Neo-Luddite and Proud
Any well-informed socialist will not need to be educated in the historical injustice done to the followers of King/Captain/General Ludd. Remembered in the perjorative "Luddite", they will go down in popular myth as representing the irrational and self-interested hatred of progress. Those that stand immemorial in opposition to the betterment of the human species.
Yet Luddism represented a noble progressive spirit. They smashed machines not because technology enslaved them, but because men did. Who could truly stand in opposition to the development of productive forces? It should be an unambiguous good that a human being should become able to produce necessities and luxuries with greater ease, hopefully freeing us from the drudgery of satisfying our means of subsistence, releasing the unspent creativity of leisure.
Yet 200 years later humanity continues to tread the same path, the more we invent, the greater our productivity, the more human beings we are determined to throw on the scrap heap. When we invent time-saving devices, people go in search of the dole queue, if we develop tools to connect us to the world it just means we can knock out another couple of hours more work on the daily commute.
The true Luddite blames not the marvellous technology that we have access to, but the system by which these creations are rendered an affliction rather than a blessing. We demand that instead of laying us off, you give us all another hour in bed. Instead of working for free on the train, we want that time taken off our normal working day. What we want, what we demand, is that the development of humanity works for us, not for the people who own the world already.
I'm proud to be a Luddite, an ardent enthusiast for new technology, it's ultimate defender in the face of all those that would abuse it. I hereby found the New Luddite Army of Liberation and invite you all to join.
General Ludd, on behalf of himself, Rob Ray, Alice Kershaw and Joni Smit.
hat tip: Thomas Pynchon in 1984
