Jathan Sadowski / The Mechanic and the Luddite

Jathan Sadowski in conversation with Brian Merchant and Edward Ongweso Jr

City Lights and University of California Press celebrates the publication of

The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism

By Jathan Sadowski

Published by University of California Press

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.

Jathan Sadowski is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University. He is author of the book Too Smart :How Digital Capitalism is Extracting Data, Controlling Our Lives, and Taking Over the World and host of the podcast This Machine Kills, both on the political economy of technology.

Brian Merchant is a journalist and author who covers technology, labor, and culture. He is a reporter in residence at the AI Now Institute, and was the technology columnist at the Los Angeles Times and a senior editor at VICE's "Motherboard." He is the author of The One Device: the Secret History of the iPhone (2017, Little, Brown) and Blood in the Machine: the Origins of the Rebellion against Big Tech (2023, Little, Brown), and a founder of VICE’s speculative fiction outlet Terraform. His newsletter is BloodintheMachine.com.

Edward Ongweso Jr is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor. He’s the co-host of This Machine Kills and a senior researcher at Security Context. His work has appeared in New York Review of Books, New Republic, The Nation, The Guardian, The Baffler, Dissent, Boston Review, VICE's "Motherboard," and elsewhere.

Praise for The Mechanic and the Luddite

"Jathan Sadowski is one of the most incisive and important thinkers on technology and capitalism today. This urgent book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the deeper political economy that shapes the digital domain and, by extension, every facet of modern life."—Astra Taylor, author of The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart

"Smart, urgent, and as bluntly powerful as the titular Luddite's hammer, this book is required reading for anyone who seeks to understand how technology really gets made—and whom it's made to serve. Even better, it will give you the tools to fight back against the complex systems that have entangled the globe with digitized regimes of profit, exploitation, and oppression. The time for a thunderous new Luddite politics is now—and Sadowski's scathing, erudite, and accessible manifesto delivers."—Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion against Big Tech

"Sadowski has written a badly needed text that's arriving at exactly the right time. His crisp and active prose generously illuminates technology's relationship to flows of money and power and the whims of those who wield them. Reading The Mechanic and the Luddite feels like listening to a great friend excitedly telling you about a new discovery, letting you in on something interesting and important."—Meredith Whittaker, Chief Advisor and Cofounder, AI Now Institute

This event is made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation

Event Venue

Online