Paul Krugman: Sympathy for the Luddites

In 1786, the cloth workers of Leeds, a wool-industry center in northern England, issued a protest
against the growing use of “scribbling” machines, which were taking over a task formerly
performed by skilled labor. “How are those men, thus thrown out of employ to provide for their
families?” asked the petitioners. “And what are they to put their children apprentice to?”

Those weren’t foolish questions. Mechanization eventually — that is, after a couple of generations
— led to a broad rise in British living standards. But it’s far from clear whether typical workers
reaped any benefits during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution; many workers were clearly
hurt. And often the workers hurt most were those who had, with effort, acquired valuable skills —
only to find those skills suddenly devalued.