Unemployment. To many Europeans of the late eighteenth century, industrialization appeared neither inevitable nor desirable. Cottage workers and artisans were especially concerned about its effect on their employment. Small spinning jennies that could be set up in people's homes increased a spinner's productivity without throwing other people out of work, but larger jennies, Arkwright's water frame, and Crompton's mule did more than increase productivity. They moved workers into factories and threw hand spinners out of work. Unemployment likewise resulted for shearmen, who hand cut the nap from woolen cloth, when a shearing machine was invented; for weavers, when mechanical looms began to spread; and for stocking knitters, when a new flat knitting frame was invented.

Luddism. Unemployed workers and their sympathizers, as well as men who worked with machines and who wanted to put pressure...