Join NIBS and CRAM for the launch of Jathan Sadowski's latest book The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism (University of California Press). Jathan will be joined by Lizzie O'Shea and Chris O'Neill for a conversation about the book.
This short book demystifies how the two systems of technology and capitalism work together and equips readers with practical tools to dismantle them and build a better world, bit by bit.
Our society is constantly made to serve the needs of two systems: technology and capitalism. Neither exists outside humans, but both are treated as above and beyond us. The Mechanic and the Luddite offers the critical tools needed to deconstruct these systems—how they work, whom they work for, and what work they do in our lives. With signature style and energy, Jathan Sadowski presents a provocative one-stop shop for understanding the political economy of technology and capitalism.
Each chapter breaks down key features of technological capitalism, offering sharp, synthetic, and authoritative analysis of topics like innovation, labor, data, and risk. It’s not enough to know how the machinery of capitalism is put together and how its parts operate; we must also know whom the machines serve and when they should be taken apart, to be rebuilt for new purposes or destroyed for good. The Mechanic and the Luddite provides the political guidance needed to make these crucial decisions.
Dr Jathan Sadowski is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University. He is author of the bookToo Smart: How Digital Capitalism is Extracting Data, Controlling Our Lives, and Taking Over the World and host of the podcast This Machine Kills.
Lizzie O'Shea is a human rights lawyer, writer, and founder and chair of Digital Rights Watch, which advocates for freedom, fairness and fundamental rights in the digital age. Her book Future Histories (Verso, 2019), was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award.
Dr Christopher O'Neill studies the place of automation in contemporary biopower at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization. He is a 2025 Fulbright Scholar to the University of Southern California, researching ‘error’ as a problematic for the automated workplace.