[lbo-talk] Re: luddites

[MICHAEL YATES]

The Luddites were from weaving villages in England undergoing an incredibly brutal capitalist industrialization.  Before forming their army of factory and machine destroyers, they tried to get redress for their grievances through political channels but failed (no doubt in part because so many workers did not have the right to vote).  For example, they suggested a tax on machine made cloth, the proceeds of which could help the weavers live through the transition toward machinofacture.  They wanted assurances that the machine made cloth would be of appropriate quality. No child labor in the mills.   Etc.  The government eventually crushed their movement through the use of provocateurs and brute force.  A fine novel of the period is titled "The Rape of the Rose."  In it we learn of one way the mill foremen disciplined the worker children recently removed from orphanages--they forced open the child's mouth and spit in it. 

Sale and Noble, on the other hand, are to some extent crackpots.  Noble, for example, has students hand write their papers.  This sort of thing and the comments of Sale on printing really detract from the interesting things they have to say.

I don't like to use the word "Luddite."  It demeans a group of people savaged by capitalism.  There were weaving villages so destitute that school children contributed small sums for the next of their classmates to starve to death.  These same villages had produced weavers who had taught themselves the differential calculus.  See Thompson's "The Making of the English Class" for details. 

Michael Yates
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