As most know, the Unabomber is about anti technology and a return to simpler times. But where did he get this idea? He was not the first to preach a revolution against technology, and he is not the only one to be preaching it now. There is a history to their philosophy that begins back in England in the early 1800's. Industrial workers in the area would put pressure on their employers by breaking machines until their demands were met. These attacks on machines did not imply any necessary hostility to machinery as such; the machines were just any easy target.(Thomis) At first the machine breaking was just a workers way of getting their employers attention. This soon changed.

Factories began to get larger and machines better. The new machines meant an end to social custom and community. The new revolt was a fight for their livelihoods not just for getting someone's attention. This new industrial revolution was supposedly led by one Ned Ludd who is honored in many old Luddite songs but his existence is only speculation. They did not like what all the new machines and factories were doing to their way of life and they revolted against it.

Now in the 20th century we again here the name Luddite being used and their philosophies being thrown around but, who are these people and what do they stand for? These new Luddites have latched on to their predecessors ideas of anti technology changed the philosophy behind it. The new Luddites are not fighting for their lives as their predecessors were, but for a misguided concept that the upcoming technology will be this world's downfall.

 This new following is being led by radical historians, authors, and journalists disagree with American media and technological progress. One such social critic, Kirkpatrick Sale, historian and author has written such books as Rebels Against the Future and demonstrates his hatred for the current technology by doing public demonstration of computer smashing. His views are not like the old Luddites at all other than the fact that they both broke machines. The old Luddites fought for their families and their way of life, he fights for against the idea of the machines themselves. Sale argues that they are "destructive and evil" and he also says that they are slowly displacing the labor force of the world.

Much of what Mr. Sale is just wrong. Millions of jobs have been destroyed by all the new technology but, as reported in the Economist, "Over the past 200 years the numbers of jobs has grown almost continuously, as have the real incomes of most people in the industrial world, and furthermore, this growth and enrichment have come about not in spite of technological change but because of it." Also the unemployment has remained constant at around 5% which was no different in the 50s and 60s. It is obvious that all the technological breakthroughs of the 20th century have not done much to the labor force.

To compare these new Luddites to the old is a difficult task. The old Luddites were in a period when the technology was thrown at them very quickly and left them little time to adjust. The new technology also threw them out of a lifestyle they had known and put them in a position of poverty and terrible working conditions. The new technology is doing no such thing and gives the new Luddites no reason to complain. If the computer age had done to us what the industrial revolution had done to the Luddites in the 1800's then they may have an argument but , they have done nothing but make our lives easier.