APOLOGIA FOR MACHINE BREAKERS

What they don't understand, those that mock

or wonder the Luddites, is

that the Luddites had nothing to gain from machines.

They could only lose, and

these later generations of bourgeois wonderers

and mockers

are blind to that fact: Progress

doesn't share its gifts equally;

often it takes without giving for generations.

If you couldn't own machines

they worked against you.

We might keep this in mind

with out robots and drones.

We must. The machines

took jobs, drove down wages - that's why

they were broken. Not because Luddites

were stupid or hidebound or superstitious.

The machines still take jobs

and drive down wages -

and they still benefit the same groups

as then, foremost,

and the fruits of plenty

vanish from our hands.

05.04.2018