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Path: utzoo!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: egg/chicken chicken/egg chigg/eckin
Message-ID: <295@looking.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Jun-85 00:00:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: looking.295
Posted: Fri Jun 21 00:00:00 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Jun-85 05:31:54 EDT
References: <893@mnetor.UUCP> <5642@utzoo.UUCP> <896@mnetor.UUCP> <5710@utzoo.UUCP> <704@utcs.UUCP>
Organization: Looking Glass Software, Waterloo, Ont
Lines: 34
Summary: 

You must remember something about the industrial revolution - those horrible
working conditions and all the other things we have progressed beyond
today did not look the same back then.

People were not grabbed out of their farms and forced to work long hours
in the factories.  They decided to do it because it was a better offer
than they got elsewhere.  It's true, they didn't like the deal much
and would have preferred a bigger piece of the pie, but they hadn't
figured out how to get it yet.  Back then a job in a factory was superior
to an agricultural or migrant existence - why else did people take the
jobs.

It's hard to come to grips with this, but we owe the men who built the
companies of the industrial revolution a great deal.  The same "Robber Barons"
who squeezed every penny they could get from their employees built up
the society today that gives a modern poor person more of just about
everything (except personal service) than the middle class had in the
18th and 19th century.

Just remember when you claim that modern society was built on the backs
of exploited workers that those same people lined up to be exploited
wherever they could.
------------------
On another point, while we talk about English colonialism, what about the
USA.   The industrial revolution of the last century was in Europe, but
in the 20th century it was in the USA.  Which group of people that the
US (or Canada) exploited in the 20th century do you claim as the primary
source of modern American strength and wealth?  It's my feeling that most
of the American companies made their money right here on this continent,
and that multinationals external profits are far from the majority of
the GNP.

-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473