One historical opinion is that he was a fictitious figure who was a figure of riducule for his clumsiness. Whenever machinery anywhere got broken for any reason, people would exclaim "Oh Ned Ludd did it". The argument was that either the phrase was used so often that it was automatically used of the first sabotages and stuck or that the movement chose him as its figurehead by elevating his accidental clumsiness into deliberate intent.(The Neo Luddite Movement)
A Luddite is a person that opposes new technologies that hurt people or cause people to loose thier jobs. This opposition is sometimes violent.
The Luddites were originally English workers who destroyed textile machinery in a vain attempt to stop the development of industrialization in the early 19th century. The workers acted in despair because of deteriorating working conditions and the unwillingness of the government to help them. The issued warnings and proclamations in the name of the mythical leader "Nedd Ludd", "General Ludd" or "King Ludd" of Sherwood Forest.
The Luddite movement began in the hosiery and lace industries around nottingham around 1811 and spread to the wool and cotton mills of Yorkshire and Lancashire. The government dealt harshly with the Luddites-- 14 were hanged in january 1813 in York. Although sporadic outbreaks of violence continued until 1816, the movement soon died out.
Kirkpatrick Sale is an American nonfiction writer, journalist, editor, environmental activist and Neo Luddite. Sale is regarded as a leader of the luddites. He has written many books that focus on political, economic and ecological problems of contemporary society. Sale like other Neo luddites belive in non violent methods against unnecessary technolgy. When Sale was asked by Kevin Kelly of wired magazine: "Do you consider yourself a modern-day Luddite?" He replied "I do, in the sense that we modern-day Luddites are not, or at least not yet, taking up the sledgehammer and the torch and gun to resist the new machinery, but rather taking up the book and the lecture and organizing people to raise these issues. Most of the people who would today call themselves Luddites confine their resistance, so far at any rate, to a kind of intellectual and political resistance."
The Ordeal of Labor: The Impact of Technology On Employment