pentrich Rising of 1817, which was a general uprising, but led by an unemployed Nottingham stockinger, and probable ex-Luddite, Jeremiah Brandreth). An agricultural variant of Luddism, centring on the breaking of threshing machines, was crucial to the widespread Swing Riots of 1830 in southern and eastern England.

In recent years, the terms Luddism and Luddite or Neo-Luddism and Neo-Luddite have become synonymous with anyone who opposes the advance of technology due to the cultural changes that are associated with it.

Criticism of Luddism

One view of Luddites is that they were a paramilitary group, trying to enforce a production monopoly for their own financial gain through sabotage and the resultant intimidation.

Also, neoclassical economic historians would argue that Luddites' opposition to the free market and opposition to technological 'progress' were roughly equivalent, believing that the progress that created what we generally refer to as 'modernity' (and especially the high standards of living prevalent in developed nations) was due to the use of technology for private gain, and that this pursuit of private gain, through the medium of specialization, comparative advantage, and mutually beneficial exchange, accumulatively enhances the general welfare. This view, shared with other writers, is a key thesis of David Landes' The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, and Roszaks' The Cult of Information.

The term "Luddite fallacy" has become a concept in neoclassical development economics reflecting the belief that labour-saving technologies (i.e., technologies that increase output-per-worker) increase unemployment by reducing demand for labour. The "fallacy" lies in assuming that employers will seek to keep production constant by employing a smaller, more productive workforce instead of allowing production to grow while keeping workforce size constant.^[1]

E. P. Thompson's view of Luddism

In his work on English history, The Making of the English Working Class, E. P. Thompson presented an alternative view of Luddite history. He argues that Luddites were not opposed to new technology in itself, but rather to the abolition of set prices and therefore also to the introduction of the free market.

Thompson argues that it was the newly-introduced economic system that the Luddites were protesting. For example, the Luddite song, "General Ludd's Triumph":

The guilty may fear, but no vengeance he aims

At the honest man's life or Estate

His wrath is entirely confined to wide frames

And to those that old prices abate

"Wide frames" were the weaving frames, and the old prices were those prices agreed by custom and practice. Thompson cites the many historical accounts of Luddite raids on workshops where some frames were smashed whilst others (whose owners were obeying the old economic practice and not trying to cut prices) were left untouched. This would clearly distinguish the Luddites from someone who was today called a luddite; whereas today a luddite would reject new technology because it is new, the Luddites were acting from a sense of self-preservation rather than merely fear of change.

Further insight can be gleaned from Kevin Binfield's 'Writings of the Luddites'.[3]

Sources

Source A: An official announcement, 12th February 1811 "Any person who breaks or destroys machinery in any mill used in the preparing or spinning of wool or cotton or other material for the use of the stocking or lace manufacture, on being lawfully convicted ....shall suffer death."

Source B: A letter sent to an Huddersfield millowner in 1812 "Information has just been given that you are the owner of those detestable shearing frames, and I have been asked by my men to give you a warning to pull them down. If they are not taken down by the end of next week, i shall send at least 200 men to destroy them. If you fire at my men, they have orders to murder you and burn all your houses. Go to your neighbours and inform them that the same fate awaits them if their frames are not taken down.

Signed by the general of the army,

Ned Ludd"

Source C: An extract from the public record office, Yorkshire "The disturbances in the west riding of this country caused by a set of people calling themselves Luddites had become so serious that it was no longer possible to protect people and their property, within which mills improved machinery or finishing frames had been introduced. Such was the case at William Cartwright's water mill which was defended by Mr Cartwright and a guard of soldiers. It is said ten important places where this kind of machinery had been used had been unlawfully destroyed by the Luddites"

Source D: This paper was pasted up in Nottingham on Saturday morning , 9th May 1812

Welcome Ned Ludd, your case is good,

Make perceval^* your aim;

For by this bill, 'tis understood

It's death to break a frame -

With dexterous skill, the hosiers kill

For they are quite as bad;

And die you must, by the late bill -

Go on my Bonny lad.

You might as well be hung to death

As breaking a machine

So now my lad, your sword unsheath

And make it sharp and keen.

We are now ready your cause to join

Whenever you may call;

So make foul blood run clear and fine

Of tyrants great and small!

ps:Deface this who dare they shall have Tyrants fare for Ned is everywhere and can see and hear.

^*Perceval = The Prime Minister

Source E: 'The Croppers song', from 'The rising of the Luddites by Frank Peel'

"Come cropper lads of high renown

Who love to drink good ale thats brown

And strike each haughty tyrant down

With Hatchet, pike and gun!

Chorus:

Oh, the Cropper lads for me

Who with lusty stroke

The shear frames broke

The cropper lads for me"

See also

• Anarcho-primitivism
• Antimodernism
• Critique of technology
• Global Warming
• Naturalism
• The Making of the English Working Class - E. P. Thompson's seminal work contains much on Luddism
• Neo-Luddism
• NIMBY
• Propaganda of the deed
• Reactionary
• Sabotage
• Swing Riots
• Technophobia
• Technorealism
• Techno-utopianism
• Theodore Kaczynski - The "Unabomber"
• UK topics
• Richard Alston

External links and references

• On-line Luddism Index
• Is it O.K. to be a Luddite? by Thomas Pynchon
• Luddism and the Neo-Luddite Reaction by Martin Ryder, University of Colorado at Denver School of Education
• Against Technology: From Luddites to Neo-Luddism, (2006), by Steven E. Jones, Routledge, ISBN 9780415978682
• Rebels Against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution, (1996), by Kirkpatrick Sale ISBN 0-201-40718-3
• Against the Machine: The Hidden Luddite History in Literature, Art, and Individual Lives, (2003), by Nicols Fox, Island Press ISBN 1-55963-860-5
• Writings of the Luddites, (2004), by Kevin Binfield, Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 0-8018-7612-5
• CBC program Ideas on Luddites
• Prof. Martin Ryder's page on Luddites and neo-Luddites
• [4] extracts from Binfield's book referenced above - a balanced historical view.
• Luddites Stan Iverson Memorial Archives (articles, links & timeline)
• Historical reports and accounts on key events concerning the Luddite movement hosted by Marxists.org

Fiction

• Shirley by Charlotte Brontë - a social novel set against the background of the Luddite riots in the Yorkshire textile industry in 1811-1812
• The Difference Engine - William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's fictional novel speculating on what would have been had Charles Babbage completed his Difference Engine during the Industrial Revolution
• Steven King's The Dark Tower series of novels

References

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