In some ways, it is easy — and tempting — to write off the neo-Luddites as sad-sack ’60s refugees, aging
hippies who pine away for a romantic, preindustrial idyll that never existed in the first place or, to the extent
it did, was actually characterized by large-scale human deprivation. But in the wake of demonstrations in
Seattle over the World Trade Organization and, more recently, in Quebec over the Free Trade Agreement of
the Americas, it is clear the neo-Luddite mentality is not only widespread, but a powerful motivating force in
attacks on free trade and technological innovation.Those of us who believe that markets and technology offer the best hope for reducing human poverty and
misery — and for increasing human opportunity and flourishing — would do well to examine the basic
premises of the neo-Luddite movement and engage its underlying fallacies. Because it drew together so
many of the intellectual architects of the neo-Luddite movement, the IFG Teach-In provides a perfect
occasion for such an exercise.
Smug, superior Reason commentator succeeds in showing us how uncritically naive are his own boundless optimism and kneejerk opposition to government regulation. Actually tries to ridicule neo-Luddite concerns about new technology by citing the invention of fire, bows and arrows, crop cultivation, domestication of animals, the invention of writing…
