Two ludittes attack a Jacquart loom. Anonymous engraving • WIKIMEDIA COMMONS The gigantic increase in agricultural productivity that Britain experienced during the 18th th century provided some peasant families with the prosperity needed to have a loom at home and thus supplement their precarious income. However, the technical innovations that allow this increase in production also cause a loss of work for many peasants, who then emigrate to the cities in perpetual expansion. There, the skilled workers and apprentices working in the workshops and urban businesses see the suburbs fill with a swarm of peasants expelled and in search of work. Prohibition of collective bargaining In these urban areas, people snapped up the books of radicals such as Thomas Paine; they even show sympathy for the Jacobins who took the lead in the French Revolution. In 1794, growing political and social tension prompted the government to suspend habeas corpus , the law guaranteeing the fundamental individual legal freedom of prisoners. Five years later, the Combination Acts prohibit workers' associations, making collective bargaining impossible. The conflict between workers and employers does not take long to break out, supported by a State which fears the union of political radicalism and labor demands. Some craftsmen and peasants who were able to buy a machine managed to accumulate a small surplus of capital and invest it in the fledgling industry, acquiring new machines. The competition between these first manufacturers drives the race for innovation, in order to produce ever faster and cheaper. This demand caused a cascade of inventions multiplying the production capacity, in particular with the use of the steam engine in these first factories. This triggers the hostility of spinners and weavers, because it reduces the need for labor. The competition of machines Already in 1778, in Lancashire, craftsmen had destroyed mechanical looms, because they lowered their wages and devalued their qualifications. These craftsmen see their hard-earned know-how no longer being useless in the face of competition from machines. They crowd into the factories, under the yoke of the foremen, they are subject to strict regulations and severe punishments for violations, as well as control of the time marked by the factory siren and the rhythm noisy from the machine. To the harsh changes in the world of work and the limited scope of policies was added, in 1806, the prohibition of trade between British ports and European ports, ordered by Napoleon. In the midst of the war against Great Britain, this ban deprived the English of many markets, putting many workers out of work and forcing many businessmen – deprived of quality raw materials by the blockade – to produce mediocre goods. Punitive expeditions It is under these conditions that the conflict breaks out. It all starts in Arnold, a village near Nottingham, the main manufacturing city in central England. On March 11, on the market square, the king's soldiers disperse a meeting of unemployed workers. That same night, nearly a hundred machines were destroyed with sledgehammers in factories that had lowered wages. These are collective reactions, spontaneous and dispersed, but which do not take long to acquire a certain cohesion. In November, in the nearby village of Bulwell, men in masks brandishing maces, hammers and axes destroy several looms of the manufacturer Edward Hollingsworth. During the attack, a gunfight breaks out, and a weaver loses his life. The presence of military forces prevents the conflagration of the region, but the storm is brewing. By denouncing the increase in the pace of work that chains them to machines, the Luddists do not deny all technology by an obtuse resistance to change, but only that which attacks the people. It was then that the manufacturers began to receive mysterious missives, signed by a certain General Ludd. This imaginary character gives his name to a protest movement which, without being centralized, is indeed the fruit of coordinated efforts, perhaps suggested by former soldiers who, in addition to threatening anonymous letters and leaflets calling for insurrection, also organize nocturnal punitive expeditions. On April 12, 1811, the first destruction of a factory occurred, when 300 workers attacked William Cartwright's spinning mill in Nottinghamshire and destroyed his looms with clubs. The small garrison charged with defending the building injures two young protesters, John Booth and Samuel Hartley, who are captured and die without revealing the names of their companions. In February 1812, Parliament approved the Frame-Breaking Bill , which imposes the death penalty on anyone destroying a loom. The opposition is minimal. Lord Byron, in his only speech to the House of Lords, asks:“Is there not enough blood in your Penal Code? » Chain trials The repression continues:14 executions take place and 13 people are deported to Australia. However, this iron fist did not stop the Luddites, to the point that 12,000 soldiers were requisitioned to hunt them down, while only 10,000 Britons fought against Napoleon on the continent. This shows not only the terror that the Luddites inspire in the ruling classes, but also the dimensions of this "civil war" between rising capitalism, which is based on industry, labor discipline and free competition, and the Luddites, who claim fair prices, decent wages and quality of work. By denouncing the increase in the pace of work that chains them to machines, the Luddites reveal the other face of technology. They question technical progress from a moral point of view, defending cooperation against competition, ethics against profit:they therefore do not deny all technology by an obtuse resistance to change, but only that which takes from the people. So their attacks are targeted:they smash the machines that belong to bosses who produce low-quality items at low prices and with the worst wages. Seen in this light, the Luddites could be seen as activists of a momentous movement, calling for the use of technology in accordance with human needs. Government repression culminated in a spectacular trial in York in January 1813. Seventeen Luddites were executed there. A few months earlier, a series of trials in Lancaster had resulted in 8 hangings and 17 deportations to Tasmania. Heavy sentences and the economic recovery that loomed with the end of the Napoleonic Wars stifled the Luddite movement in 1816. But his tragedy raised an ominous question:how far should progress go? Find out more The Machine Breakers. From Ned Ludd to José Bové, by Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis, Seuil, 2006. A Chief Named Ned Ludd The Luddites owe their name to General Ludd, a character who is said to have signed the threatening letters that manufacturers began to receive in 1811. This name seems to be that of an apprentice stocking maker from Leicester, Ned Luddlam, who destroyed his master's loom with a hammer in 1779. The anonymous leaders who organized the first protests in the Nottingham region borrowed his name and signed with him the missives they sent to the bosses. They want to create an emblematic figure, capable of inspiring terror in their wealthy and powerful enemies. Protest turns into crime William Horsfali, owner of a textile factory employing 400 workers in Marsden, promised that the blood of the Luddites would reach his saddle. In reality, it was his own blood that stained it, since in April 1812, he was seriously wounded by a bullet during an ambush by Luddites. The latter reproach him for being "the oppressor of the poor" and abandon him, wounded, on the way. Another fabricator comes to his rescue, but Horsfall dies after 38 hours. In January 1813, three Luddites accused of the assassination were hanged in York. They never admitted to having participated in the facts.
