The Condition of the Working Class in England

Engels explores the origins and development of the Labour Movement in the United Kingdom. According to him, the workers’ desire for better treatment by the bourgeoisie is a natural outgrowth of their terrible living and working conditions. The open acts of rebellion are simply the visible side of a “social war” waged secretly by the bourgeoisie against the proletariat (224). Since the upper-middle class is dependent on the existence of a working class, these two groups’ interests can never be reconciled, and they are effectively enemies engaged in a long-term conflict.

The earliest attempts at revolting against an unjust society were realized as criminal acts like robbery. However, these were individual and isolated cases, easily suppressed by the law. The next protest stage were acts of vandalism against machines and attempts to set fire to factories and mills. A manufacturer from Hyde was even assassinated in 1831. However, these were also unsuccessful as they were too isolated. In 1824 a new law allowing the free association of men made it possible to form unions. Although unable to control large-scale economic trends that affect wage rates in general, unions are useful in addressing small-scale problems like a random unmotivated reduction in pay. Unions also counteract the problem of social isolation, which was the main issue with the earlier failed attempts to revolt against the status quo. However, unions are not a perfect solution either. There are many ways in which their power can be broken, one of which is to employ either Irish immigrants who are not unionized or “knobsticks,” English workers who refuse to join a union (226). By employing people from outside the union system, a factory owner can bypass a strike or a protest.

he author underlines that the state of law in England is a tool for the rich, who regard it in a positive light. However, the working poor see the same laws as an unjust tool of control. As a result, the proletariat might submit to the police because of their greater force but does not fundamentally respect the law in its current form. The working class has attempted to change the situation by introducing the 1835 People’s Charter, demanding such democratic reforms as universal suffrage for adult men, independent of their social and economic standing. Engels believes Chartism to be of “an essentially social nature, a class movement,” which distinguishes it from other democratic parties in England (241).

The other major workers’ movement is English Socialism, but Engels dismisses it as proceeding from Robert Owen, a manufacturer, and supporting bourgeois interests. However, the author believes that general socialist ideas can be filtered through Chartism to become relevant to the proletariat in England and that this process has already begun.