I was talking with someone recently, about some frustrations they had with the way a piece of technology was being used, when they added offhandedly, “But I’m not a Luddite.” And I’ve heard that so many times before, that little disclaimer that even though they might be annoyed or opposed to some technology in this particular instance, it isn’t a blanket objection; they aren’t unreasonable. But which Luddites are we referring to here?

True Luddism was about locating exactly where elites were using technologies to the disadvantage of the human being, and organizing to fight back. This is an important point: Luddism can and certainly did coexist with technology, and even a love of technology. The handloom, for example, made the Luddites’ way of life possible, long before they became Luddites—and they cherished that lifestyle enough to take up arms to defend it. It is a matter, of course, of how technology is deployed.

Before we find ourselves entirely backed into a corner by today’s tech titans, we should ask these questions: Does their technology serve to funnel profits upstream while degrading a livelihood or destabilizing a community? Are those who rely on the disrupted systems given a democratic say in how innovation will affect their lives?

The history of the Luddites—the real ones, not the pejorative figment of the entrepreneurial imagination—gives us a framework to evaluate the utility of technologies and their social impacts. Erasing that history collapses our thinking about how tech and automation affect working lives—and the choices we have to address the disruption they bring.

Merchant, Blood in the Machine, page 308

(Emphasis mine.) This brings to mind a passage from Ursula Franklin that I’ve returned to over and over:

We cannot be part of a discussion on what risks a certain technology has without asking whose risks. It makes an awful lot of difference. Assume you are talking about video display terminals, for example; the great discussion is “Are they or are they not putting the operator’s health or eyes at risk?” You don’t discuss whether there are risks; you discuss whose risks. Who is it that is at risk? It’s quite pointless to talk about risk-benefit without saying “Are those who are at risk also getting the benefits, or are those who are getting the benefits very far removed from the risk?”...The questions to ask are “Whose benefits? Whose risks?” rather than “What benefits? What risks?”

Franklin, Ursula Franklin Speaks, page 33

A lot of people have benefited from the association of Luddism with irrational technophobia. But maybe instead of avoiding the specter of Luddism we should reclaim it. Asking good questions about how a technology will impact people isn’t unreasonable and it isn’t irrational; it’s right and appropriate and necessary. And it is one of the legacies of Luddism that we have the ability to not only ask questions, but to organize a response to technology that does harm, to refuse to accept that the cold logic of the market matters more than blood and bones. Now, when someone says they aren’t a Luddite, I’m wont to respond with, “Well, I am.”