It's not a meme, it's history. The machine breaking was a form of collective action by violence to form solidarity among workers who were under threat of losing wages and their livelihoods by the policies and actions of capital holders, not the machines themselves.
The capital holders spun the tale in retrospect that the movement was about the machines. "They just can't see progress! How daft do you have to be to not see the value of these wonderful machines! The productivity allows these people new leisure and the chance to do meaningful work... and they want to tear it down! How backward!"
It was about rights, liberties, and solidarity of workers. Some people did care about the quality of the textiles. But that's not enough to spark violent action in order to negotiate for better... textiles? No, it was for better working conditions, abolishment of child labour, etc.
Consider also that at the time, England was fighting Napolean on the European continent as well as the War of 1812 in North America. The textile industry was not good at allocating capital to survive the ups and downs: the factory owners only allocated enough to produce the next order. Layoffs were frequent, workers were over worked, and often paid little. Children were often employed because they were cheaper and had no bargaining power.
And where did the textile workers get displaced to? The myth from the capitalists is that they'd find new productive work elsewhere! It turns out... workhouses, the legally sanctioned indentured servitude that lasted up until the 1930s.
Had the Luddites won I doubt they would have destroyed all of the looming machines and forced us back into the days of hand-crafted textiles. The idea is preposterous. But maybe the workhouses wouldn't have developed, maybe there would have been more sensible labour laws earlier on. And we'd still have a more predictable and sensible textile industry.
The capital holders spun the tale in retrospect that the movement was about the machines. "They just can't see progress! How daft do you have to be to not see the value of these wonderful machines! The productivity allows these people new leisure and the chance to do meaningful work... and they want to tear it down! How backward!"
It was about rights, liberties, and solidarity of workers. Some people did care about the quality of the textiles. But that's not enough to spark violent action in order to negotiate for better... textiles? No, it was for better working conditions, abolishment of child labour, etc.
Consider also that at the time, England was fighting Napolean on the European continent as well as the War of 1812 in North America. The textile industry was not good at allocating capital to survive the ups and downs: the factory owners only allocated enough to produce the next order. Layoffs were frequent, workers were over worked, and often paid little. Children were often employed because they were cheaper and had no bargaining power.
And where did the textile workers get displaced to? The myth from the capitalists is that they'd find new productive work elsewhere! It turns out... workhouses, the legally sanctioned indentured servitude that lasted up until the 1930s.
Had the Luddites won I doubt they would have destroyed all of the looming machines and forced us back into the days of hand-crafted textiles. The idea is preposterous. But maybe the workhouses wouldn't have developed, maybe there would have been more sensible labour laws earlier on. And we'd still have a more predictable and sensible textile industry.
Machines aren't the problem, people are.