Antimechanization

Antimechanization is a term used to describe a stance or social current that opposes or seeks to restrain the spread of mechanization and automation in production, work organization, and daily life. It emphasizes human-scale methods, skilled manual labor, and local autonomy, arguing that rapid mechanization can erode livelihoods, degrade skills, and undermine social ties.

Historically, antimechanization overlaps with anti-industrial and craft-oriented movements that critique technological rationalization. In some contexts it aligns with agrarian reform or utopian communal thought that values traditional practices. The best-known historical reference is the Luddites of early 19th-century Britain, who attacked textile machinery as a threat to workers. In scholarship, antimechanization is often used descriptively to analyze resistance to technology and to discuss governance of technological change rather than as a single, unified program.

Key concerns center on economic displacement and wage pressure, social fragmentation or alienation, cultural loss of craft knowledge, and ethical or ecological questions about resource use. Proponents may advocate appropriate technology, small-scale or cooperatively organized production, protected jobs and training, or policies to slow or regulate automation so that social and environmental costs are managed.

In contemporary debates about automation, robotics, and AI, antimechanization ideas appear in discussions of deindustrialization, localism, universal basic income, and labor rights. Critics, however, warn that resisting mechanization can hinder productivity and living standards, and that adaptive strategies—such as retraining and gradual innovation—may better balance technological progress with social welfare.