The early days of industrial and finance capital may have been horrors by our standards today, but perhaps it was just a necessary evolutionary step in the evolution of a technological society.

But the corrections and progress which led to our current humane conditions were not natural, automatic, and due to the largesse of capital. They were struggles, fought over brutally, against bitter and ruthless resistance. It's those same workers who came so willingly to labor in American mills that later went willingly to the barricades and picket lines and got the crap beat out of them for insolently demanding the 40 hour week, the 8 hour day, an end to child labor, and a hundred other atrociities the noble entrepreneurs of their time felt so certain could not be conceded without an end to world civilization.

Today, the hardest battles have already been won, and the struggle continues with a bit more self-restraint and civility on both sides. But it still goes on, although perhaps with a little less urgency, and blood, than our grandparents had to face.

I've read my history, and I know the causes of war, exploitation, slavery, imperialism, and colonialism. It ain't always a mad king who wants to conquer the world, more often than not it's the merchants who will follow closely behind his legions.