WEBVTT - Luddite Power! Why the Luddites were Smarter than you Think 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:27.080 Guess what oz? 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:27.640 What's that? 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:28.560 Man? Gosh? 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:32.600 Well, I am super excited to do this crossover episode 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.360 with you, but before we get started, maybe we should 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:39.440 tell everyone what's going on here. So we are both 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:43.040 podcast hosts. I do Part Time Genius, a ridiculous general 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.440 knowledge show that tackles some of the world's most important questions. 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:48.640 I'd have to say things like what's the story behind 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:53.120 dogs playing poker? Why does Lichtenstein export so many false teeth? 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:56.080 And you are the brand new co host of Tech Stuff. 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:59.120 It is a wildly popular show about the latest technology 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:01.760 and what it says about does is humans. But I 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:03.880 feel like we should let people in on a little secret. 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:08.880 We are also business partners. A few years ago we 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:12.800 founded the company behind both our shows, which is called Kaleidoscope. 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:13.479 That's right. 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:18.040 We spend an awful lot of time together, but never 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:20.920 recording a podcast together until now, which is kind of crazy. 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:22.000 That is true. 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:24.800 So today we're producing a little bit of a network 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:28.479 effect where we're doing a crossover between two Kaleidoscope shows, 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:30.080 Part Time Genius and Tech Stuff. 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:30.520 Yeah. 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:32.960 I'm so excited about this, And you know, we were 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.240 having I think it was burgers and drinks with our 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.000 palkate and she came up with a perfect topic for 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.440 us both, which is Luddites. 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.040 So what do you know about Luddites. 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:45.720 I don't know a lot about Luddites. I know, I 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.040 hear that word all the time, and I associate it 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:53.440 with England in the past and today with people who 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:55.560 are kind of branded as technophobes. 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:56.040 Yeah. 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:59.080 I mean, I feel like we refer to my mom 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:01.000 as a Luddite a lot and have for a while, 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:04.080 because you know when she told my dad like, oh, 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:06.160 I need to check my email, and what that meant 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:08.440 was he had to go into her email print out 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:09.440 a stack of email. 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:11.080 Print it. 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:11.560 I love it. 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:15.040 That's that's real classify story of Nomon. That's the ATCO vibes. 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:15.680 I love it. 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:18.240 She is kind of the CEO of our family. 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.919 But you know, so I feel like most people probably 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:26.080 think ludite means anti tech or being against adopting new technologies. 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.959 But weirdly, that couldn't be further from the historical truth. 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:33.680 So the best description is that the Luddites were a 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:38.480 worker's rights movement, and these guys were your countrymen, specifically 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.800 as your countrymen, So they loosely formed in the early 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:45.640 eighteen hundreds in northern towns and villages in England. And 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:49.000 at the time the wool and textile trade was the 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:53.160 most important industry in Britain. It employed almost a million people, 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:57.200 which is remarkable, right, and textile weavers were the largest 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:01.040 single group of workers in the country for over a century. 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.359 People were really well employed, and some of them even 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:08.120 worked from home. And then something cropped up called the 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:10.880 gig mill. And this is where things get dicey, right. 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.120 The gig mill was a wooden machine that napped up 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:17.919 the wool or the cotton into a softened fabric. And 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:21.520 these mills started cropping up with remarkable pace. So basically, 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:25.280 entrepreneurs use these mills to build factories and put hundreds 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.680 of thousands of workers out of work. They brought in 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.680 unpaid child labor, and they pushed families to the brink 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:32.440 of starvation. 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.880 Well, I am having an association here which is a 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:40.320 William Blake poem and also Britain's most famous him Jerusalem, 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:45.160 which the choruses and did those feet in ancient times 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:49.280 walk upon England's mountains green? And did the countenance shine 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:52.040 forth upon these dark satanic mills? 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:53.880 Dark satanic mills. 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:57.400 Dark satanic mills. Yeah, William Blake took up his pen, 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:02.360 but I think others took up more aggressive hitchforks. 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:05.000 Yeah, so you're exactly right. 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:08.360 Like the workers organized and bands of dozens of them 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.240 would go out at night. They covered their faces with 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:15.560 coal or with mass and they were armed with blacksmith hammers, 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:18.800 and they'd actually break the machines right and and weirdly, 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:24.640 each group leader went by the same name, General Lud. Now, 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:26.920 the attacks were often prefaced with a note or a 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:28.880 letter pinned to the door of the mill with a warning, 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:31.360 if you do not pull down your frames, my company 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:35.120 will visit and destroy them, signed ned Lud. 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.520 So this is the we are anonymous, we are legion 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:42.440 of the nineteenth century. Completely who was ned Lud? 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:45.520 Though, so ned Lud was not a real person. He 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.040 was a fictional character based on a myth about an 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.279 apprentice who smashed his boss's device and then fled to 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.359 Sherwood Forest, which I'm sure most of our listeners know 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.880 from Robinhood. It's the wooded area where all those merry 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.440 men took refuge, and it's not a quinc evidence that 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.240 ned Lud was also set to reside there. Considering the 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:08.599 spirit of righteous rebelliousness. Anyway, the movement grew pretty quickly, 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.960 and before long there were about fifty machines a week 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:15.599 that were getting destroyed, and the raids definitely got bigger 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.240 and weirder as they went along. So many of these 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:21.479 Luddites would pull stockings over their faces during the night raids. 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.320 One account talked about a dude wearing a bloody mask 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:27.440 made from a calf skin to disguise himself. Some of 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.599 the Luddites wore costumes, and a few of the largest 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:34.360 bands were led by men in drag who called themselves 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:36.040 General Lud's Wife. 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:38.160 Isn't that incredible? 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:42.479 So there are in fact famous illustrations from the time 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.520 of Ludite leader's in dress with factories burning in their background. 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:49.480 Supposedly it was an homage to the women who had 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:53.240 also lost their jobs of yarn spinning to automation, so 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.680 it was kind of in solidarity with them. Anyway, words 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:59.800 spread about the machine breakers and their cause became really, 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.599 really popular. As you can imagine, Basically everyone knew who 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.920 was involved, and sometimes these raids even began occurring in 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:11.359 full daylight, but no one talked like the villagers did 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:12.120 not snitch. 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.200 Wow, that's amazing. So it was like almost like an 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:16.480 open secret who was involved. 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.640 Yeah, but they were still pretty cautious. So the Luddites 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.480 had all these codes and handshakes to protect themselves. Like 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:24.599 if you were going to a meeting at a local pub, 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:27.839 there was a process, right, So first you'd make eye 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.799 contact with a Luddite guard who was posted across the room. 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.960 Then you'd make a coded hand gesture. The guard would 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.919 sort of keep a straight face, keep their cool, they 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:39.680 might even look bored, take a drink, but then they 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:43.479 would suddenly return the gesture. And then you'd actually head 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:45.599 into the back, maybe up a narrow staircase, to a 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:48.200 smaller room, and then you'd have to say a password, 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:52.120 and the password was win work, so you'd say that 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:54.000 to a guard and then finally you'd get into the 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:54.679 secret meeting. 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:57.800 That's incredible. So it's almost like a Masonic vibe as well. 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:00.880 But what I mean, how they how they looked upon 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:03.560 by the broader British society and how much damage did 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:03.800 they do? 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:06.640 I mean they did a lot of damage. One account 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:09.359 from the time, this is from the Leeds Mercury. It 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:13.680 reported that since the commencement of the Ludite system in Nottingham, 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:16.960 forty two lace frames and five hundred and forty four 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:20.960 plain silk and cotton stocking frames have been destroyed, and 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:25.360 that amounts to about thirteen four hundred pounds in eighteen 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:28.720 eleven prices or about sixteen million dollars today. 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:29.440 Wow. 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:31.760 Well, no wonder they were catching people's attention. 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:35.880 Yeah, So the Luodites in the early nineteenth century weren't 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:39.640 so much anti technology as really they wanted a humane 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.240 adaptation of technology. And that's I think where some of 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:43.360 this distinction comes in. 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.120 Well, I'm definitely fascinated by everything you're saying, mangsh But 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:48.600 I guess if we really want to dig into the 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.960 understanding of the Luddite movement, there's someone we should talk to, 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.320 Brian Merchant, who wrote an incredible four hundred page book 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:58.960 about it. It's called Blood in the Machine, The Origins 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:02.040 of the Rebellion. Again big tech, and lucky for us, 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:03.720 we managed to get him on the line to talk 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:09.200 about it. Let's dive in. I know, Mange, shouldn't I 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.600 were excited to talk about the book Blood in the Machine, 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.280 But maybe a good place to thought would be why 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.000 did you decide to spend too much time writing a 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:18.800 four hundred page book about the Luddites. 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:19.320 Yeah. 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:21.680 There's a couple different answers to that, And the first 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.600 is that I had sort of spent a long time 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.880 as a tech journalist. So you hear it, the term ludite, 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.560 it's this derogatory term, and I had just kind of 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.400 integrated this term lutite. Oh, someone who hates technology, someone 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:38.000 who gets angry when they have to use a new technology, 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.800 makes them want to smash their phone, or you know, 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:42.160 just against progress. 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.600 And so the minute that it became clear to me. 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.560 That that was in no way the truth, sort of 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:52.600 like all of my you know, journalistic instincts kicked in 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.640 and there's nothing that a journalist likes to do more 0:08:55.880 --> 0:09:00.600 than to overturn an assumption. Right, So like I spent 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:04.280 I spent like the nerdiest labor day weekend of my life, 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:08.120 just like reading academic journal articles about the Ledites. And 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.480 I was a reporter for Vice at the time. So 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:13.600 I wrote this piece called You've got the Lutites all 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.760 wrong because it was clear to me that they're not backwards, 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:22.440 they're not anti progress, they're anti bosses using technology to 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:26.839 sort of exploit them, to grind their livelihoods away, and 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:30.240 so like that sort of key insight stuck with me 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:33.040 because that was over ten years ago. So it was 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.120 really at the same time that we started seeing more 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.520 of the fallout from the labor forces at Amazon, the 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.160 warehouse workers who were working and often really degrading and 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:47.199 inhuman conditions. When it started to be clear that Uber, 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.280 after initially seeming to be this great thing, was starting 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.559 to squeeze its drivers, and we had stories about drivers 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:56.080 who couldn't afford rent were sleeping in their cars. So 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.200 this was all before the AI boom and the fear 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.360 that AI was going to replace our jobs. There's all 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:04.080 these examples of ways that tech was really being used 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:08.480 to hurt people or it was having a deleterious effect 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:11.719 on their lives. And then that kind of collided with 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.560 this thinking about the Luddites, and I said, maybe this 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.080 is a good lens to sort of look at these 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:21.920 emergent resistances to technology. Maybe we should understand more about 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:26.360 why people have real issues, real complaints about some of 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:30.520 the forces that technology is unleashing on their lives. 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:32.480 I also love that though you figured this out over 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:38.600 labor day. There's something so funny about that. But take 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:40.720 us into this. Can you situate us in the history 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:44.360 event year. I think it's the eighteen hundreds, Yorkshire, Northern 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:46.959 Nish England. Can you paint a picture of the times 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:48.400 that we're talking about. 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:53.160 So this is the very beginning days of the industrial revolution. 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:56.240 It's not yet quite at the point where if you 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.000 just kind of close your eyes and you say, like 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.560 peak industrial Revolution and you're imagining the billowing smoke and 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:04.080 like the coughing children working in factories. 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.240 We're not quite there yet. That is beginning to take shape. 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:12.800 So there have been a number of mechanical innovations. So 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.280 you had like the steam engine that's allowing for new 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.760 sources of power. You have water power coming onto the scene, 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.120 and then you have basically all of these inventions that 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:28.400 allows the work of weaving a garment to be done 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:32.480 by one person instead of say six, So it can 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:34.920 automate this task to a great degree. 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:37.560 You still need a worker to run. 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:39.600 The machine to make sure it's not screwing up, but 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:42.760 it is speeding up the process by which you can 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:49.199 produce goods. And industrialists and factory owners realize that they 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.560 can start buying these machines, machines like the gig mill, 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:56.280 the shearing frame that automate different parts of the clothing trade, 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:59.400 and that they can organize them into an early sort 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:02.600 of version of the factory. This is like the late 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:07.160 seventeen nineties early eighteen hundreds that I'm talking about here, 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:14.040 and it's in the midlands of England around Nottingham and Yorkshire, 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:16.960 and so you have workers who are used to working 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.880 at home with their families running the machine. They're not 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:24.640 anti technology, they're really good technicians technologists in their homes, 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:28.439 but they start to see the emergence of the factory. 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.760 Who are the innovators behind these kind of proto factories. 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.240 The most famous is there's a man named Richard Arkwright 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:41.679 and he's generally considered to be the father of the factory. 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:43.480 You can go in these buildings today and kind of 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:48.400 see for yourself really awful working conditions. There's no ventilation, 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:53.040 there are multiple stories up to six stories, so it's noisy, 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:58.080 and it's just sort of churning out the yarn right 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.840 that used to be spun by hand. And so Arkwright 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:04.600 really kind of helped automate away the first sort of 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:08.000 rung of cloth workers. Arkwright figured out a way to 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:11.640 sort of make an astonishing volume of yarn. 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:12.160 Right. 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.000 I opened the book, in fact, with one of the 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:18.160 inventors who will later invent the power loom touring like 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:21.120 this factory, and they're all ruminating all and his sort 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:24.280 of contemporaries are saying, well, it's one thing to make yarn. 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.240 That was just that's just women's work. It's another altogether 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:30.320 to automate like weaving a finished garment like that skilled 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:34.200 labor that'll never happen. And then he sets about trying 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:34.760 to do it. 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:37.800 I think you called Arkwright the first startup founder to 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:41.960 launch a unicorn company, which I love. But how did 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.200 the laudite start to fight back? What kind of early 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:46.600 industrial action did they take? 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:51.600 So basically arc Right's blueprint spreads around the country. People 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:56.040 recognize that you can sort of concentrate labor, and before 0:13:56.160 --> 0:14:03.280 long this method of industrialization starts to lower prices and 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:07.400 the artisan workers, the skilled workers, who are still the 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.240 largest industrial base of worker in England. 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:12.800 At the time, England was a cloth producing country. 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:14.560 It exports it all over the world, so you have 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:17.040 more workers doing this than ever and they start to 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:21.600 see this work basically being transferred from that domestic system 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:24.960 where they're working at home into the factory system where 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.360 they're either going to have to compete on price they 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:29.120 have to start working for less, or they have to 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:31.800 go work in the factory where it's just a very 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:36.960 dehumanizing and often dangerous place to work. So they start 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.720 to form different modes of resistance, and first they go 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.840 to Parliament and say, hey, these industrialists are using machinery 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:48.640 that violate these number of rules on the books, like 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:50.360 we have laws that say how long you have to 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:52.680 be an apprentice for we have laws that say how 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.600 many threads have to go into a certain garment for 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:57.360 it to be sold on the market. And they're just 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.600 laughed out of Parliament time and time again, saying all 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:02.720 we want is a minimum wage, or maybe we could 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.040 figure out a way to get attacks on the output 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.800 that they're making that can sort of pay for social benefits, 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:11.920 because they're just sort of tearing up the social contract. 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:14.400 And this isn't the twenty first century. We don't have 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.600 a globalized economy. I can't go get a job at 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:19.240 Starbucks pretty much. Weaving is the only thing I know 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:22.680 how to do. So you throw us a bone. Parliament 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.800 does not, so they box them out for like ten 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:29.960 years of fighting, and we get to eighteen o nine, 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.400 they tear up all the rules altogether. Now it's the 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:38.920 working class pitted against these new industrialists. It's illegal toform unions. 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.720 There's no recourse at all, there's no democracy. So you 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:47.160 have a really volatile situation. And finally there's the crop 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:52.280 failure and then some intense tariffs placed on exports during 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:55.440 the Napoleonic War, and people. 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.040 Are quite literally going without food. 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.800 That Luttites would often say, you know, the factory owners 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.920 have stolen our bread, because again, to them, it didn't 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:10.280 look like the complex machinations of a globalized economy. It 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.680 looked like they had a job, they got a fair wage. 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.360 And then one day somebody built a giant factory started 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:21.440 selling crappier stuff, taking away their market share, and now 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:24.320 that guy had money. It didn't look complicated to them. 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.280 It looked like theft, and it felt like theft. So 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.560 it just all goes up in flames. The Luddites emerged. 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.560 They say, you've left us no choice. They organized this 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:35.680 gorilla rebellion to fight back. 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:38.680 Coming up, we meet some of the main characters in 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:55.760 this Ludite movement. Stick with us and welcome back to 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:58.280 the crossover between part time genius and tech stuff where 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:02.080 we're talking to the wonderful author Brian Merchant. So could 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:03.920 you tell us a little bit about George Meller and 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:04.520 his role in. 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:04.720 All of this. 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:07.639 Yeah, So, George Meller is the Ledite that I. 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.520 Focus on the most in the book, and we sort 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:15.720 of follow his reluctance to take up the hammer, so 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:20.720 to speak. But he's watching the first sort of uprising happen, 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:23.879 which happens in Nottingham. What they do is they first 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:27.919 send letters to the owners of the obnoxious machines and 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:32.959 they say, your factory has three hundred power looms and 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:36.320 it's putting twelve hundred of our brothers out of work. 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:38.920 Take down those machines or you'll get a visit from 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.359 ned Lud's army. Ned Lud is this apocryphal figure who 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:46.439 was supposed to have sort of rebelled against his master, 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:48.120 but they use him as this avatar. 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:49.639 They sign these letters ned Lud. 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:51.800 You know you're going to get a visit from ned 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:53.679 Lud's army, And then sure enough, a lot of factory 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.960 owners do ned Lud's army shows up with hammers in hand. 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:00.760 They hold up an overseer at gunpoint, and they sneak 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:02.720 into the factory and they smashed the machines. 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:05.240 But only the machines that are that are taking. 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.280 Jobs and tearing up the social contract, just those that 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:11.320 are sort of transferring wealth into the hands of the 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.440 factory owner away from them. So it was a very 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:18.320 pointed tactic and people loved them at the time. People 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.680 cheered the Ludites in the street. Magistrates would come out 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:23.159 and just kind of watch it happen. 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:24.640 The factory owners would be going. 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:27.359 What are you gonna do something about this, buddy, and 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:29.640 they and they're like, well, they kind of have a point. 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:34.760 So at first the Luddites were super popular. They were winning, 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:36.920 they won concessions. A bunch of factory owners said, I 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.359 don't want any part of this. Just you know, we'll 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.560 raise the prices again, We'll stop using these machines. 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:44.400 You guys win. 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:49.080 So for at least six months or so, it worked 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:53.119 to some extent. And so George Meller is up in 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.679 the West Riding, which is these days a few hours 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.919 north of Nottingham, and he's reading about this in the newspaper, 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.919 and he's saying, these guys have it right. This is 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:09.000 what we should be doing locally, because prices are falling 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:14.240 here right in our town, in Huddersfield, which is the 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:18.000 broader area that George Meller and his cohort worked, and 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:23.359 they had been watching their wages go down, their coworkers 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:28.639 literally starving, sometimes quite desperately, so conditions were extremely dire. 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:33.040 And in the book, I'd chart George Miller's sort of 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:39.840 ambivalence to full throated embrace of this idea of Luddism, 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:42.880 of becoming a Luddite, and then he becomes the local 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:47.240 sort of ned lud or general lud, leading other workers 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:51.200 into battle against the men that are quite literally causing 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:51.959 them to starve. 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.080 One of these is William Horstfel Right. 0:19:55.600 --> 0:20:00.640 Yes, William's Horsefall is one of the two most hated 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.480 factory owners in town, and in part because he was 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:08.240 just like he was so unabashed to the point where, 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:12.080 you know, like as he would ride between his factories 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:12.960 into town. 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.520 Little children would would run. 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:17.280 Up and taunt him and say, you know, the Luddites 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:19.239 are gonna get you, and he'll. 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:20.880 Try to whip them with a horsewhip. 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.080 He was just like a classic like sort of mustache 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:27.480 twirling villain, like you really like these things that. His 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:29.640 quote was like I look forward to the day when 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:32.560 I like ride up to my saddle girths in Luddite blood. 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:36.200 So he's gone, wow, yeah, So he's taunting them. 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.560 He's sort of also turning his factory into a fortress, 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:43.960 so he's hiring mercenaries. So should the Luddites attack him, 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:46.200 they you know, he would gun them down before they 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.399 got there, or pour boiling oil on their heads. Things 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:52.119 like we would you know, associate with an assault on 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:55.679 a castle in medieval times or something. But it's an 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:59.040 extreme case because you got to remember that, like this 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:02.240 is on the front line of just industrial capitalism. This 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.000 is just taking shape right now, and no one really 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:07.000 knows what to make of it. A lot of factory 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:09.760 owners were like, ah, like I'm really torn. But if 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.439 I don't buy automating machinery, then my neighbor will and 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:15.040 he'll buy more of it and I won't be able 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:16.919 to compete then, And some factory owners say, I'm out 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:19.560 of the game. I don't want to contribute to the 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:24.080 ruination of working men's lives. I give up, I'm out. Others, 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:26.240 you know, continue to try to do it the old 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:30.800 way and buy from the weavers who work at home, 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:35.360 but it really sort of ultimately everybody has to compete 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:36.440 with men like Horsefall. 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:37.560 So one of the. 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:40.720 Things we were interested in was like how the Loveites 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:44.639 aren't just this group of people with the mallets to 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:46.800