A Luddite’s wardrobe includes three changes of clothing: two Soviet-green, very serviceable pairs of overalls and a rain barrel. Luddites fill their own cavities using a small mirror, an X-acto knife and a tube of Epoxy glue. And in their poorly manicured hands, they brandish oversized monkey-wrenches which they throw into any intersection of cog and gear. That is, unless they are too busy dispatching those round black bombs -- the same ones that Boris Badenov hucked towards Rocky and Bullwinkle -- at microchip factories.

Ask most people what a "Luddite" is, and they’ll probably give you some variation on the above definition. Most people think of them as machine-hating Commie pinkos with a militant crankiness towards progress in general. But a true neo-Luddite most likely reserves his real spleen not for computers, but for the wash ‘n’ wear garment, and all that it stands for.

You see, the original Luddites were a group of 19th century garment-weavers and lace-makers in Nottinghamshire, England. Their fabrics were considered to be the best in Europe. Their weaving methods had been handed down from generation to generation for centuries, and the weavers were treated with great respect; they were artists, not laborers, and prided themselves on the beauty and integrity of their fabrics. Not to mention that they were independent contractors who worked out of their houses -- if they turned out a lousy, inferior piece of fabric, their customers could easily take their business elsewhere.

The weavers of Nottingham wove their magnificent fabrics in peace through the first years of the 19th century, insulated against the Industrial Revolution by a Royal edict that forbade textile production within ten leagues of the town. But not even the Crown could save them from a deadly combination of a Tory politics and the invention of the power loom.

As garment factories sprang up across England and efficiently churned out skein after skein of cheap fabric, the Nottinghamshire weavers were forced to respond; they were being undersold. Since they could not afford to keep up with the new technology, they unwillingly shuffled into the factories. Not only did they suffer economically, but they were stripped of their formerly esteemed status as artisans to become underpaid, overworked factory grunts. The most humiliating part of all? They were now responsible for the production of badly-made, horribly inferior fabrics. Something had to break, eventually; and break it did.

The story goes that one day a certain Ned Ludd, a guy who was not exactly renowned for his sparkling intelligence, accidentally broke two of the frame looms in the factory. And at that moment, one the Nottingham weavers saw a transcendent light shining through that split frame.

Pretty soon, things were breaking all over the factory.

"Who broke that? Ah--it must’ve been that one feeble-minded lad, Ned Ludd."

"Gosh, I don’t know. Hm. Well, that Ned Ludd guy is pretty clumsy. He’s always breaking stuff. It must have been Ned."

"Ned Ludd did it."

No one knows who was reading Thomas Paine or paying attention to all the rabble-rousing over in France, but soon enough the Notthingham weavers decided they’d had enough, and that scapegoating Ned on a day to day basis wasn’t cutting it. In 1812, these disgruntled lace-makers formed a secret army and revolted against the factory owners. When the government troops showed up to take control of the situation, the weavers thumbed their noses at the soldiers and scattered off into the woods. Then they sewed themselves brilliant military uniforms and showed up at the factories with a list of demands from their new leader, none other than General Ned Ludd.