A strong advocate of social reform, he received particular praise as one of the few Parliamentary defenders of the Luddites: specifically, he was against a death penalty for Luddite "frame breakers" in Nottinghamshire, who destroyed textile machines that were putting them out of work. His first speech before the Lords was loaded with sarcastic references to the "benefits" of automation, which he saw as producing inferior material as well as putting people out of work.
Other than the death penalty thing, support of the Luddites seems hardly defensible.
What's your beef with the "Luddites?" Byron was supporting the original Luddites, not the knee-jerk technophobes the term has come to represent.
I don't condone their use of violence, but I don't find it any more morally appalling than a society that is happy to reap the benefits of progress while washing its hands of the very real harm that progress can inflict on a minority of its members, particularly in a society with limited economic and social mobility.
