Is Anonymous a New Form of Luddism

Bibliographic Data

ID4052889
AuthorsM Deseriis (0000-0003-3472-080X)
Year2013
Volume2013
Issue117
Pages33-48
Publication date2013-10-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueRadical History Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0163-6545 • E-ISSN: 1534-1453
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/01636545-2210437
OpenAlexW1984594662
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited2

This article compares industrial machine breaking and computer hacking by focusing on the English Luddites and the contemporary hacker network Anonymous. In spite of their apparent differences, the two movements share at least three remarkable features. First, both the Luddites and Anonymous target machines of a specific kind - labor-saving machines in the case of the Luddites, machines that restrict access to information and information technology in the case of Anonymous. Second, both Anonymous and Ned Ludd are collective pseudonyms, or "multiple-use names," whose wild circulation in the public domain brings previously unrelated struggles within a common discursive space. Third, industrial machine breaking and computer hacking are comparable in that they both reduce the productivity of labor and capital. The article concludes by noting that a fundamental operational difference between industrial machines and cybernetic machines sets in motion processes of subjectivation and class composition that are not reducible to one another

Anonymity · Capital (architecture · Class (philosophy · Computer security · Domain (mathematical analysis · Economics · Hacker · Productivity · Computer Science · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · History · Mathematics · Artificial Intelligence

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access