Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech
by Brian Merchant
The Luddites were right about the bosses.
For you if
you have been called anti-progress for questioning who a new machine serves.
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The Luddites were not people who hated technology. They were skilled textile workers who watched owners use new machines to cut wages and break up their trade, and who fought back, sometimes with hammers. Merchant retells their rebellion and the state's brutal answer, then draws a line to today's gig workers, warehouse crews and AI-driven layoffs. It is a history book that makes you rethink an insult.
Where This Book Lives
Pass with note. Merchant is a tech journalist writing as an advocate, and the Luddite-to-today comparison is an argument, not proof; some historians will want more on the period's context. No documented author concerns. Close relatives: Against Tech Oligarchy, The Nerd Reich, Enshittification and The Making of the English Working Class (suggested 10-17).
Related Viewing
Shares a topic or setting with this book, or several of its themes.
Food, Inc.(2008)
dir. Robert Kenner
Same themes: Collective Action, Corporate Greed
Follow a burger back to the companies that own it.
Kenner follows an American hamburger and a chicken breast back through the industrial food system: the feedlot, the meatpacking plant, the seed company that sues farmers and the regulators who came from the companies they oversee. Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser guide the way, and the farmers and workers do most of the talking.
Why it’s here: The film turns a trip to the grocery store into a lesson in who holds the power. What's punk is the farmers who risk everything to talk on camera. What's pedagogical is that it shows a system, not a villain, and ends on what a shopper can do. Pairs with the new book Stuffed and Starved, plus The Story of Stuff and Garbology. Note: it's an advocacy film, and the industry has disputed parts of its picture; the film does show some industry refusals to appear.
Where to watch: Free: Kanopy, Hoopla, Roku Channel, Fandango At Home Free (ads); Prime Video subscription; rent $2.99 on Amazon and Fandango At Home, $3.99 Apple TV (JustWatch US, checked 2026-10-19). Verify.Letterboxd ↗
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