Today's Luddites
The Entreprenurs
The Luddites were a group of people who wrongly believed their enemy was technology itself when their real enemies were those who owned and controlled those technologies for private profit. The Luddites of this century are the entrepreneurs who think new technology is the solution to the world’s problems – like using a larger shovel to dig oneself out of a hole. As the Luddites mistakenly believed technology was the enemy, so the entrepreneurs and their media think it is the solution. We hear this kind of thing all the time - how an “entrepreneurial startup is going to save the environment” in some way. We’re all supposed to celebrate, breath a sigh of relief and turn our weary minds to something other than environmental catastrophe. But as sure as 2+2 is not equal to 5, capitalism cannot provide a solution to climate catastrophe because it is contrary to how capitalism fundamentally functions.
The real solution is the democratic ownership of technologies by working people (those who design, build, maintain and operate them anyway) to be used, not for profit, but in the interests of all humanity. The capitalist class has become, worse than a fetter, but a threat to the existence of civilization. As Rosa Luxemburg once wrote, ‘we are standing at the crossroads, the option is socialism or barbarism ‘.
