Yet as Gavin Mueller writes in Breaking Things at Work , Luddism—born as a revolt by artisan weavers against their proletarianization by manufacturing capital—was far from “a simple technophobia.” The Luddite rebellion, he notes, “was not against machines in themselves, but against the industrial society... of which machines were the chief weapon.”

Here’s the TLDR:in early 19th-century northern England, textile workers buck up against a new technology that automates their work and replaces well-paid skilled jobs with machines. When factory owners reject demands that the benefits of the new technology be shared, they gravitate around the avatar of young “Ned Ludd” and begin breaking the new... See more

In Britain’s textile towns, skilled artisans, soon to be labeled Luddites, smashed the new mechanized looms that threatened their livelihoods. Though often portrayed as anti-technology, they were really protesting the way it was being deployed to undermine their economic role. The machines devalued the intricate skills that had long anchored

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