Peasant handmill resistance was economic autonomy seeking, not technological conservatism.

Evidence

The English examples were repeated in other countries over most of Europe and testify, not to the resistance of peasants to technological innovation, but to their economic need to retain control over their own technology. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 263

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Plainly overturns the conventional assumption that peasants resisted machines out of backwardness — reframes the whole history of technological adoption.
• XREF: connects to: Peasants defended handmills against lord-controlled mills to keep energy autonomy. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 260; Machine-breaking resisted capitalism’s assault on customary life, not machinery per se. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 232

Broader Connections

• Machine-breaking resisted capitalism’s assault on customary life, not machinery per se. #corroborates (0.90) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 232