Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job

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The new Combination Laws, which outlawed trade union activity, severely limited collective action by textile weavers.

In the Nineteenth-century, English textile workers responded to the introduction of new technologies on the factory floor by smashing them to bits. There are other ways that workers enact forms of practical technological criticism beside sabotage, including developing alternative technologies at work. In the nineteenth century, English textile workers responded to the introduction of new technologies on the factory floor by smashing them to bits. The writing is cogent and engaging, full of thought-provoking concepts and inspirational histories, making it a crucial resource for contemporary workers. When, on April 11, the Luddites descended on his factory and began to smash apart the door with hammers, he and his men opened fire.I started with the Luddites because they’re so often held up as history’s fools who misguidedly opposed technological progress. Misappropriating, breaking, or subverting technology are things you do with other people and becomes the grounds for finding out who your friends are and for forging alliances. And though there are plenty of people who have taken to scoffing derisively whenever the presence of General Ludd is felt, there would be no need to issue those epithetic guffaws if they were truly directed at nothing. Music used to be experienced in a more convivial manner, and it literally used to sound better than it does now when everyone listens to YouTube streams on laptop speakers.

Odd tics, such as an identification with Unabomber Ted Kaczynski 8 and the subsequent flirtations of leading figure (and author of an evocative history of the Luddites) Kirkpatrick Sale with secession movements, 9 give off a distinct odor of crankishness. I think many of them already are, and recognizing that and recognizing their power, and their connection to larger struggles, is going to be vital to the future. This is something that we’re critical of, that class exists as some kind of static empirical object out there. The Luddites loom large because of the power of their struggle, both in literature and in their historical accomplishments. The British government ultimately dispatched 12,000 troops to suppress Luddite activity, which historian Eric Hobsbawm said was a larger number than the army which the Duke of Wellington led during the Peninsular War.The Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers which opposed the use of certain types of cost-saving machinery, and often destroyed the machines in clandestine raids. Lord Byron opposed this legislation, becoming one of the few prominent defenders of the Luddites after the treatment of the defendants at the York trials. I opened an overhead cabinet too hard, it broke a clock, said clock smashed onto the top of my newly-repaired shoulder, still in a sling. JI have some employers that I’ve worked for who, without their knowledge, have printed many, many leaflets for strikes and all manner of things! They wanted a technology that they controlled, that operated according to their values, and that allowed them to have the kind of communities that they’d already become accustomed to.

They wrecked specific types of machinery that posed a threat to the particular industrial interests in each region. Unearthing inventive moments of resistance from the factories and docks to the free software movement, Mueller's account of the past bears directly on our view of the future: what it is, where it occurs, and to whom it belongs. Weavers invoked King Ludd in their attempts to collectively bargain for piece rates that would allow them to survive, and in their petitions to government authorities for redress. They created not only the software itself, but created entire autonomous cultures where people taught one another programming skills, but also political values. For Hobsbawm, “The value of this technique was obvious, both as a means of putting pressure on employers, and of ensuring the essential solidarity of the workers.

The luddites weren't primitive or even anachronistic - they are still a force, however unconsciously, in the workplaces of the 21st century world.

Mueller reveals a history of sometimes spontaneous, mostly autonomous movements reacting to increasing mechanization and automation of workplaces—from factories and docks to the first computers and beyond. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. For years 'the Luddites' roamed the English countryside, practicing drills and maneuvers that they would later deploy on unassuming machines. In 1956, during a British Parliamentary debate, a Labour spokesman said that "organised workers were by no means wedded to a 'Luddite Philosophy'.

But the movement lived on in the underground, bolstered by a powerful mythology and its storied confrontation with the detested state. Jamie spoke to Gavin about his forthcoming book, Breaking Things at Work, which will be available from Verso Books in March 2021. There’s a lot of talk about whether we’ll develop the technologies that will solve our problems by capturing carbon or blocking the sun’s rays.