Teaching Technological Unemployment Through Role-Play: The Luddite Rebellion

This article describes a role-play conducted in a required undergraduate course in history of economic thought and contemporary heterodox economics. Students are given roles as landowners, professionals, capitalists, craftspeople, and workers in immediate post-Luddite Manchester, England. They have to grapple individually and collectively with the disruptive effects of new machinery on personal and social life. Based on their reflections students learned about the contradictory effects of new technology, exploitation and oppression in early industrial capitalism, and influences of economic ideas on action. They also gained experience in public speaking and collective organization. JEL Classification : A22, B1, O33