When Progressives Behave Like Luddites

The Luddites and the Curious Meaning of “Progressive”

In the early 1800s, a group of English textile workers began smashing machines. These workers became known as the Luddites, supposedly named after a mythical figure called Ned Ludd. Between 1811 and 1816, bands of workers broke into factories at night and destroyed mechanical looms and knitting frames.

To a certain extent their fear was understandable. The Industrial Revolution was transforming the textile industry, and new machines allowed factory owners to produce cloth faster and cheaper than skilled craftsmen working by hand. Many workers believed the machines would destroy their livelihoods. In protest, they attacked the technology itself.

History, however, remembers the Luddites not as heroes but as a cautionary tale. The machines they tried to stop did not disappear. Instead, industrialization accelerated, creating entirely new industries, jobs, and living standards that were unimaginable at the time. The lesson many historians have drawn is simple: technological progress is disruptive, but trying to stop it rarely works—and often leaves communities worse off.

Which brings us to an irony in today’s political language.

In modern politics, the term “progressive” is commonly used by people who see themselves as champions of social progress and innovation. Yet on issue after issue—artificial intelligence, data centers, energy infrastructure, biotechnology, and even housing development—the loudest opposition often comes from the very groups that use the word progressive to describe themselves.

Meanwhile, conservatives are frequently portrayed as the ones who resist change and cling to the past.

The labels can feel oddly reversed.

If progress means improving productivity, expanding knowledge, and building technologies that make life easier and more prosperous, then resisting those developments begins to look less like progress and more like modern-day Luddism.

The Luddites feared the machines of their era because they could only see what might be lost. What they could not see was the world those machines would eventually help create.

Two centuries later, the same tension remains. Every generation must decide whether it will shape technological change—or try to halt it. History suggests the wiser course is to guide innovation, not fear it.

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PostScript: This week a friend shared a video of Bernie Sanders calling for a moratorium on all A.I. development because it is advancing too quickly. But these technologies have been emerging gradually for decades. The practical problem with moratoriums is obvious: once a pause is declared, who decides when it is safe to start again? And in a competitive global economy, would countries such as China agree to stop developing these technologies at the same time?

 

Related Link
See my 2011 blog post, Return of the Luddites.

Illustration: Public Domain, creator unknown