This book should be required reading for every political science and history majors. It should also be included in any class discussing the Gilded Age, or the Industrial Revolution. Because the destruction caused by the capitalist pig-dogs of those ages will certainly be continued. It is a scathing indictment against laissez-faire economics and policies. I found it interesting that the author included examples from both the east and the west. Being a westerner I would have thought that this was just a western problem. But then again that would just be me being naive. This is “the violence inherent in the system” to again quote Dennis the anarcho-syndicalist. Capitalists will strip, and destroy in their pursuit of their drug of choice: money. And nothing, not regulations, not people, not history will stand in their way. It also shows the duplicity of a system in which the watchmen are paid (in part) by those who they are supposed to be watching.
But as for Dr. Madsen-Brooks’ description that this book was a downer, I would disagree. This book felt more like a call to arms, a voice crying I the wilderness, asking me to do something to try and change the way things are, make things better. Hopefully that is not the same sort of lost cause as anarcho-syndicalism.
