Machine-Breaking in England and France During the Age of Revolution (Controversy/Controverse‪)‬

THE TRIUMPH OF THE MACHINE is part of the heroic story of industrialization currently told by many historians. In these accounts of the great transformation, the inherent logic of laissez-faire capitalism brushed aside all opposition. Yet, alongside these heroic accounts, an important set of literatures has arisen that understands the British state as liberal in ideology, but fundamentally interventionist in practice. These interpretations intertwine to portray the oft-times violent reaction of the working classes to the introduction of mechanized production, including, most notoriously, the Luddite movement of 1811-1817, as only a minor, temporary hurdle to be vaulted easily on the fast track to industrial society. David Landes summed up this vision of the period: "the workers, especially those bypassed by machine industry, said little but were undoubtedly of another mind." (1) Nor can it go without saying that such a cavalier attitude about the reactions of the working classes to mechanization is, in no way, limited to understandings of industrialization in Great Britain. An epic version of industrialization overlooks the true nature of the barrier to both technology transfer and mechanization formed by the resistance of the labouring classes to the introduction of the machine. (2) This essay will attempt to depict the dramatic impact that the violent wrecking of machines had on entrepreneurial decision-making and state action in England and France. Resistance to the machine must be situated in its local, regional, national, and international contexts in order to understand the consequences of organized, violent machine-breaking on the course of industrial development. The movements that led to the widespread destruction of machines were organized regionally rather than locally and the patterns of entrepreneurial reaction, technological development, and technology transfer, as well as mechanization, also varied by region.