The Condition of the Working Class in England

An economic system in which the means of production (factories, mills, plants) are owned by private individuals or small groups rather than the government. In such a system product prices and wages are determined by competition in a free (global) market. Capitalist societies as they emerged in late 18th-century Europe became divided into two main classes: the bourgeoisie, or property holders, and the proletariat, or wage workers.

Two main problems of the capitalist system are identified in Engels’s book: the exploitation of workers by manufacturers and the production of surplus, which periodically causes economic crisis.

A political movement among the British working class that sought social change through constitutional means. It was inspired by The People’s Charter, an 1838 bill demanding major parliamentary reforms, such as suffrage for all adult men. Chartists relied on popular support in the form of petitions and meetings to pressure politicians without resorting to violence. In 1848 their largest ever petition was presented to Parliament but was rejected, initiating the movement’s slow decline.

Not to be confused with the French Revolution of 1789. The February Revolution was part of a wave of uprisings across Europe in the middle of the 19th century that sought sociopolitical change. Inspired by French socialist philosophy and motivated by economic hardships, the Parisian proletariat began protesting and demanding governmental changes, which rapidly escalated into violent clashes and culminated with the king’s abdication. This brought about the end of the July Monarchy, a conservative state dominated by the bourgeoisie, and led to the creation of the Second Republic, meant to be a type of social democracy. The February Revolution had a negative impact on workers’ movements in England as the fear of violent upheaval prompted stricter control measures and demotivated protesters.

People (originally men) who do not own any property and exist solely on their wages. As a social class, they emerge after the invention of the earliest industrial machines, such as the jenny and the loom, when the demand for weaving drove wages up and prompted weavers to abandon their small homesteads in favor of full-time work.