Gold can never pay for Blood

'Heroic Fantasy' or 'Swords and Sorcery' is often, and rightly, rejected as macho, right-wing power fantasies. Yet it is worth remembering that it is not easy to pin down the politics of real people. Lovecraft and Tolkien were monarchists, Howard was a Texas libertarian - but they were also men who deeply and utterly rejected capitalism.

This attitude not only resonated with readers but because of their lack of care for copyrights it allowed their works to be easily re-published before the capitalist caught sent of profits and poured out of their crypts...

Robert E Howard wrote:
The Texas people have been as ruthlessly exploited as if they were painted savages. (1932 letter to Lovecraft)

Every corporation that has ever come into the Southwest bent solely on looting the region’s people and resources has waved a banner of "progress and civilization." ...Because we were tired of seeing corporations located in other sections grab huge monopolies on resources which they sucked dry and departed with bulging money-bags, leaving a devastated land behind them...That the capitalist looters should throw a smoke-screen of claims for progress and civilization and advancement is not surprizing; as with professional soldiers, dictators and imperialists, it is their favorite slogan. (1935 letter to Lovecraft)