A woman looks beyond the mad rush to profit. It is usually women who are seen as addicted to romance, the myth of the tall dark handsome stranger who will carry them away to everlasting happiness.
Men show devotion to another romance, the social and economic romance of capitalism.
They cling loyally to it in the face of all the evidence that it too is a sham. But behind that history, and making it possible, stands the savage exploitation of what these fringes called their empires. The early nineteenth century brought two romantic movements, one in literature, the other in economics. The capitalist socio-economic romance came in four forms, and Marx subscribed to at least the first two. First, there was the iron romance of industrialism itself, as vast machines began to stamp raw material into new shapes for human use and profit.