Merchant demonstrates that to act as a Luddite is to be anything but out-of-touch: it is to mobilize a common sentiment that marches from the past, and to stride as part of a collective toward a more equitable future.

Power doesn’t always come from brute force; in many cases it operates through obfuscation and mystification. Illuminating all of this is the easy part, of course. The challenge is figuring out how to empower the people who work under these conditions.