Book Launch, 'The mechanic and the luddite'

Join us for the launch of Jathan Sadowski's latest book The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism (University of California Press). Jathan will be joined by Lizzie O'Shea and Chris O'Neill for a conversation about the book with audience Q&A until about 7:00pm. Then stick around, grab another drink from the bar, and chat with us!

There will be copies of the book available for sale from the New International Bookshop (NIBS).

The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism (2025, 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.

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

Lizzie O'Shea is a human rights lawyer, writer, and founder and chair of Digital Rights Watch, which advocates for freedom, fairness and fundamental rights in the digital age. Her book Future Histories (Verso, 2019), was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award.

Dr Christopher O'Neill studies the place of automation in contemporary biopower at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalization. He is a 2025 Fulbright Scholar to the University of Southern California, researching ‘error’ as a problematic for the automated workplace.

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

Presented by CRAM x NIBS