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<address><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://resolutereader.blogspot.com/2017/03/robert-reid-land-of-lost-content.html">http://resolutereader.blogspot.com/2017/03/robert-reid-land-of-lost-content.html</a></address>
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<h2 class="date-header"><span>Wednesday, March 22, 2017</span></h2>
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Robert Reid - Land of Lost Content: The Luddite Revolt 1812
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<a
href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2rG1qs5ZGKw/WNLW-rsHNtI/AAAAAAAADTw/8zjp8xHjAkgCOQXPn9uShV-IK6y6a2yqgCLcB/s1600/rr.jpg"
style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em;
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src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2rG1qs5ZGKw/WNLW-rsHNtI/AAAAAAAADTw/8zjp8xHjAkgCOQXPn9uShV-IK6y6a2yqgCLcB/s320/rr.jpg"
width="209" height="320" border="0"></a>This is a far more
accessible and better written than the previous book I reviewed on
this subject, Malcolm Thomis' <i><a
href="http://resolutereader.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/malcolm-i-thomis-luddites-machine.html">The
Luddites</a></i>. It also benefits from better analysis of
events and people. That said they are quite different books - Robert
Reid is writing for a wider, more popular audience who might not
know the history of the period, and as such he links the story of
the Luddites to historical figures (such as the Bronte family). Reid
also focuses his narrative on events in Yorkshire, though he does
not ignore Luddite activity elsewhere.<br>
<br>
Reid argues that the ruling class responded badly to the Luddites.
He suggests, as other commentators have done, that they were very
slow to awake to the scale of the rebellion and when they finally
did so, where prone to see it as a Revolutionary situation, fueled
by their angst caused by the French Revolution and, to a great
extent, by their over-reliance on spies who frankly told their
masters the stories they wanted to hear.<br>
<br>
That said, Reid does not ignore the extent of the Luddite movement,
nor does he pretend that there was no motivation behind it. Reid is
excellent at explaining precisely what angered the Luddites about
particular machines, and the scale of poverty, unemployment and
hunger. Reid is also good an analysing the influence of the Reform
movement on the situation. He notes that figures such as the Reform
parliamentarian Francis Burdett inspired the radicals who had
enormous illusions in them. Despite some fear from senior members of
the government however,<br>
<br>
Burdett had no interest in leading a radical movement, and in this
disappointed thousands of working people in London and elsewhere.
Reid also notes that the different geographical strands of the
movement tended to reinforce each other, though contact between them
was limited. Events in the South inspired action in the North and
vice-versa, though rumours of massive armies ready to march on the
capital were just the products of hope, or lies spread by spies.<br>
<br>
Like most other commentators Reid locates the Luddite rising within
the development of capitalism, and the transition to production for
profit. One brilliant proof of this is when he quotes a prosecutor
at one of the Luddite trials using Adam Smith's "economic argument
in favour of machinery" as part of the prosecution. No further
evidence might be needed.<br>
<br>
I was less convinced by Reid's argument about the "law of
technology" which he suggests will inevitably lead to unemployment.
Reid was writing in the aftermath of the Great British Miners'
Strike, so he is right in a sense. But the problem is not
technology, but the economic system that puts technology at the
service of profit. Reid is wrong when he argues "the most realistic
solutions to problems created by technology are likely themselves to
be technological". Instead the answer has to be a change to the
political system that puts technology at the service of people.<br>
<br>
That said, Reid is firmly on the side of those who fought back and
continued to do so. His book powerfully demonstrates the extent to
which a ruling class will use "Fear, and Fear alone" as General
Maitland promised, to hold down workers fighting for their
livelihoods. Most Luddites did not believe in fundamental change,
but a few did draw that conclusion. They were the precursors of
those that would try to build radical organisation to try and bring
that about.<br>
<br>
<i>As a footnote, I wanted to mention the slight oddity that this
book is endorsed on the back by both the Revolutionary Socialist
Paul Foot and the appalling right-wing, racist Tory Enoch Powell.
Given Foot's critique of Powell, its a strange combination.</i>
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