<Articles>Reconsideration of the Luddism

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Other Title
  • <論説>ラダイト運動の再検討 : ミッドランドおよび北部綿工業地帯の場合
  • ラダイト運動の再検討--ミッドランドおよび北部綿工業地帯の場合
  • ラダイト ウンドウ ノ サイケントウ ミッドランド オヨビ ホクブメン コウギョウ チタイ ノ バアイ

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Abstract

According to the accepted theory, the Luddism was the traditional domestic workers' desperate rising against the introduction of the laboursaving machinery. The Luddism, on the contrary, started in two centres of the movement, that is, in the Midlands and Lancashire, with no relation to it. The author, therefore, concluded that the machine-breaking was no more than tactics of Luddites and their intention was the political reform. Though workers' political reform movement was recessed by dissolution of the London Corresponding Society in 1799, the Luddism called it forth again. The Luddism was not a pro-economic but a political and economic movement. We must not diminish the Luddites' aim into conservatism. They resisted against the alienation of labour by the popularization of the factory system. They tried actively to defend the independence and autonomy of production in order to continue the "legitimate" and "moral" way of life. Such a mental attitude of workers, the author thinks, is still held by the present English working class in promoting the Co-operative Movement.

Journal

  • 史林

    史林 55 (6), 780-803, 1972-11-01

    THE SHIGAKU KENKYUKAI (The Society of Historical Research), Kyoto University

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