The Luddite movement came about more due to working condition concerns and factory owners skirting standard labor practices rather than an anti-tech slant. The

The Luddite movement came about more due to working condition concerns and factory owners skirting standard labor practices rather than an anti-tech slant. The workers just wanted safe working conditions and fair wages, not to halt progress. “But the Luddites themselves “were totally fine with machines,” says Kevin Binfield, editor of the 2004 collection Writings of the Luddites. They confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. “They just wanted machines that made high-quality goods,” says Binfield, “and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an apprenticeship and got paid decent wages. Those were their only concerns.” [1] “Part of why Ludd could count on such support was that Lt Mellor began by strategically targeting the factories that had the worst records of safety and that paid the lowest wages.” [2] “Malcolm L. Thomas argued in his 1970 history The Luddites that machine-breaking was one of the very few tactics that workers could use to increase pressure on employers, undermine lower-paid competing workers, and create solidarity among workers. "These attacks on machines did not imply any necessary hostility to machinery as such; machinery was just a conveniently exposed target against which an attack could be made." [3] “In the place of a “cottage industry” where clothworkers, often working from home, could work as many or as few hours in the day as suited them, a new institution was arising: the factory. Inside the factory, workers would work long hours at dangerous machinery, be fed meager meals, and submit to the punitive authority of the foreman. The Luddites saw that the winners from this technological “progress” would not be workers—neither the expert textile makers losing their jobs, nor the exploited children replacing them. The winners were the factory owners who, having found a new way to disempower their workers, were able to amass a greater share of the profits those workers generated.” [4] [1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-rea... [2] https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-future-encyclopedia-of-luddism/ https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-future-encyclopedia-o... [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite [4] https://time.com/6317437/luddites-ai-blood-in-the-machine-merchant/ https://time.com/6317437/luddites-ai-blood-in-the-machine-me...