#luddites

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Today in Labor History March 11, 1811: Luddites attacked looms near Nottingham, England, because automation was threatening their jobs. At the time, workers were suffering from high unemployment, declining wages, an “endless” war with France and food scarcity. On March 11, they smashed machines in Nottingham and demonstrated for job security and higher wages. The protests and property destruction spread across a 70-mile area of England, reaching Manchester. The government sent troops to protect the factories and made machine-breaking punishable by death.

Luddite in a vest, smashing looms with a sledge hammer.

reviewed Blood in the Machine by Brian Merchant

Brian Merchant: Blood in the Machine (Hardcover, 2023, Little Brown & Company) 5 stars

The true story of what happened the first time machines came for human jobs, when …

Ned Ludd was right then, and he's right now

5 stars

A vividly told narrative of the Luddite uprisings of the early 19th Century. Brian Merchant expertly connects the struggles of textile workers then with workers of every stripe today whose jobs are continually under threat by the bosses using the smokescreen of technology.

#labor #labour #laborhistory #labourhistory #luddites

Today in Labor History February 27, 1812: Poet Lord Byron gave his first address as a member of the House of Lords. In his speech, he spoke out in support of Luddite violence against industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire. He spoke specifically against the Frame Breaking Act, which gave the death penalty to anyone guilty of breaking a machine. The state hanged 60-70 Luddites during the time the law was on the books. However, most of the time, the courts used other laws to convict them.

@bookstadon

Frame-breakers, or Luddites, smashing a loom with sledge hammers. Machine-breaking was criminalized by the Parliament of the United Kingdom as early as 1721, the penalty being penal transportation, but as a result of continued opposition to mechanisation the Frame-Breaking Act 1812 made the death penalty available: see "Criminal damage in English law". By Chris Sunde; original uploader was Christopher Sunde at en.wikipedia. - Original unknown, this version from http://www.learnhistory.org.uk/cpp/luddites.htm (archive), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4150391

quoted Rage Inside the Machine by Robert Elliott Smith

Robert Elliott Smith: Rage Inside the Machine (2019, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc) No rating

We live in a world increasingly ruled by technology; we seem as governed by technology …

Instead of the proletariat we now have the precariat: a class of people with insecure jobs afraid to ask for pay rises or improved working conditions. And, just like the Luddites before them, workers insist that they are not against innovation, technology or flexibility, they just want some basic rights and security.

— Rage Inside the Machine by  (Page 144)

#luddites #entreprecariat #uber #glovo

In *Blood In the Machine,* @bcmerchant delivers the definitive history of the , and the clearest analysis of the automator's playbook, where "entrepreneurs'" lawless extraction from workers is called "innovation" and "inevitable":

https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

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The Little, Brown cover for Brian Merchant's 'Blood In the Machine.'

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replied to Cory Doctorow's status

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