“Dark, satanic mills” has always struck me as just a touch anti-capitslist. The whole song is an anthem to socialist hubris, that society can build the New Jerusalem on England’s green and pleasant shore if only it eliminates all those horrible capitalist inequities.
There are different interpretations of the term. The obvious one as you cited is a referral to the new industrial factories. Blake wasn’t the only one who considered them a blight on the land. Some believe Blake was referring to the corrupt Church of England. As this Wikiepdia entry cites Blake and many others in the Romantic movement were rebelling against the dominance of reason from the Enlightenment period.
Mark
Fast forward and today it can be seen as anti-globalist...anti-E.U. ?
Early industrial era England was bad, really bad, for most everyone but the aristocracy. They had no vote, orphanage was widespread, and the working conditions were off the charts bad. Dickens didn’t just dream up that Scrooge stuff.
The way of life in Manchester was the biggest influence on Engels deciding that workers needed a better life, and that the aristocracy would and we all know where he went with that concept. His dad owned a textile mill and he was right in the thick of the abuse.
Those mills might not have been satanic, but they were operated was nothing to much admire.
And yes, they were dark, satanic mills. The early Industrial Revolution in Britain was brutal, and Britain's ruling class one that Blake (and we, the American colonies) very rightfully rebelled against.
That’s a bit of a revisionist take. Blake was a Romantic, and their view of the industrialization that was going on was in direct opposition to their interest in/love of/preference for the power of nature to bring about a transcendent experience (with Nature’s God).