SOURCE: From Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (New York, 1887). (First published in 1844.)
This in brief has been the development of British industry over the last sixty years, a development which has no parallel in the annals of mankind. Eighty, even sixty years ago England was no different from any other country, with its little townships, only a few simple domestic manufactures and a relatively large but widely-scattered agricultural population. Today England is a unique country with a capital city of 2 1/2 million inhabitants, with huge factory towns; with industries which supply the needs of the whole world, making practically everything by means of the most complicated machines. England has an industrious, intelligent and dense population, two- thirds of which is engaged in industry. The population is composed of quite different classes than it used to be and these social groups make up a quite different sort of nation, with new customs and new needs. The Industrial Revolution has been as important for England as the political revolution for France and the philosophical revolution for Germany. The gulf between the England of 1760 and that of 1844 is at least as great as that between France under the ancien regime and the France of the July Revolution. The most important result of this Industrial Revolution has been the creation of the English proletariat....
But this process of social change was not confined to industry in the narrow sense of the term. it occurred also in craft work and even in commerce. Former masters and apprentices were replaced by large capitalists and workers. There was now no possibility that the workers would ever improve their position and rise out of their social group. Craftsmanship was now replaced by factory production. There was a strict division of labor. The result was that the small master could not compete with the big factories and so sank to the position of a mere worker. The disappearance of handicraft work and of the middle-class groups dependent upon it deprived the workers of the possibility of rising into this class of society. Hitherto there had always been a possibility that the craftsman might establish himself as an independent master and might eventually employ apprentices himself. The disappearance of the old independent small masters and the large amount of capital required to start a factory made it impossible for the worker to rise out of his social class. The proletariat now became a definite class in the population whereas formerly it had only been a transitional stage toward entering into the middle classes. Today he who is born a worker must remain a worker for the rest of his life. This is why it is only now possible for an organized working-class movement to spring up.
This is how the great masses of workers who now cover the whole of the United Kingdom have been brought together. The social problems of these workers are daily claiming more and more of the attention of the whole of the civilized world.
Since the Reform Act of 1832 the most important social issue in England has been the condition of the working classes, who fonn the vast majority of the English people. The problems are these: What is to become of these propertyless millions who own nothing and consume today what they earned yesterday? What fate is in store for the workers who by their inventions and labor have laid the foundations of England's greatness? What is to be the future of those who are now daily becoming more and more aware of their power and are pressing more and more strongly for their share of the social advantages of the new era? All the parliamentary debates of any consequence are in fact concerned with these questions. It is in vain that the English middle classes have hitherto tried to ignore the issue. It is useless for them to ignore these problems and to pretend that the interests of the middle classes are really identical with those of the nation as a whole.... It is high time the English middle classes learned that they must be prepared to make concessions before it is too late, not only to the worker who begs, but to the worker who threatens to secure his demands by force. But the English middle classes prefer to ignore the distress of the workers, and this is particularly true of the industrialists, who grow rich on the misery of the mass of wage earners.... The middle classes are living in frivolous unconcern, although the very ground beneath their feet is undermined and may give way at any moment. The imminence of this collapse may be foretold with the certainty of the laws of mathematics and mechanics. It is astonishing that there is not a single adequate account of the condition of the working classes, although for heaven knows how many years the middle classes have been enquiring into this problem and tinkering with it. No wonder that all the workers from Glasgow to London are deeply incensed against the wealthy, who systematically exploit the wage-earners and then callously leave them to their fate. The wrath of the workers must very soon-one can very nearly fix the date-lead to a revolution compared with which the French Revolution and the year 1794' will seem like child's play....
Capital is the all-important weapon in the class war. Power lies in the hands of those who own, directly or indirectly, foodstuffs and the means of production. The poor, having no capital, inevitably bear the consequences of defeat in the struggle. Nobody troubles about the poor as they struggle helplessly in the whirlpool of modem industrial life. The working man may be lucky enough to find employment, if by his labor he can enrich some member of the middle classes. But his wages are so low that they hardly keep body and soul together. If he cannot find work, he can steal, unless he is afraid of the police; or he can go hungry and then the police will see to it that he will die of hunger in such a way as not to disturb the equanimity of the middle classes....
The only difference between the old-fashioned slavery and the new is that while the former was openly acknowledged the latter is disguised. The worker appears to be free, because he is not bought and sold outright. He is sold piecemeal by the day, the week, or the year. Moreover he is not sold by one owner to another, but he is forced to sell himself in this fashion. He is not the slave of a single individual, but of the whole capitalist class. As far as the worker is concerned, however, there can be no doubt as to his service status. It is true that the apparent liberty which the worker enjoys does give him some real freedom. Even this genuine freedom has the disadvantage that no one is responsible for providing him with food and shelter. His real masters, the middle-class capitalists, can discard him at any moment and leave him to starve, if they have no further use for his services and no further interest in his survival....
*Reform Act of 1832: the measure that increased the size of the electorate by at least 50 percent and gave industrial cities like Manchester direct representation in Parliament for the first time
**1794: the year of the Reign of Terror that followed the French Revolution