E. P. Thompson on Luddites

Thompson's view of Luddism in The Making of the English Working Class

In his classic book on English history, [The Making of the English Working Class]?, E. P. Thompson presented a view on Luddite history. Thompson's approach might well be taken to illustrate the view that, as often happens in history, it is the victor who writes the lines.

The Luddites are often characterised, and indeed their name has become synonymous with, people opposed to all change--in particular technological change such as that that was sweeping through the weaving shops in the industrial heart land of England. They are often characterised as violent, thuggish, and disorganised.

E. P. Thompson advances many arguments against this view of the Luddites. He aims to show that the Luddites were not, contrary to their usual portrayal, opposed to new technology; rather, they were opposed to the abolition of price defined by custom and practice and therefore also to the introduction of what we would today call the [free market]?.

Thompson argues that the usage of free market rhetoric has become so pervasive and commonplace nowadays that it is easy to forget that the notions of the free market were invented relatively recently, in fact at about the time of Luddities. Before this time an artisan would peform work for a given price. The notion of working out how much the materials cost them, how much work they did, and how much profit they made would have been alien to them, and indeed to most people of that time, Thompson holds.

Thompson supplies a number of examples that show it was the forcible introduction of a new economic system that was being introduced that the Luddites were protesting against. For example, the Luddite song, "General Ludd's Triumph":

The guilty may fear, but no vengeance he aims

At the honest man's life or Estate

His wrath is entirely confined to wide frames

And to those that old prices abate

"Wide frames" were the weaving frames, and the old prices were those prices agreed by custom and practice. Thompson cites the many historical accounts of Luddite raids on workshops where some frames were smashed whilst others (whose owners were obeying the old economic practice) were left untouched.

Secondly, Thompson counters the view that the Luddites were thuggish. There were remarkably few Luddite arrests and executions, and yet they operated highly effectively against the forces of the state. The best explanation for this is that they were working with the consent of the local communities (or indeed were part of those communities).

Thirdly, Thompson argued that the Luddites were not disorganised. He counters this using his trademark whimsical humour. He notes that some of the largest Luddite activities involved a hundred men. Thompson suggests that anyone who has ever tried to arrange a darts? match down the local pub? would realise how much organisation this feat alone took.

In short, Thompson feels that in caricaturing the Luddities as thugs who just wanted to smash up new technology we are simply continuing the propaganda of time. The reality, on Thompson's view, was that the Luddites were normal people who were protesting against for forced introduction of changes into their lives which they thought would be highly damaging. Looking 50 years into the Luddites' future, the diseased, poorly fed, and desperate operators in the weaving factories, and the swathe of destruction launched upon on the traditional weaving communities--some with 500 years of history--suggests to Thompson that they may have been right.

Replies to Thompson

Please help by summarizing some of the replies that historians have made to Thompson.

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