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Fear of job loss attributed to increased technology in the workplace has recently reached a high point perhaps not seen since the Luddite uprisings and property destruction in British textile factories more than two hundred years ago. There is little evidence of direct property destruction connected with modern Luddite philosophy,1 but if we take our cues from contemporary media hyperbole over the rapid advance of technology and its connection to worker displacement,2 it cannot be long before the "destroyers of machines" are at the gates, pitchforks at the ready.
Since the shift to an information economy and the dawn of the "Internet Age," pundits and scholars of all stripes have popularized the notion that advances in information technology embodied in robotics and automated production machinery will mean the "end of work" (the title of Jeremy Rifkin's polemic published in 1995) and perhaps the end of civilization as we know it. Even some economists, a group who should be naturally skeptical of Luddite fallacies, are instead lending credibility to them. The esteemed Lawrence Summers recendy lamented that because of advances in technology and software-driven automation, there are "more sectors losing jobs than creating jobs. And the general-purpose aspect of software technology means that even the industries and jobs that it creates are not forever. ... If current trends continue, it could well be that a generation from now a quarter of middle-aged men will be out of work at any given moment" (2014).
The modern Luddite impulse appears not to be overtly antitechnology or antimachine per se, even though that tendency may be latent among some. Critics expressing fears about modern technology are generally careful not to reject the technology itself for fear of losing their audience altogether. They know at some level the tremendous improvements in the quality of life that information technologies have brought to the average person. Consider William Galston's skeptical nod to technology but with vague reservations: "No doubt the latest technological wave has brought gains to average Americans as consumers. But the losses it has inflicted on average Americans as producers is far more consequential" (2014).
Instead of being strictly antimachine, the modern Luddite impulse typically reflects an anti-inequality ideology (Ford 2014; Hanson 2015). Noted MIT economist David Autor openly confessed...