Man Vs. Machine

Joel Mokyr from the January 1996 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

The difference between the original Luddite rioters and the ideologues is clearly demon strated in this book. Sale's history of the Luddite riots, which occupies about two-thirds of the text, shows that they were obsessed with specific and local issues and grievances. On the other hand, according to Sale, modern technology and industrial society can get nothing right. They destroy the physical environment as they disrupt and displace the traditional forms of communi ties and societies; they eliminate jobs, pauperize workers, and increase inequality, leading to growing frustration and alienation, implausibly leading to the wars and refugee problems of the 1990s. He even manages on the same page to blame the "second Industrial Revolution" (by which he means technological developments since 1945) for overpopulation and the decline in male sperm count, presumably in the long run an inconsistent coupling.

In short, Sale's is the voice of the intellectual technophobe. He and his colleagues appear not to have personally suffered from modern technology; indeed some of them seem to have done quite well by it even as they rail against it. Sale repeats the standard accusations against modern technology, but his book is neither particularly well documented nor especially evoca tive. Where he differentiates his product from that of Rachel Carson and Ivan Illich is in his explicit attempt to co-opt the Luddite riots for his ideological purpose and to endow them with the values of activists chaining themselves to nuclear power plants or intellectuals on the talk -show tour. In this attempt the book fails to convince. Today's technophobes and Britain's Luddites of 1811­1816 have nothing in common.

Indeed, despite the alleged ravages inflicted by the "second Industrial Revolution" on modern society, Sale has to admit that Luddism is rare in the modern workplace. While a few instances of sabotage can always be cited, the modern work force seems oddly complacent in the face of the horrid damages caused, in Sale's account, by computers, chemicals, and other tools of technological destruction. Instead, modern "neo-Luddites" are non-specific or consumer-ori ented: the Union of Concerned Scientists, animal-rights groups, Greenpeace, and even unlikely organizations such as Aspartame Victims and Their Friends. Instead of machine breaking we have "ecotage," violent attempts to prevent acts alleged to be environmentally damaging.

Here and there Sale gets caught in inconvenient inconsistencies: He hails demonstrating French farmers disrupting traffic because "they were arguing for other values than those of capitalist enterprise, including rural communities and rural lifeways." Some cynics might suspect that the French farmer just wanted a larger slice of the industrial-capitalist pie. In any case, if these Luddite farmers have so much power, why were they not able to stop the proliferation of nuclear power plants in France?

The Luddites of England and the modern technophobe movements share one feature not acknowledged by Sale. Neither has been very successful in stopping the phenomenon they so detest. The Luddites were little more than a historical hiccup, as Sale is the first to admit. While he still feels their actions were "dramatic, forceful, honorable and authentic enough to have put the Luddites' issues forever on the record," it is clear that they did not make much of a dent in the progress of the Industrial Revolution. In similar fashion, the Sales and Rifkins of this world do not have a prayer of stopping modern technology, from computers to nuclear plants.

As long as they insist, with fellow-
traveler Wendell Berry, that a new contraption should be adopted only if it is cheaper, smaller, and locally made; uses less energy; does not disrupt anything good that already exists (including family and community relationships); does not infringe on the rights of other species (plants and animals alike); and does not harm the interests of the next seven generations, the "neo-Luddite" movement will inspire derision rather than effective technological resistance.