>As opposed to the status quo at all costs, bundled with a lack of care for who gets to stay in the gutter?

How about slower incremental change with actual effort put into the costs and downstream effects/Externalities? I know, who has time for that though. Someone else's problem right?

>They were just another special interest group that wanted to keep more of the pie for themselves, at the expense of people poorer than them.

Ever heard the phrase "Every accusation an admission?" Often we end up projecting what we can't consciously think and work forward with through onto the intents of others. It's too destructive to the conscious narrative, so ends up externalized into the "other" in spite of blossoming just as fruitfully in the self. You've demonstrated to me, at least you see the game, and you recognize how it's played, and the consequences of not playing it.

>And they used violence to try to achieve that.

They broke machines. And they were beaten, strike broken, vilified and abused by capital wielders who were, in point of fact, not much poorer than them, as they could afford the machines in question, and when faced with the opportunity to divest themselves of the burden of doing business with those pesky tradesmen, were only so happy to do so.

Statistical voyeurism is a capitalist's favorite pass time. All the sexy of number go up, none of the burden of of the other side of balance sheet.