{"id":45173,"date":"2025-03-30T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-30T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/?p=45173"},"modified":"2025-04-02T09:38:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T08:38:32","slug":"the-mechanic-and-the-luddite-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/culture-media\/books\/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mechanic and the Luddite – review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Title:<\/strong> Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author:<\/strong> Jathan Sadowski<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher:<\/strong> University of California Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year:<\/strong> 2025<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

In 2025 I have resolved to escape the clutches of my smartphone, which has turned out to be no small task \u2013 it encroaches on every aspect of my day-to-day life, from communication and banking to two factor authentication and navigation. This creeping dependence is just one aspect of the pervasive techno capitalism tackled by political economist Jathan Sadowski in The Mechanic and the Luddite<\/em>. Throughout its eight chapters, Sadowski casts a withering gaze on the digital technology industry and its oligarchs, encouraging the reader to engage in rigorous material analysis by embodying two figures: the Mechanic and the Luddite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadowski\u2019s Mechanic offers an antidote to widespread de-skilling and alienation from technical knowledge, for users to seek understanding of their everyday tools. Through this de-mystification, we can imagine their alternative applications and recognise when they are used for control or disempowerment. Should the latter arise, enter the Luddite. Consigned to history as stubbornly anti progress, the early 1800s movement<\/a> was in fact a highly organised direct-action campaign, which precisely targeted the machinery of exploitative textile factory owners. Through the Luddite, the reader may adopt a decisive refusal to allow new technologies to be blindly adopted without the consent of those whose lives and labour will be impacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These titular characters are not heard from again until the book\u2019s conclusion. In the interim chapters \u2013 standalone essays on innovation, data, labour, landlords and risk \u2013 Sadowski deftly demonstrates how digital technologies have developed inseparably from and in service of capitalism. Now inextricable from our lives, they have come to be tools of subsumption, shaping the social environment to fit the demands of capital. Data has become an asset, accumulated in mass and valued by its potential application. As such, our platforms and devices are designed to capture reams of user information, with little option to opt out, for their corporate owners to use with impunity \u2013 often reinforcing societal inequalities when used to algorithmically determine welfare recipients<\/a>, insurance<\/a> claims or other societal mechanisms, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is indeed a \u2018radical potential\u2019 in the text\u2019s argument, but I fear an individualised and abstract politics of refusal may not provide a rupture of adequate scale or force<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While each chapter stays true to the Marxian \u2018ruthless critique<\/a>\u2019 promised by the book\u2019s subtitle, the essays on labour and landlords stand out. In \u2018Labour\u2019, Sadowski lays a pathway for contemporary Luddism, demonstrating not only how technology continues to devalue workers but how over-hyped AI products mask the invisible labour of moderators, ghost drivers and the humans behind chatbots \u2013 a global outsourcing industry that reinforces geopolitical and colonial inequalities \u2013 to maintain the mythos of technology. \u2018Landlords\u2019 proposes that the logics of rentier capitalism have become enmeshed within the tech industry \u2013 subscription based softwares, paid-for platforms and streaming services make up what Sadowski calls \u2018the internet of landlords<\/a>\u2019, where access to now essential tools is privatised, gatekept and controlled by corporations. Avoiding the trappings of idealism often found in even the most critical work, Sadowski never deifies technology, careful not to perpetuate narratives of its inescapability and power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last decade has seen a growing trend of techno-scepticism, as it becomes clear that the incessant drive towards innovation<\/a>, efficiency and solutionism comes at the expense of global justice. In The Mechanic and the Luddite<\/em>, Sadowski succeeds in pulling together disparate cases into a robust structural analysis, arguing for materialist critique. His argument is so strong, in fact, that the final chapter \u2018Futures\u2019 \u2013 which opens with an admission that he offers no solutions to the clear crisis he has laid out \u2013 risks leaving the reader unsure of what is to be done. While the Luddites were unwavering in turning critique to praxis, Sadowski writes of the need to \u2018actively intervene against the impositions of capital\u2019 but skirts around the form that intervention may take, making only vague allusions to \u2018smashing\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is indeed a \u2018radical potential\u2019 in the text\u2019s argument, but I fear an individualised and abstract politics of refusal may not provide a rupture of adequate scale or force. The final section of \u2018Landlords\u2019 turns to the land that houses the backbone of the digital world \u2013 data centres, network-peering points and other energy-consumptive infrastructure \u2013 a reminder of the physical manifestations of techno-capitalism that I\u2019m sure would ignite the imagination of a militant Luddite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book does not pretend to be a manifesto, but it demonstrates a dire need for one. Clearly, the runaway train of technology under capitalism, and capitalism reinforced through technology, is on track to foreclose the possibility of a just future, \u2018colonising our norms, ideals and desires\u2019. Sadowski has outlined the state of affairs in a way that cannot be disregarded, and his book must be, as he writes and as I hope, a \u2018starting pistol\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article first appeared in Issue #247 The Last Issue?<\/em> Subscribe<\/a> today to support independent socialist media and get your copy hot off the press!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jathan Sadowski’s book lays the groundwork for a more cohesive resistance against capitalist technology, writes Paula Lacey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":45176,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103,356,1977,295],"tags":[2913],"class_list":["post-45173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-capitalism","category-history","category-technology","tag-paula-lacey"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Mechanic and the Luddite - review - Red Pepper<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jathan Sadowski's book lays the groundwork for a more cohesive resistance against capitalist technology, writes Paula Lacey\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/culture-media\/books\/the-mechanic-and-the-luddite-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Mechanic and the Luddite - 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