Luddites & the Swing Riots

A history lesson on the uncertainty of change and how some people react

Reprinted from January 2019

When faced with economic uncertainty, when the financial ends don’t ever seem to meet, when changes occur that uproot your sense of security and place in the world, when that solid ground suddenly gets shaky, then a person or group of persons would understandably search for reasons—and solutions.

When those reasons are complex, defying easy explanation, and when the solutions are not readily evident or even apparent, then many people look for a target, a scapegoat, or a return to the status quo.

That’s what happened in England during the early part of the 19^th century.

Starting in 1811 in Nottingham and spreading to other cities, men who had been skilled in weaving textiles with hand looms began smashing the automated machines that had been placed in factories—equipment that largely replaced what they were doing and could be operated by less-skilled workers, employed at lower wages. A few of the attacks resulted in the destruction of the textile mills which were burned. Another escalation saw death threats sent to the factory owners, telling them to get rid of the machines

The men would be called Luddites.

An historical analysis noted that “There does not seem to have been any political motivation behind the Luddite riots and there was no national organization. The men were merely attacking what they saw as the reason for the decline in their livelihoods.”

Great Britain was in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars which had resulted in difficult times for the working class. The introduction of the automated machines, taking place during that same time, was part of the shift in that nation—and later on in the United States—to a capitalistic economy, aided by advances in technology. Skilled artisans, like those who produced textiles, gradually lost their bargaining power and their place in the social hierarchy.

In addition, they lacked any political power. Only three percent of the population were allowed to vote, mainly wealthy landowners or men of trade (the merchant class). Those ‘three percent’, controlling the levers of power in the Parliament, passed laws that (by today’s standards) would be regarded as harsh and oppressive, designed to keep the ’97 percent’ subservient and obedient.  As for a safety net, not much of one existed. Being poor and destitute in “merry old England” in those years was not a pleasant prospect.

The government responded by sending troops, witch clashes occurring between the soldiers and the Luddites. Parliament, meanwhile, passed a law in 1812 that made “machine breaking” (industrial sabotage) a capital crime.

As a side note, Lord Byron—the famous English writer who happened to be a member of Parliament—spoke on behalf of the working class in opposing the measure and denouncing what he regarded as “the government’s inane policies and ruthless repression.” He used the phrase “squalid wretchedness” to describe their plight.

Troops were only one means of ending the movement. British justice was the other. In a mass trial at York in 1813, over 60 men were put on trial and charged with various crimes. Interestingly, the historical accounts note that not everyone charged was an actual Luddite and that several men were acquitted and some let go due to a lack of adequate evidence.

However, a number were found guilty. Several were executed, while others were transported to the penal colony in Australia. The trials and punishments, aimed as a deterrent, worked. The movement soon faded, although a few attacks on machines took place during the next few years.

Some of the historians have claimed that the men who instigated these attacks were not necessarily attempting to halt the progress of technology with their choice of tactics, rather most of them “were primarily concerned with survival and meeting their daily needs.” Without political or economic power, they regarded smashing the machines as being their best option for gaining a better bargaining position with the factory owners.

That contention, accurate or not, is put forth as an historical nuance, because, (as we know) the term Luddite has become a familiar part of our vocabulary—defined as someone “opposed to industrialization, automation, computerization, or new technologies in general.”

* * *

Interestingly, England experienced another round of violence against machines a few years later. In 1830 a widespread uprising was launched by agricultural workers in the southern and eastern areas of the nation “in protest against agricultural mechanism and other harsh working and social conditions.”

The uprising is known as the Swing Riots

Their target were the threshing machines being introduced onto English farms—a piece of equipment that had been invented for the purpose of removing the grain seeds (wheat, rye, barley, etc.) from the stalks and husks. Before this machine appeared, the separation was done by hand with flails. It took a lot of work and time and, with large fields, required a number of workers.

The threshing machine, the historians explain, were a hated symbol for a lot of things that were making the life of these agriculture workers more difficult and precarious. The legal process of enclosing ‘the commons’ and giving the land to wealthy farmers, thus taking away their means of having a few livestock and their own gardens, had been a major change.

Coinciding with this had been a gradual lowering of wages paid to the landless workers by those rich farmers, less certainty in whether or not they could find work or for how long, plus the tithe system that required them to pay cash to the Anglican Church whether they were members or not, also were causes of the “progressive impoverishment and dispossession of the English agricultural workforce over the previous fifty years, leading up to 1830.”

The mechanism of farming, while resulting in a larger and more stable food supply and helping feed all of those workers who (having little other choice) were taking jobs at the factories, was aiding and abetting this change in economic and social status. Frustrated, angry, and fearful, they took it out on the threshing machines.

Their main goal, according to the historical accounts, was “simply to attain a minimum living wage and to end rural unemployment.”

British justice was again utilized to end the uprising. Nearly 2,000 protesters were put on trial over the next couple of years. Several were sent to the gallows, 644 men were imprisoned, and 481 of them had a one-way trip to Australia.

The Swing Riots happened to take place, and perhaps were a manifestation of a wider unrest being felt in Britain. There had been calls for political and social reforms, with the former being aimed by expanding the voting franchise beyond the three percent population.

The United States, with the arrival of Andrew Jackson as president, was undergoing a similar demand for change—demos, the people, (as in democracy) had arrived as a social force.

All of that history offered a familiar echo to what’s happening in our more modern times. I read recently in The Detroit News, in a guest column, that “Since Waymo, a google spin-off, launched its driverless car pilot program in 2017, more than 20 incidents of vandalism have taken place in these vehicles.”

“From slashed tires to being run off the road, this heated public backlash is shining an intense spotlight on the cultural changes that lie ahead as Americans begin encountering this new technological phenomenon,” it was noted.

The columnist asks the reader to remember, “that disruptive change isn’t always bad” and seeks to make the case that driverless-car technology, once implemented, will eliminate human error—a cause of most traffic deaths.

A compelling argument on behalf of change, I’d agree but (as he noted) “disruptive.”

We’re seeing that disruption—accompanied by the human reactions of anger, uncertainty, and fear—with the announcement this past December by General Motors of restructuring plans that will affect more than 14,000 employees, with some having their positions eliminated and others having to transfer to a different plant or needing to learn a new set of skills.

Driverless cars are not the sole cause for what’s happening at General Motors or in the auto industry. But it does appear to be the catalyst for this apparent need to downsize and restructure in order to be competitive in creating vehicles that will use this evolving technology and, in doing so, attract Wall Street capital.

This is, of course, only the latest episode in changes with our domestic automakers—the companies that made Detroit the ‘Motor City Capital of the World’ and helped make Michigan a prosperous place for most of the 20^th century. The downsizing, plant closures and realignments, reductions in work force due to automation and outsourcing, competition for foreign automakers, plus the bankruptcies suffered by GM and Chrysler, have cause their share of disruption—and hurt more than a few workers, their families, other businesses, and communities.

But in fairness, the wealth and opportunity they created in those years—and still do—has been beneficial. Which is why the changes, and losses, are so acutely felt.

And what’s happened in our auto industry has happened with other industries and to other areas of the nation. Examples include the coal miners of West Virginia, the textile workers in Massachusetts, all of those small farms that once dotted the countryside, and suburban shopping malls.

Manufacturing, though, is where the shift has been profound. A recent article in the ‘Detroit Free Press’ on the disappearing middle class noted that “From 1980 to 2000, two million American manufacturing jobs were lost. From 2000 to 2017, a fewer number of years, the number of manufacturing jobs that disappeared nearly tripled, rising to 5.5 million—a loss of 7.5 million jobs in nearly 40 years.”

Most of those were good-paying jobs—the ticket to a middle-class lifestyle and upward mobility; a promise of good times both now and for the next generation.

There are other jobs, new ones created by technological innovation and advancement. New business opportunities. New economic paradigms.

But what’s also been happening over the past few decades, coinciding with this loss of manufacturing jobs, is a growing gap in income equity. Those in the upper income brackets are doing well, with the very wealthy (as is usually the case) doing extremely well. Most of the income, it appears, is flowing in this direction. The middle class, meanwhile, is shrinking, meaning that the lower income bracket is increasing.

 An anemic growth in wages, the loss of fringe benefits, the higher cost of living, fewer of those good-paying jobs, a rise in personal household debt, governmental tax policies, and all of the changes to the workplace and to the business landscape caused by technology and shifting capital are among the reasons for this downward trend.

* * *

The Luddites did not succeed in stopping the use of automated equipment, the Swing Riots did not end the use of threshing machines, nor (I’m guessing) will slashing the tires of a driverless car halt the arrival of this change. Yet, I doubt that too many of us, in hindsight, would argue that we should return to weaving textile with hand looms or threshing wheat with flails. Within a few decades, perhaps, people will regard steering wheels, brakes, and gas pedals in the say way we do a hand-cranked telephone or a manual typewriter.

The labor-saving device. The fastest and most efficient means of production. The latest gadget. Right or wrong, good or bad, prudent or ill advised, they are what seems to propel us forward despite our cautions, misgivings, and the human toll and social upheaval they cause. Like it or not, ready or not, here they come.

Daniel Howe, the business columnist with ‘The Detroit News’, made that point in a recent article about driverless cars and the changes its causing to the auto industry, a topic he writes about more and more frequently these days. Howe cautioned that in the short term, this particular technology is probably not going to be that noticeable, taking its time to get here. But once it does, look out.

 “Massive change is coming because if the technology exists it can’t be stopped,” he said.

But it’s the human toll, the disruption, we need to be mindful of. To mitigate as best possible with governmental policy and social attitude. As history shows, we have proven to be resourceful, resilient, and able to adapt to those changes. But, unfortunately, when faced with uncertainty, many people look for a target, a scapegoat, or a return to the status quo.

And they look for something or someone easy to blame. Something to smash.

Steve Horton is a mid-Michigan journalist and editor-publisher of the ‘Fowlerville News & Views’, a weekly newspaper.