Editing Luddite (section)

== Historical precedents ==
The machine-breaking of the Luddites followed from previous outbreaks of sabotage in the English textile industry, especially in the hosiery and woollen trades. Organised action by [[stockinger (occupation)|stockingers]] had occurred at various times since 1675.<ref>{{cite book|last=Binfield|first=Kevin|title=Luddites and Luddism|year=2004|publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press|location=Baltimore and London}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Rude|first=George|title=The Crowd in History: A Study of Popular Disturbances in France and England, 1730–1848|year=2001|publisher=Serif}}</ref><ref name="this" /> In [[Lancashire]], new cotton spinning technologies were met with violent resistance in 1768 and 1779. These new inventions produced textiles faster and cheaper because they could be operated by less-skilled, low-wage labourers.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Merchant |first=Brian |date=2 September 2014 |title=You've Got Luddites All Wrong |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/luddites-definition-wrong-labor-technophobe/ |magazine=[[Vice (magazine)|Vice]] |access-date=13 October 2014 |archive-date=23 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190523172806/https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ae379k/luddites-definition-wrong-labor-technophobe |url-status=live }}</ref> These struggles sometimes resulted in government suppression, via Parliamentary acts such as the [[Protection of Stocking Frames, etc. Act 1788]].

Periodic uprisings relating to asset prices also occurred in other contexts in the century before Luddism. Irregular rises in [[food prices]] provoked the [[Keelmen]] to riot in the [[port of Tyne]] in 1710<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43320 |title=Historical events – 1685–1782 &#124; Historical Account of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (pp. 47–65) |publisher=British History Online |date=2003-06-22 |access-date=2013-10-04 |archive-date=9 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130209181804/http://british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43320 |url-status=live }}</ref> and tin miners to steal from granaries at [[Falmouth, Cornwall|Falmouth]] in 1727.{{Efn|The Falmouth magistrates reported to the Duke of Newcastle (16 November 1727) that "the unruly tinners" had "broke open and plundered several cellars and granaries of corn." Their report concludes with a comment which suggests that they were not able to understand the rationale of the direct action of the tinners: "The occasion of these outrages was pretended by the rioters to be a scarcity of corn in the county, but this suggestion is probably false, as most of those who carried off the corn gave it away or sold it at a quarter price." PRO, SP 36/4/22.}} There was a rebellion in [[Northumberland]] and [[County Durham|Durham]] in 1740, and an assault on Quaker corn dealers in 1756.

Malcolm L. Thomas argued in his 1970 history ''The Luddites'' that machine-breaking was one of the very few tactics that workers could use to increase pressure on employers, undermine lower-paid competing workers, and create solidarity among workers. "These attacks on machines did not imply any necessary hostility to machinery as such; machinery was just a conveniently exposed target against which an attack could be made."<ref name="this">{{cite book|last=Thomis|first=Malcolm|title=The Luddites: Machine Breaking in Regency England|year=1970|publisher=Shocken}}</ref> Historian [[Eric Hobsbawm]] has called their machine wrecking "[[collective bargaining]] by riot", which had been a tactic used in Britain since the Restoration because manufactories were scattered throughout the country, and that made it impractical to hold large-scale strikes.{{sfn|Hobsbawm|1952|p=59}}<ref name="Autor2003">{{Cite journal |last1=Autor |first1=D. H. |last2=Levy |first2=F. |last3=Murnane |first3=R. J. |date=2003-11-01 |title=The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change: An Empirical Exploration |url=http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/569 |journal=The Quarterly Journal of Economics |language=en |volume=118 |issue=4 |pages=1279–1333 |doi=10.1162/003355303322552801|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100315142837/http://econ-www.mit.edu/files/569 |archive-date=15 March 2010 |hdl=1721.1/64306 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> An agricultural variant of Luddism occurred during the widespread [[Swing Riots]] of 1830 in southern and eastern England, centring on breaking [[threshing machine]]s.<ref name="harrison249">{{Cite book |title=The Common People: A History from the Norman Conquest to the Present |last=Harrison |first=J. F. C. |date=1984 |publisher=Croom Helm |isbn=0709901259 |location=London, Totowa, N.J |pages=249–53 |ol=OL16568504M}}</ref>