Industrial Revolution And The Worker

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Friederich Engels (The Condition of the Working Class in England)

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Context: Not published from German into English until 1887. Believed that the German audience would be more receptive if the finger was not pointed directly at them.

--Murder has been committed when thousands of workers have been deprived the necessities of life
--English society is fully aware of this environment yet does nothing about it.
--Health is affected due to poor quarters throughout the city/mental state is affected due to extremes of hope and fear..sexual/liquor indulgence.
--poor diet unfit for adults and children
--neglected education for worker ... victims of extreme social defective arrangements.
--Cultural and educational state: 1) the workers only recieve enough education that will benefit their "masters" additionally teachers are uneducated themselves.
--The wealthy derive all the advantages
--Education has turned into a form of opression. Relliance on religious ed. just makes things worse.
--Calls for a seperation of pub and religious ed. Let the state take care of ed, while the church take care of their end.
--No distinction is made between moral instruction and religious ed. Religious ed is not contributing to moral development.
--The middle class controls the workers through the legal system though, not moral principles.
--THEREFORE considering the circumstances it is no surprise that the workers act like beast for the works retain their humanity only by continually harbouring hatred of the powerful oppressors. They become ANIMALS when they submit to the yoke.
--The poorer the worker becomes the more he lacks the necessities of life. The more he suffers from hunger and distress, the less respect he has for the social order. . Poverty has the same affect on the the mind that drunkeness has on the mind.
--Carlyle is right in facts but wrong in criticizing the savage resentment of the workers against the upper class.
--man knows no worse fate than forced labor. He works because he must. Contrary to "The Gospel of Work"
--The poor turn to vices because they cannot fly from the irresistible temptations.
--They will soon begin to realize that though they are weak individuals they are strong when united.
--In THIS way the great cities are the birthplace of the working class movement. It here where workers first began to reflect on their enviroment
--Only when the worker becomes estranged from his employer does the situation change. They then realize that he was linked to his master only due to selfish interest and the cash nexus. Personal bond is then snapped completely.
--The Middle classed have more in common with every other nation in the world than the proletariat which lives on their own doorstep. Class unifies more than religion, race, and sex. The workers of different places, race, sex who are of the same class are more alike than they are to members of the same race in the middle or upper class.
--The poor are more charitable to the poor than are the rich, for the rich will stop at nothing to achieve and gain more wealth.
--When people are relegated to the position of animals, they can either revolt or sink into bestiality.
--The struggle between classed should come as no surprise. It is the logical consequence of the fundamental principle upon which free competition is based.

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William Cobbett (Rural Rides)

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--defiant against the system and commerical and state interests that marginzalize ordinary people in the name of progress
--rural rides is a collection of lecture and speeches that he gave to the working class in rural england.
--1) large concern as land as public resource and national idea
--2) felt that taxation and rep in parliment was unfair and unequal for the working class
--3) wanted more money and more relief for the poor
--4) The poor is a necessary part of a civil society. But nobody should have to starve or go needy in a land of plenty.

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Peter Gaskell (Artisans and Machinery)

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--THESIS: Poverty breeds immorality and abandonment of religion
--in moving from farm to factory society the family unit has been broken
--Children are no longer under the supervision of parents
--they tend to give into immorality
--The children are now receiving their own wages, making them feel equals to their parents...not good!
--The constant concern with money has made everyone in the family more selfish.
--RELIGION: Everyone is concerned with money and not their souls.

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James Kay-Shuttleworth (Recent Measures for the Promotion of Education in England)

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--About the importance and need for education for lower and needy classes.
--Similar to Cobbet...England too rich to not afford education
--Ed. is the basis of english wealth
--"Within increasing wants, comes an increase of discontent among a people who only have the knowledge enough to make them eager enough or additional enjoyments, and have never yet been sufficiently educated, to frame rational wishes, and to pursue them by rational means."
--Ed. can also cultivate moral and intellectual capacities.

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William Morris (Useful work vs. Useless Toil)

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--3 reasonable hopes: 1)hope of rest 2) product. Producing something you are passionate about 3) pleasure in the work itself
--Nature and how we as a species have conquered nature, and how living in society has made it easier to get your hands on food, yet society is snatching it from the hands of the poor.
--Work or starve principle
--CLASS: The U. Class dont even pretend to work but lives on old money. Middle class pretend to work but aspire to be Upper. While lower is being exploited and doing all of the work
--Upper class is a burden on society consuming all and producing none.
--Solution: In order to fulfill these hopes, you need everyone to work! More hands on deck.
--Very communistic
--Everyone works allows shorter and easier work days
--Morris is upper middle class artistic type
--Dedicated to furniture.
--Ornamental and artistic. It is our natural inclination to make everything beautiful. Because of structure of the economy we only make things beautiful if it is ecenomical.
--Useful work: gives you hope of rest, product, and pleasure.
--Useful toil: not that
--FACTORIES: ugly, dehumanizing, and big. Wants the future to have factories that are more communal and smaller.
--abolish class
--all education does is divide classes.
--Wealth is what nature gives us and what a reasonable man can make out of those gifts. All which serves the pleasure of the people, free, manly, and uncorrupted,. This is wealth.
--BUT the fruits of our victory over nature has been stolen from us, pleasure has turned into compulsion by man to labour in hope--of living to labour!
--The existence of a priveldged class is by no means necessary for the production of wealth, or for the upholding of privilege.
--ABOLISH the class of privilege.