More and more people are adopting Luddism. Many more already feel Luddite sentiments, without knowing about the tradition.
The following are ten principles that capture the core commitments of Luddism and articulate, in broad terms, what Luddism means today. They are inspired by the original Luddites and contemporary thinkers. There is no claim to originality, only synthesis.
Work is required to interpret and defend the principles and to apply them to particular cases or problems. All are invited to contribute to that work.
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1. Luddism is not anti-technology per se. Luddism is a critique (across numerous dimensions) of the current ideology of technology that informs the social/political world in which particular technologies are developed and deployed.
2. A theory of technology should include the conception of technology as inherently political. That is to say, technology structures the world and people’s experience, often in ways unintended by the creators and with longterm effects that are difficult to predict.
3. Technology should contribute to human wellbeing in a robust sense, not in the minimal sense of appealing to base urges, thoughtlessness, or mere convenience.
4. Workers should be the (perhaps primary) beneficiaries of technology.
5. Development and implementation of technology should have greater democratic mechanisms.
6. Technologies should stem from ecological awareness. Technology should not be conceived as a means of dominating or subduing nature.
7. We should be suspicious of technologies that make people dependent on the technologies. If the dependence is not consistent with human and environmental wellbeing, we must resist the technologies.
8. Technology should be developed in a way that enables people to have a better understanding of it. There should be less opacity in technological development and the technologies themselves.
9. Technological development and deployment should be slower.
10. As we seek to develop technologies that plausibly belong in the moral community, we should consider the potential interests and well-being of the technologies themselves, not only their uses to human beings.
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