human values > $

As I was watching a recently posted video on David Harvey's website today, I was struck by how much it seemed to resonate with an article I happened to read earlier in the day from the March, 2011 issue of the Smithsonian titled "What the Luddites Really Fought Against." Both the article and the video, The End of Stupidity in the Face of Capitalism, share a somewhat similar message, which, as it's expressed in the article, is that "it's possible to live well with technology—but only if we continually question the ways it shapes our lives." But more importantly, that to truly live well, we must stand up "against technologies [and one could easily add economic systems] that put money or convenience above other human values." And in doing so, "it may help, every now and then, to ask which of our modern machines [and production systems] General and Eliza Ludd [and critics of capitalism like Marx] would choose to break. And which they would use to break them."