Why neo-luddism is a waste of time and effort….

The Luddite marchers, toasted in song and story are a strong part of British history. The ability of our populous to take up arms against perceived oppression and to express their fears and concerns in a physical manner, whilst perhaps inappropriate when taken to extreme, but is non the less a function of the right of freedom of speech. The Luddites, followers of John Ludd were cottage industry weavers and carders who were unhappy with the development of mechanized industrial processes which were allowing large mill owners to bring weavers out of their own homes and into the first factories and production lines. There are two points here, firstly that the early industrialists had a tremendously patriarchal approach to their staff, often seeming to work on the principle that their workers were incapable of functioning without constant direction and input, and at times reducing them to components within the factory machine.

Around the UK certainly there is good evidence that this attitude was prevalent throughout the industrial revolution, with industrialists like Titus Salt, Matthew Boulton and Joseph Cadbury creating entire communities of workers around the factory site, providing housing, food, employment and in most cases a religious overtone and moral and spiritual guidance. Under this regime there may well have been an argument for the taking up of arms against what could easily be seen as oppression and in some cases almost slavery. However it can be seen, not just in these early cases, but later through the industrial action taken by the trade unions in the 1960’s and ‘70’s that brought British manufacturing to it’s knees that processes such as these in the long term have at best a very limited effect. The mills maintained production and expanded, the British manufacturing base was relocated offshore rather than give in to the workers, and those same complainants were no better off, and in many cases worse off than they would have been by simply accepting change and working with rather than against the entrepreneurs who controlled the processes.

There have been very few occasions where pressure from the bottom up has actually created change, and in almost all of those cases where it has, the pressure has been on legislation rather than industries directly. Effecting political change is often an easier route than effecting business change, and this, I would argue, is why a direct assault in industry whether that be financial, manufacturing, service or any other is almost always doomed to failure.