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Author Mueller, Gavin, author.

Title Breaking things at work : the Luddites are right about why you hate your job / Gavin Mueller.

Publication Info. London ; New York : Verso, an imprint of New Left Books, 2021.
©2021

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Cheshire Public Library - Adult Department Lower Level  303.483 MUELLER    Check Shelf
Description viii, 168 pages ; 21 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 137-158) and index.
Summary "In the nineteenth century, English textile workers responded to the introduction of new technologies on the factory floor by smashing them to bits. For years the Luddites roamed the English countryside, practicing drills and maneuvers that they would later deploy on unsuspecting machines. The movement has been derided by scholars as a backwards-looking and ultimately ineffectual effort to stem the march of history; for Gavin Mueller, the movement gets at the heart of the antagonistic relationship between all workers, including us today, and the so-called progressive gains secured by new technologies. The Luddites weren't primitive and they are still a force, however unconsciously, in the workplaces of the twenty-first century world. Breaking Things at Work is an innovative rethinking of labor and machines, leaping from textile mills to algorithms, from existentially threatened knife cutters of rural Germany to surveillance-evading truckers driving across the continental United States. Mueller argues that the future stability and empowerment of working-class movements will depend on subverting these technologies and preventing their spread wherever possible. The task is intimidating, but the seeds of this resistance are already present in the neo-Luddite efforts of hackers, pirates, and dark web users who are challenging surveillance and control, often through older systems of communication technology"-- Provided by publisher.
Contents Introduction -- The nights of King Ludd -- Tinkerers, taylors, soldiers, wobs -- Against automation -- High-tech Luddism -- Conclusion.
Subject Technology -- Social aspects.
Luddites.
Luddites. (OCoLC)fst01003386
Technology -- Social aspects. (OCoLC)fst01145202
ISBN 9781786636775 (paperback)
1786636778 (paperback)
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