Rebels Against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution

Sale, Kirkpatrick. Rebels Against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution (Lessons for the Computer Age). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995.

Very consciously in the tradition of E. P. Thomson in history and, more relevant here, J. Ellul, L. Mumford et al. in sociology and philosophy, KS tells the story of the fifteen-month Luddite rebellion (mostly 1812) against the first Industrial Revolution—and draws from that story several morals for the second Industrial Revolution in our time. Even as the Luddites had an excellent point in their rebellion against the new textile machines, even so we would do well to rebel against the computers.

See The Coming Wave for Suleyman and Bhaskar, "Everyone from guilds of skilled craftsmen to suspicious monarchs has reason to push back. Luddites, the groups that violently rejected industrial techniques, are not exception to the arrival of new technologies; they are the norm" (p. 39).

RDE, Initial; and finishing 29Feb24, 28Mar24