Comment by arcticbull | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arcticbull | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

This is a bit of a misconception. The Luddites were not anti-technology, they were a workers rights movement. Many of them were machine operators who smashed machines to protest for better working conditions, pay, and apprenticeships.

> Despite their modern reputation, the original Luddites were neither opposed to technology nor inept at using it. Many were highly skilled machine operators in the textile industry. Nor was the technology they attacked particularly new. Moreover, the idea of smashing machines as a form of industrial protest did not begin or end with them.

[edit] > One technology the Luddites commonly attacked was the stocking frame, a knitting machine first developed more than 200 years earlier by an Englishman named William Lee.

I'm surprised this article continues to play into these misconceptions. [1]

The government violently quashed a labor movement that chose to protest by breaking machines, not an anti-technology movement. Wasn't the first time, and certainly wasn't the last.

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-rea...

From a parent post: they were fairly successful at staving off automation of their professions

From your post: The Luddites were not anti-technology

Both of these statements can't be true. Which one (if either) is correct?

You're conflating technology usage with automation in the service of the owning class, which are not the same thing.

I'm in the US; we're not into the whole Marxist class-struggle thing. Technically, over half of us are in the "owner class" simply by contributing to a 401(k).

One thing that people who log onto HN and advocate a class war never seem to understand is that they have far more to lose in such a "struggle" than they could ever gain. Our chains rest pretty lightly on our shoulders, all things considered.

I have never read Marx and have no opinion about his works. Doesn't change the fact that owners of capital can use automation in detriment of workers and you are splitting hairs to avoid the point: Luddites were technology users who opposed automation being used at the expense of their jobs and your oversimplification doesn't hold water.

Their main mistake was thinking that anyone else gave a hoot about their jobs. What's actually best for society? Obviously allowing the Luddites to hold the industrial revolution at bay would not have been a long-term win.

If you disagree, well, other sites beckon.

You seem to be a very technically smart person. But it's not uncommon for people of high technical knowledge to assume that historical, sociological problems are ultimately technical and thus by analogy easily understood from their skill set point of view. It is also not uncommon for such people to think Luddite is a dirty word nominating ignorant laborers who tried to arrest progress.

These people are wrong. History and sociology have a lot of irreducible complexity and analogies and systematization are usually misleading. There is a lot of literature linking Luddite movements with organized and progressive labor movement. As is " What's actually best for society?"

> Luddites to hold the industrial revolution at bay

They never tried to do such a thing. Rather, they made an effort to steer it in a way that would be more socially equitable, such as advocating for better coordination and communication between management and laborers, not unlike the system Germany - a very successful and technically advanced industrial power - has in place currently. Machine destruction was a last resort sort of action with a high correlation with suppression of other outlets for industrial action, such as strict enforcement of the legislation outright banning of any workers associations.

> If you disagree, well, other sites beckon.

This is plain false dichotomy. Equating disagreeing with you with being wrong is not very conducive of an open discussion and I think this kind of posturing has not place in a forum such as this one.

Their movement was very popular at the time, which is why it was a threat to the ruling class, which is why they executed the organizers with extreme prejudice.

Communism and National Socialism were also very popular at various times. Should they have been permitted to flourish?

"Vox populi, vox Dei" works great, right up until it doesn't.

Seems like you’re saying that fascism is the antidote when the people go astray.

National socialism is the result of the rest of europe impoverishing germany post ww1 - not the desires of a people left to flourish

As for communism, that’s far to big a topic to crack open this deep in the comments.

Automation is not in service of the owning class, it's in service of the consumer class - which includes both you and me.

The primary beneficiary of machine looms is the people who can now afford to own 20 shirts instead of just one.

Automation can be used in service of different groups. I specified.

>Automation is not in service of the owning class, it's in service of the consumer class

The primary beneficiary is the guy that can sell 2000 shirts instead of just 100. Anything that makes it easier for you to buy shit is not for your benefit. They are hoping you buy it because they've made it so easy for you to buy it, so just buy it! And I promise you they are not forwarding any of the profits from the additional output to their remaining laborers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com