Coal Wars Question

[RamynKing]

I was reading this (communist?) site: https://www.redneckrevolt.org/

They seem to be obsessed with the early industrial times, and suggest that we are still fighting a war against "bosses" today. They mention this subject a lot:
http://infogalactic.com/info/Coal_Wars

Can someone give me a starting point for understanding these events from a capitalist perspective? I remember stef's presentation on robber barons. I need to do more research, but my head is spinning.

Were the workers actually being exploited this much, or are we only getting one side of the story?
Would the seeming exploitation have sorted out naturally as the country developed anyway?
Did the coming of unions eventually affect overall American prosperity for the worse?

 

[ofd]

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Can someone give me a starting point for understanding these events from a capitalist perspective?

The owners of the coal mines tried to keep wages down by preventing workers from forming unions. For that, they used state power and militias.

 

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Were the workers actually being exploited this much, or are we only getting one side of the story?

That depends on your ideology and how you define exploitation.

 

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Would the seeming exploitation have sorted out naturally as the country developed anyway?

That depends on supply and demand. If there is an influx of cheap and unskilled labour, the demand for high wages remains stagnant.

 

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Did the coming of unions eventually affect overall American prosperity for the worse?

No. The Industrial Revolution occured in the UK because the wages were relatively high and the need to reduce marginal costs was there. Relatively high wages and increases in productivity are different sides of the same coin. Several societies got close to the Industrial Revolution, but it didn't happen because the initial investment in more productivity doesn't pay off when there is a pool of cheap labour to choose from.