Profil

My argument for Luddism rests on the fact that Luddism is popular, and the principle that radical intellectuals are better off listening to what people are saying than attempting to lead their thoughts.

— Breaking Things at Work by Gavin Mueller

Technological development leads to vast accumulations of wealth, and with that, power, for the people who exploit workers. In turn, technology reduces the autonomy of workers —their ability to organize themselves to fight against their exploiters. It robs people of the feeling that they can control their own lives, that they can set the terms of their world. If you have an interest in the fates of these people, and count yourself as someone who wants a more egalitarian future than the current system can provide, you should be critical of technology, and acknowledge those moments where people, especially those at work, have resisted it.

— Breaking Things at Work by Gavin Mueller

The argument for deceleration is not based on satisfying nature, human or otherwise, but in recognizing the challenges facing strategies for organizing the working class. The constant churn of recomposition and reorganization, what media scholar Nick Dyer-Witheford calls “the digital vortex” of contemporary capitalism, scarcely gives workers time to get back on their feet, let alone fight. Decelerationism is not a withdrawal to a slower pace of life, but the manifestation of an antagonism toward the progress of elites at the expense of the rest of us. It is Walter Benjamin’s emergency brake. It is a wrench in the gears.

— Breaking Things at Work by Gavin Mueller