Peter Hume,

It seems that here we come to the crux of your argument - in desiring to dismiss government to a greater extent from the equation.
My point was that some sort of "governing" intervention was required to halt the sort of oppression practiced in the name of capitalism in the mines, mills and factories of that time. I disagree that the proletariat who toiled in those situations were better off than their pre-capitalist peers elsewhere. Capitalism without restraint did exacerbate poverty and misery. (if you can, try and get hold of original documents pertaining to conditions during that time - E. Royston Pyke compiled a book title "Human Documents of the Industrial Revolution" - it is mind boggling).
The theories of men like Marx and Engels were born in response to the depravity that existed in the circumstances of the time.

> It seems that here we come to the crux of your argument - in desiring to dismiss government to a greater extent from the equation.

Yes.

> I disagree that the proletariat who toiled in those situations were better off than their pre-capitalist peers elsewhere.

That's because you're not counting being alive as better off than dying in infancy, or not having come into existence in the first place.

>My point was that some sort of "governing" intervention was required to halt the sort of oppression practiced in the name of capitalism in the mines, mills and factories of that time.

Ignoring the demographics, and repeating the labour theory of value, doesn't make this view true.

> The theories of men like Marx and Engels were born in response to the depravity that existed in the circumstances of the time.

That doesn't make them true.

Peter - you said...""That's because you're not counting being alive as better off than dying in infancy, or not having come into existence in the first place.

I don't know exactly what you mean by the second part of your statement, but you seem to be suggesting in the first part that infant mortality "improved" amidst the dirt, squalor, pollution and overcrowding (one tenement often housed several families) of the mill and factory towns. These people lived in an environment with no drainage or running water and were surrounded by dung heaps. Every sort of pestilence and epidemic preyed upon their miserable lives.

Children who were the cheapest to employ were regularly procured from workhouses in the cities to supplement scarce child labour.
John Fielden MP wrote in 1836 that: "They were harassed to the point of death by excess of labour, that they were flogged, fettered and tortured in the most exquisite refinement of cruelty: that they were in many cases starved to the bone while flogged in their work."

The sad thing is that the above example is not an unusual instance, this was pretty much the standard mode of operation, to one degree or another, before (and even after) Factory Acts were instituted. Under this system of unregulated capitalism, the working-class were provided with just enough sustenance to keep them alive and in servitude.

Peter, on the point of democracy I would argue that an absence of democratic input is to blame;

How many people would sign themselves up to go to war? In most countries- I imagine including America- much less than 50%.

How many leaders on the other hand would want to sign their people up to fight on their behalf, knowing that the only consequence for them is that it makes them look bad (disregarding many electoral impacts that might get them voted back in)?
So far, in the past 30 years, quite a lot, and that's only between the past leaders of the US, UK and Australia alone.

Further evidence- Switzerland- longest history of peacetime ever and smallest record of armed conflict of any nation (despite being around since the late middle ages). This can be attributed to the fact that no declaration of war may be made by the Swiss government unless it passes a majority in a referendum of the public.

Hi King Hazza

I wouldn't put it down to absence of democratic input. I reckon it's more to do propaganda, the old problem, reaction, solution thingy.

This is how the state can manipulate democracy for it's own ends and why we have a war on terror, keep em scared and they'll beg to fight the bad guys.

King Hazza
Good point. We should have that here. Then we wouldn’t be (forced to pay for "our" government) shooting children in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I also liked the idea of the ancient Greek city state which required anyone proposing a new tax to stand in the town square on a stool with a noose around his neck. If the motion was not carried, the stool was kicked away.

Poirot
Well I think it’s a good question.

Obviously to the extent that these abuses were already illegal, the State cannot be presumed a solution. And the same if they were later illegalized without effect.

I’m not justifying the abuse of children any more than you are. But it is simply invalid to presume that the State is better, either at caring for children, or manufacturing goods for that matter.

It’s a question of comparing apples with apples. The only way State intervention is ever able to look good is because people employ a double standard.

A classic example of the statist mindset is the popular press’s reaction to recent news of the prosecution of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan for shooting a baby, three children, and a teenager: they cry sympathy for the soldiers!

Abuses in state care are notorious. Even today, by any indicator of a child’s wellbeing: mental health, suicide, illiteracy, teenage pregnancy, unemployment, self-harming, rates of abuse, welfare dependency, or whatever, the standard of parental responsibility exercised by the State for children in state care is much lower than the ordinary standard of parental responsibility in the community.

For obvious reasons, all societies in all times place children in a different legal category. This is not a defence of abuse. But even in our own times, with multiple, big, full-time, permanent, government child protection agencies, a child’s guardians can do to a child what is an assault to anyone else. Is that the fault of capitalism?

It is a double standard, to see a problem, and conjure benefits out of thin air by the State’s presumed goodness and capacity. There is always a downside.