If Luddism had continued

Not too different. Maybe the US would be slightly weaker, but in most of the US's wars against other great powers (Revolution, 1812, Spanish American [To an extent on the land], World War 1, World War 2) it was outteched anyway. As for the anti-industrialist policy, it would have made the world wars harder, but the movement would have to realize that lives were at stake sometime.
 

Thande

Donor
Another Amish group, that is all.
The Luddites weren't like the Amish, they were activists destroying industry because it was taking their jobs. The Amish just culturally segregate themselves from modern technology but don't try to stop other people from using it.
 

mowque

Banned
The Luddites weren't like the Amish, they were activists destroying industry because it was taking their jobs. The Amish just culturally segregate themselves from modern technology but don't try to stop other people from using it.

But if they want to stay viable, any violent tendencies will be beat out of them.
 
What I am asking is, was there ever a time or nearly a moment when a law or an action could have seriously retarded the progress of technology?
 
But if they want to stay viable, any violent tendencies will be beat out of them.

In that case they won't want to stay viable. The Amish movement had religion to keep it going. The Luddites were just a generational movement.
 
What I am asking is, was there ever a time or nearly a moment when a law or an action could have seriously retarded the progress of technology?
Luddites weren't about retarding the progress of technology, they were against centralisation of industry. To clarify, they were against cloth manufacturing moving from their homes, where they got paid fairly well and could order their days labour as they saw fit, to mills where they got paid next to nothing, worked excruciating hours, and could be locked in until their shifts ended or the mill burnt down, whichever came first.
 
Speaking as a selective neo-small L luddite myself, I don't believe the original Luddite movement could grow any larger than it was because money was being made from industries spawn from scientific and technological discoveries and creations. At the time, the changes in social fabric were deemed undesirable. In addition, the poisoning of the environment from freely spewed industrial effluent was a consideration by newly-coined naturalists.

Neo-luddites are mostly concerned with newly derived electronic-based society. I personally had my first stirrings of neo-luddite feelings the first time a solid-state reliability no-moving-parts electronic ignition on my car failed and I couldn't fix it or even test it myself. I do not own a cell phone and I don't even know the names of various pocket electronic devices that I never wanted. I even use the computer with occasional misgivings. My wife owns the GPS. One of the advantages of marriage.
 
What would have caused an anti-tech society in America in the 1800's, if the luddite movement was bigger?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

what would the world be like today?

Why does it have to affect America? At the time America was mostl yagricultural with little by the means of industry, and so therefore would be completely unaffected, and that's ignoring the Atlantic Ocean-that enormous barrier to communication and exchange of ideas.

Luddism was almost a purely English phenomenon, and although there were other anti-industrialising moveemnts, none was quite like it. Honestly, I think it was a flash in the pan. They made their protests by smashing machinery because they feared they were being made redundant, and also protested against tolls. At most, I'd say Parliament would pass an Act that would supress them and maybe dispatch a few armed units to disperse them. Ultaimately, the indsutrial revolution was in full swing and the Luddite movement was too little too late.
 
The Luddites weren't just machine breakers. In some ways they were ahead of their time. They wanted compensation to go to workers made redundant, and an improvement in working conditions.
 
What I am asking is, was there ever a time or nearly a moment when a law or an action could have seriously retarded the progress of technology?
How about the current legislation in some 'western' countries limiting stem cell research? Add in the violent threatening (and worse) of researchers and their facilities and the Luddites are alive and well.

Unless, of course, one adopts the prejudiced attitude of 'It's not progress if I don't like it!'
 
Chinese production techniques...

On a nearly daily basis I see poor-quality cameras with poor-quality film marked 'made in china' or 'assembled in china', probably by some poor soul paid in little but some rice. Just a tiny outcrop of a cheap labour rush that is removing skills from Western Europe to China and Korea.

When a Glasgow wire-drawing firm subcontracts all its production to People's Republic of China and closes its Glasgow factory, leaving employees redundant, but still marketing the products as its own, where's the justice in that?

And at the same time I see 'Fair Trade' schemes for theThird World!

Thoughts, folks?
 
On a nearly daily basis I see poor-quality cameras with poor-quality film marked 'made in china' or 'assembled in china', probably by some poor soul paid in little but some rice. Just a tiny outcrop of a cheap labour rush that is removing skills from Western Europe to China and Korea.

When a Glasgow wire-drawing firm subcontracts all its production to People's Republic of China and closes its Glasgow factory, leaving employees redundant, but still marketing the products as its own, where's the justice in that?

And at the same time I see 'Fair Trade' schemes for theThird World!

Thoughts, folks?

That's life. If they can work cheaper and more efficiently why wouldn't companies go to them? It's happening here in Singapore where Singaporeans are complaining about service industry jobs going to Chinese and Filipinos. The employers frankly say that Singaporeans won't work as hard or as cheaply in the service sector. That's the way it goes. Having lived in the UK for four years and having seen the general work ethic of the British worker, I can't say I'm surprised at all this outsourcing either.

And don't think I didn't see that completely non sequitur jab at Fair Trade. Fair Trade concentrates mainly on sustainable and fair agricultural practices. Unless the vast coffee and cocoa plantations of the UK languish with no men at the plough I somehow doubt that some poor peasant in Ghana is competing with the Great British Worker.
 
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Hendryk

Banned
When a Glasgow wire-drawing firm subcontracts all its production to People's Republic of China and closes its Glasgow factory, leaving employees redundant, but still marketing the products as its own, where's the justice in that?
Aren't free markets great?

You want the economy to be just, you need government intervention. Left to its own devices the market simply looks for the quickest way to make a buck, and cares absolutely nothing for making people redundant or what have you.
 
Aren't free markets great?

You want the economy to be just, you need government intervention. Left to its own devices the market simply looks for the quickest way to make a buck, and cares absolutely nothing for making people redundant or what have you.

Most current members of the Reublican Party should probably learn the above statement in a two-week course.
 
The Luddites were largely a British phenomenon initially they weren't mindless wreckers but sought to negotiate with factory owners on the introduction of machinery. Trade unions had been suppressed under the combination acts. However the situation rapdily escalated and the luddites became more and more violent as did the suppression. Their main effect of their being stronger would have been that Britain's industrial competitors might have gained advantage. As far as I am aware they had no influence in the United States. One invention in the United States that might have been smashed with beneficial consequences was the cotton gin as it prolongued slavery in the Southern States and had slavery died a natural death there would probably have been no Civil War
 
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