Luddites Past and Present

Abstract

THE WORDS LUDDITE and Luddism are widely used in labour conflicts, especially those involving technological innovation, to categorize one of the contending parties. Perhaps it is to a recognition of the revolutionary implica tions of computer and robotic industrial applications that a term from the classic period of the British Industrial Revolution owes at least part of its contemporary relevance. Unfortunately the use of the words Luddite and Luddism has tended to be arbitrary or partisan, or both. A few examples from the last dozen or so years will illustrate the point. In April 1984 the Toronto Globe and Mail denounced Arthur Scargill, the leader of the British coal miners' strike, as a Pithead Luddite. Its editorial attacked the leftist leader of the National Union of Mineworkers for using flying pickets, promoting illegal strikes away from the collieries and eco nomic vandalism.1 At issue was the policy of economic rationalization of the coal mining industry imposed by the National Coal Board and Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. Most mine workers and their leaders saw this as an ill-advised programme of pit closures that would ultimately cost some 20,000 jobs. Back in 1975 Prime Minister Harold Wilson used the word in the British