"The disparity in income between the rich and poor is merely the survival of the fittest. It is merely the working out of ntaure and a law of God."   John D. Rockefeller, circa 1894

"We (the transnational corporations) are now in the driver's seat of the global engine. We are setting governemt policies instead of watching from the sideline."   David Rocefeller, 1994

In the century between these two pronouncements, the worst excesses of unfettered free enterprise were curged by regulations and minimus wage standard. Strong unions and progressive governments combined to distribute income more equitable. Social safety nets were fashinoed to help those in need.

Corporate owner and executives resisted all these reforms. Their operations had to be forcibly humanized. They alway resented having so much of their profits diverted into wages and taxes, but until recently they could not prevent it. Now they can.

Thanks to dismantled trade barrriers and the new global  mobility of capital, they can overcome all political labour constriants. They are free once more maximize profits and exploit workers, to control or coerce national government, to re-establish the law of the jungle as the social norm.. We are in danger of reverting to the kind a moss poverty and deprivation that marked the Victorian ear.

A brief History lesson. Working hours in the mines and factories were from rise to sunset, about 72 hours a week. Wages, in 1999 currency, averaged less then $2 a day. Workers had to live in shacks or overcrowed tenements. They could not aford carpets on the floor or even dishes for their meals.

Most workplaces were dirty, dimly lit, poorly heated. There were no guards on saw blades, pulleys or other dangerous machinery, because owners were not held responsible for industrail actions. Workers took jobs at their own risk. If they were killed or injured while at work, as many thousands were, it was because of their own carelessness.

Uncounted thousands died from tuberculosis, pneumonia, and other diseases caused by inadequate heat or sanitation in their workplaces.

Conditions in the mines were especially bad, with most miners dying from accidents or "black lung" desease before they reached the age of thirty.

Millions of Children some as young as 6, were forced to work 12 hour days, often being whipped or beaten.  The children worked as many hours as the adults. They have to be at the Mill or mine by 6:00 am, necessitating their being up at 5 for their morning meal,, some having to walk several miles to work.

As late late as 1910 more then 500,000 children under 12 were stil being suject to these barbaric working conditions. It wasn't until 1920, in fact, that child labour was completely stamped out

An enterprising union organizer managed to get into a cigar factory in souther US in 1908. He found you girls being whipped if they couldn't keep up their production quota. Many girls wound up at week's end owing the boss money because they had more pay docked for defective cigars than they earned.

The callous mistreatment of working people was not only condoned, but extolled-and not just by the businesss establishment. The daily newspapers of the time also defended the employers. So did major religions. In 1888, when labour leader Danel O Donaghe proposed a resolution at labour, all 41 clergy men who attended the meeting voted agianst it. The Chatholic Church forbade its member to jion unions and may bishops and priests went so far as to deny union member a Christian burial when they died.