I'm certainly not trying to imply that capitalism is more or less peaceful than it was in the 17th century, I guess the main point that I'm trying to make is th

I'm certainly not trying to imply that capitalism is more or less peaceful than it was in the 17th century, I guess the main point that I'm trying to make is that corporations exist to generate profit, they never really existed to improve society. A lot of the shifts towards a more humane version of capitalism came through outside forces like organized labor (i.e. the 40 hour workweek, the establishment of child labor law, etc.). These were not things that corporations volunteered, it took lots of people threatening to stop the system in order to achieve many of the benefits we enjoy today. We'd still be working 7 days a week starting as small children if those outside forces didn't establish many of those fundamental changes for us.