Capitalism does not always get what it needs, including from capitalists, because capitalists do not necessarily do what capitalist society needs. Hence the needs of capitalism do not explain the actions of capitalists. Capitalists are not capitalism; they are themselves market-dependent actors within — which is to say, subject to — capitalism. This means in part that the needs of capitalism are a concept of limited explanatory power: needs can go unmet, breakdown is possible. "Interests," as the economic sociologist Karl Polanyi explained, "like intents, remain platonic unless they are translated into politics by the means of some social instrumentality." That is to say, how social needs are met is itself in need of explanation. That meeting of needs is heavily constrained by the weight of history and social forces — path dependency is real; people do not make history in the manner of their own choosing. At the same time, whether or not capitalism's needs are met is in important respects a contingent outcome, taking place in historical time through the behavior of contending social actors — people do make history, using partial, situated, and fallible knowledge.

While of course we can and should criticize low payments for injury, in doing so we must not miss the underlying choice to treat employees' lives and limbs as economic objects. Injuries, sufferings, deaths, body parts, lives, human beings — these all are in one respect priceless, yet the tyranny of the table treated them exclusively through monetary equivalence. The value of an arm? A face? A life? These became simple, knowable quantities, defined by labor market prices.

While the particulars varied by state, generally, injured persons got a weekly payment under compensation laws. The more severe the injury, the longer the number of weeks of payments. For the loss of one hand, for example, a person would likely get 100 weeks of payments, slightly less than two years. For the loss of both hands, a person would likely get 400 weeks of payments, slightly less than eight years. Often, 400 weeks was the statutory maximum duration of compensation.

The memory of the fire certainly must have never left the few people who were trapped underground and lived, or the many who lost family members. The memory of the fire remained as well in the town of Cherry and in the United Mine Workers, in the form of the United Mine Workers' monument and regular commemoration ceremonies. Overall, however, the Cherry fire has disappeared from cultural memory. Cherry is, so to speak, nowhere. Flyover country. No one important lives there, judged according to hegemonic and appalling standards of importance and power. According to these standards, generally speaking, no one important dies of workplace injury. Charles Atherton, the manager of the mine, is a partial exception. On February 18, a minor named Milis Manditch, alias Peter Brown, shot Atherton while the bodies of miners were being removed from the mine. Atherton died three days later. Some readers may balk at "no one important," insisting rightly that everyone is important, but such readers will surely understand that our society has rarely if ever actually lived up to that view. And so the dead, and the ongoing dying, are forgotten, over and over.

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