Quote from: RE on Oct 04, 2023, 02:10 PM

Quote from: K-Dog on Oct 02, 2023, 07:56 PMThe Luddite era was 1811-1813.  At that time technology had nothing to do with mechanics.

This is not entirely true.

QuoteThe Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers which opposed the use of certain types of cost-saving machinery, often by destroying the machines in clandestine raids. They protested against manufacturers who used machines in "a fraudulent and deceitful manner" to replace the skilled labour of workers and drive down wages by producing inferior goods.[1][2] Members of the group referred to themselves as Luddites, self-described followers of "Ned Ludd", a legendary weaver whose name was used as a pseudonym in threatening letters to mill owners and government officials.[3]

Although the movement BEGAN in the early 1800s before the looms became fossil fuel powered and vastly faster than a human weaver could do the same job, it was the application of that power together with invention of looms that did not require human hands to slide the shuttle back and forth that the jobs just about entirely disappeared, along with Unions of Weavers who no longer were needed and so had no jobs and no union membership.

If you look back at the Norma Rae film clip that depicted the 1950s era here, the machine she climbed up on was an industrial loom, and the dramatic sound of those looms being shut down while she held up the handwritten-on-cardboard UNION sign in front of them.

Those folks needed little skill and were easily replaced by scabs, who were replaced by still cheaper labor in China and India where the american textile industry offshored the plants to.  This was easily accomplished simply by packing up the looms, trucking them to the Port of Long Beach, loading them on a container ship and setting them up in a way cheaper building with even fewer fire protection safeguards left here, and the buildings here just sat empty until  sombody finally bought the land under them, demolished it and put up a subdivision of McMansions or a Trailer Park.

The history of Capitalism in a nutshell.

RE

My point is that the Luddites were the first Luddites.  Owners were not simply 'going with the flow' or 'business as usual'.  The industrial revolution had hardly taken off.  It was just picking up steam.  Literally.  There were no unions.  The owners were making the rules.  All the rules.

The Luddites existed at a unique point in history.  Owners of the factories knew exactly what they were doing.  It was about getting as much for themselves as they could and kicking the social contract to the curb.  Rocking a boat that had floated a hundred years.

Owners put people out of work and made them destitute.  Owners were greedy fuckers who only cared about themselves.  The Highland Clearances happened at that time.  The same sort of asshole.  The Highland Clearances resulted in the destruction of traditional clan society so rich people could farm sheep.

It was not a time when people with land, money, and property cared two shits about the poor.

I contend that saying Luddites hated technology misses the mark.  I contend they hated rich assholes and concentrating on hating technology plays into a story rich assholes created to obfuscate the truth.