----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>Would you rather that they had simply killed the capitalists?
Huh? The only choices are breaking machines or breaking capitalists?
Doug
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Did you have a peek at the link?
Parliament and the Monarchy had troops dispatched to 3+ continents to kill farmers/workers/women children with imperial, nihilistic glee in the time of Malthus and Ricardo. Do you think they were in a mood to listen to their own textile workers and the communities they lived in/with about declining standards of living? E.P. Thompson and those who've picked on his research are great on this stuff. The Luddites showed strategic restraint, probably driven by norms they weren't about to give up as that would have made them is sick and twisted as their adversaries.
Ian