The Luddites weren't anti-technology — they were against losing their own bargaining power
The Luddites smashed machines in 1812 because they had no vote and no unions; violence was the only negotiating tool left. Today's self-described neo-Luddites have votes and free speech, so the question becomes whether to let technology reshape the human.
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Luddite has been turned into an insult
Historian Katrina Navikas comes from near Manchester, exactly the area where the Luddites were active, and she grew up knowing the word. Her argument: Luddite should be a good word, a positive word, because it stands for far more than "anti-technology." But today it has become shorthand for someone backward, resistant to change, and she thinks that shorthand needs correcting. At the top of the show, listener Drew Barrett says he's been called a Luddite too; in his impression the word is about as bad as "Neanderthal," but he felt it was more like a labor movement.
— Katrina NavikasBefore the machines arrived, livelihoods collapsed first
Back to early 1800s England, when Britain was at war with Napoleon's France and poverty and hunger were widespread. The Industrial Revolution brought large factories, and steam-driven machines began replacing skilled workers — usually skilled men. Cities like Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham swelled, factories went up like brutalist architecture, with fixed clock-in and clock-out times, and the air and rivers were heavily polluted. These factories churned out textiles in volume, and textile workers grew more and more worried about how the new technology would affect how they worked, how much they could earn, and the quality of life for themselves and their families. Eventually it reached boiling point.
— Katrina NavikasThey smashed machines, not people
The first recorded attack was on March 11, 1811, in a village called Arnold, in the stocking trade. Framework knitters gathered outside the trading station where cloth was sold, then went around attacking the new machines. This seems to have set off a wave of attacks across the East Midlands in 1811, which then spread to the West Riding of Yorkshire, where wool workers known as woolen croppers attacked woolen mills. The host makes a point of confirming: not attacks on people, attacks on machines. From there it escalated. Machine-breaking had been done before, but what was unique about this wave was that they all started calling themselves Luddites.
— Katrina NavikasA man who may not exist became their leader
The Luddites were largely an anonymous group, except for their leader, General Ned Ludd. There is only one known image of him: a cartoon, in which he wears a dress and stands in front of an angry crowd with a burning factory in the background. That's all the authorities had to go on, yet he seemed to be everywhere. The Luddites wrote a great deal, sending threatening letters to employers: if you don't take down the machines, we'll attack your factory, signed General Ludd. Katrina says she thinks the whole thing is a myth; maybe there really was a man named Ned Ludd, but what the name stuck to was the reputation of "smashing the machines your employer brought in that will lower your wages and your skill level." She prefers to see General Ludd as a superhero, one with his own extended universe — he has lawyers, he has subordinate lieutenants, and those roles all show up in the signatures on the anonymous letters. The authorities were chasing a ghost.
— Katrina NavikasThe government sent spies to pubs to egg them on
In April 1812, the employer at West Horton Mill spoke with the local magistrate Colonel Ralph Fletcher, who had an entire spy network. The magistrate hired spies to go into pubs, listen to what workers were saying, and then try to incite them to attack the factories. On April 24, a crowd of 50 began gathering outside West Horton Mill, which had 200 cotton looms, with more groups coming in from surrounding villages — this is hill country, people came down from small workshops up in the hills and converged on the factory. From around 5 p.m. they smashed windows, threw burning firewood into the mill trying to set the machines alight, and rushed inside to smash the machines. The Luddites were known for the so-called Enoch, a sledgehammer, because these machines were very large and took a lot of manpower to break. The riot went on all night; the army arrived about 45 minutes after it started, and several people were arrested afterward.
— Katrina NavikasSmashing a machine could get you hanged
The government then cracked down hard. Over the following years the Luddites and the government played cat and mouse; hundreds of Luddites poured into large battles at manufacturing works, with the main objective always being to take down the machines. There were also high-profile murders targeting mill owners, such as William Horsfall, who installed a cannon at his mill to defend against Luddite attacks and was still ambushed by four Luddites lying in wait by the road. On the government side, the Frame Breaking Act passed in 1812 made frame-breaking a capital crime — do it and you could be hanged. Some Luddites were picked out as examples; after the large attacks came show trials, followed by a number of executions.
— Katrina NavikasThey fought a second war in the court of public opinion
In those years of facing off against the machines and the government's courts, the Luddites were simultaneously waging a PR war in the court of public opinion. What they produced was essentially propaganda, used to market the movement: after a big attack there would be celebratory poems and songs. This was part of folk culture, keeping the memory alive and passing it on to different groups of people. Their leader General Ludd appears in a lot of the messages. The show reads a ballad from the time: Chant no more, your old rhymes, about bold Robin Hood. His feats I but little admire. I will sing the achievements of General Ludd, now the hero of Nottinghamshire. Another line sings that Ned Ludd has already smashed a thousand wide looms.
— Katrina NavikasThey didn't want to smash technology, they wanted the workshop back
Asked whether the goal was simply to destroy technology and go back to the past, Katrina says basically yes: they wanted to return to the old working conditions, in small workshops with hand-operated machines, working by craft. Their argument was that machine-made cloth was worse quality, that mass production dragged down product quality and in turn dragged down their reputation. They wanted to keep their higher wages — paid by the piece of cloth, whereas factories paid by the week. They were also worried about the working conditions of women and children entering the factories, and that wasn't just a humanitarian position, it was a wage position: women and children were paid inherently less than men. So this was also a defense of skilled male labor.
— Katrina NavikasIn 1812 they had no other option
The host raises the contradiction: this sounds like a highly sympathetic movement, but there was real violence, at least some people were killed by Luddites — how do you square those two things? Katrina's answer as a historian: the Luddites of 1812 had no choice, their options were very few, and limited violence was one of the only means they had. At the time, adult men in Britain had no democracy, no vote; this was another way of expressing their anger. Today we have more choices and more ways to organize politically, and in many respects far more freedom of speech than the Luddites had in 1812. She doesn't excuse the violence and murder, but she thinks the word Luddite should be viewed positively, for reasons having to do with defending your own working conditions, your skills, and your value as an individual — against a system that seems to be stripping those skills and that independence away.
— Katrina NavikasAI takes the human out of the machine
The host says a lot of what you're describing resonates today, which is why there's talk of a so-called Luddite renaissance. Thinking about AI — if they found the steam engine threatening, what would they make of AI? It really does feel like an existential threat, not just to jobs but to who we are as human beings. Katrina responds: what the Luddites cared about was being human; what they opposed was machines that stripped people of their agency. It's the same today — AI takes the human out of the machine. She thinks this is similar to the fight over unrestricted, unconstrained use of AI: even if the technology is here to stay, people should be forced to think more carefully about how to incorporate it into our lives, rather than forcing people to reshape themselves to fit the technology.
— Katrina NavikasIn their own words · checked verbatim
Hopefully I'm going to convince you that Luddite is a good word. And it's a positive word because it represents a lot more than just being opposed to technology.
Katrina Navikas4:06
Not people, they're attacking only the machines. Yeah, they're attacking the machines.
Katrina Navikas6:10
I think it's a myth. No one could pin him down, but perhaps there was someone called Ned Ludd.
Katrina Navikas11:15
And then General Ludd then creates his own extended universe. I'd like to see him as a kind of superhero.
Katrina Navikas12:15
As a historian, I'd say the Luddites in 1812 had no choice. The options were very low. Limited violence was one of the only options available to them.
Katrina Navikas14:17
So I'm not condoning the violence or the murders, but actually my contention that we should think about Luddite in a positive way is related to that kind of defence of your working conditions, your skill, your worth as an individual against a system that seems to be removing that skill and that independence.
Katrina Navikas15:20
Yeah, so the Luddites, you've got it in one, are about being human. And machinery that takes away that sense of human agency is what they were opposing. Just as today, AI takes out the human from the machine.
Katrina Navikas16:23
Figures
| First recorded Luddite attack | March 11, 1811, village of Arnold, stocking trade | 6:10 |
| West Horton Mill riot | April 24, 1812; the mill had 200 cotton looms; about 50 people began gathering | 8:11 |
| Frame Breaking Act | Passed in 1812; frame-breaking became a capital crime | 9:13 |
| Number of machines smashed in the ballad | A thousand wide looms | 10:13 |
Glossary
- Luddite
- A member of the 1811-1812 English machine-breaking workers' movement; today used as a derogatory label for someone anti-technology.
- General Ned Ludd
- The leader whose name was signed to Luddite anonymous letters; historians believe he most likely never actually existed.
- Enoch
- The giant sledgehammer the Luddites used to smash large machines.
- Frame Breaking Act
- The 1812 British law that made smashing stocking frames a capital crime.
How to listen
Founders and investors interested in AI and employment, and the technology-ethics debate; anyone who wants to understand what the word "Luddite" actually refers to, and what today's self-described neo-Luddites are arguing for.
The first minute or so of listener mail and show previews can be skipped.