The Luddites defended their work against automation. What can we learn from them?

We are all Luddites to some extent, and not just because from time to time we want to throw our cell phone out the window. We just might not have realized it because we still have a caricatured view of what the movement was.

The Luddites were a group of English textile workers who between 1811 and 1816 destroyed power looms and other machines that threatened their jobs. They took their name from the fictitious King Ludd, who signed their letters and pamphlets, and who was inspired by Ned Ludd, a worker (perhaps also fictitious) who had destroyed one of those looms 40 years earlier.

The word Luddite is still used as an insult directed at those who criticize both the means and the objectives of technology companies, be they Amazon, Uber, or the umpteenth social media platform set up by a billionaire businessman. The intention is to label them as afraid of the future and machines they do not understand.

But this image is far from reality. The Luddites were not against progress or machines, but rather the implementation of devices that threatened their jobs, their communities and their values without any prior debate. Two recent books want to make the Luddites’ objectives and methods clear, in addition to seeking (and finding) parallels between the Industrial Revolution and the techno-utopian promises of today: Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech, by Brian Merchant, and Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job, by Gavin Mueller.

In his book, Brian Merchant, a journalist for the Los Angeles Times, explains that the behavior of today’s companies has many parallels with that of the 19th century textile industry: the founders of start-ups and the technological giants present their version of the future as inevitable, as the only possible route for progress. But their aim is to concentrate wealth and power, and they have no qualms in violating our privacy or destroying jobs, businesses, and ways of life. It affects a whole range of workers from small businesses to sectors that could be replaced by artificial intelligence, according to the most pessimistic analyses.

Mueller, a professor of New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam, reminds us in a telephone conversation that the danger is not only that a machine will replace us, but also that the labor market will become even more polarized. That is, that there are very few good jobs and a mass of workers in insecure jobs. Mueller reminds us that “even highly automated systems require a lot of maintenance work,” from programming the systems to controlling them and monitoring the results. These are “degraded, repetitive, unsatisfactory, highly controlled and — what a surprise — poorly paid” jobs. The philosopher Eurídice Cabañes, founder of the ArsGames video game cultural association, reminds us that “there are many jobs that can be automated,” but we are faced with a future in which we will be doing the hardest and most boring things while “AI paints pictures.”

The Luddites also defended the value of their work and reminded the public that machines made inferior products. It keeps happening. It seems like magic to us that ChatGPT can write coherent texts or that Midjourney can produce rather pleasant illustrations, but they are inferior versions of what we already have. They are very dependent on the examples from which they have learned (or that they have plagiarized, depending on who we ask). Mueller recalls the example of the Hollywood screenwriters’ strike: in addition to defending their jobs against AI, they made it clear that “we want to experience art and feel emotions. We don’t go to the movies to see the script generated in the most efficient way.”

21st century machines

So, let’s take out the sledgehammers and teach OpenAI and Meta a lesson? It’s not that simple: as Merchant recalls, it is difficult to break machines that we cannot see and that are “a few lines of code.” Besides, in short, it would be illegal. But the Luddites not only resorted to sabotage: they also called strikes, distributed letters and proclamations, pressured politicians, and managed to negotiate with their employers (sometimes even successfully), to improve their working conditions and introduce machines gradually. Both Cabañes and Mueller insist on the importance of union organization and associations, in addition to the demand for greater regulation, as has occurred with recent initiatives in the European Union. Many economists and politicians also demand a tax on machines that replace jobs, with the aim that this money will serve to compensate for job and salary losses, in a measure that the Luddites also demanded.

And, of course, there is room for (legal) forms of sabotage. Mueller recalls that some users spend their time looking for weaknesses, with the aim of showing that they are far from being the technological miracle that they sometimes present to us, and that they are not prepared for the terrible threat of a human with a few hours to spare. A recent example is that of Chevrolet dealers in the U.S., which have enabled chats with ChatGPT technology. Some “Luddites” are sharing their achievements on social media: the program has promised them crazy discounts of 50% and invented promotions (and without legal value, we fear), such as a picnic with gourmet Portuguese products and the chance to meet Magic Johnson.

We can get cynical and remember that the leaders of the Luddites were executed and that the Industrial Revolution plowed ahead, despite their efforts. But, as we have seen, they achieved some victories. What’s more, to defeat them, “the state had to use all its military force and change the law,” to make it as “punitive and cruel” as possible, Merchant writes.

Nor can the Luddites’ resistance be disqualified with the idea that the Industrial Revolution ended up creating more jobs than it destroyed. Mueller recalls that historical research shows that living standards fell for decades: “For many, the industrialization process was a catastrophe.” That is to say, although the changes may be for the better, we can question the way in which innovations are introduced and whether workers have to assume the costs.

The movement inspired and influenced subsequent generations of reformers and dissidents, as explained by historians such as Eric Hobsbawm and, more recently, Steven E. Jones and Daniel F. Noble. Their trail can be followed in similar acts of rebellion in the rest of Europe, including Alcoy (Spain) in 1821, and among the slaves in the United States in the 19th century. Mueller points out that Luddism also encompasses the actions of hackers, who, obviously, do not reject technology, but are critical of its uses and economic models. Science fiction novels and films are also a Luddite genre, as writer Cory Doctorow pointed out in a recent article.

This movement’s example helps us identify the technological, economic, and social challenges we face, and teaches us that we can ask more of technology, as Mueller says. Cabañes recalls that the future that is sold to us as inevitable is not, and adds that one of the big problems with how technological progress has been presented to us is that “they have stolen our imagination.” The time has come to steal it back.

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