The Condition of the Working-Class in England
Friedrich Engels' seminal work, "The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844," serves as a profound investigation into the social and economic conditions faced by the working class during the Industrial Revolution. Written with a meticulous eye for detail, Engels employs a blend of sociological analysis and vivid exposition to portray the dire realities of life for laborers in urban industrial centers. The text embodies a critical response to capitalism, articulating the transformative power dynamics that arose from rapid industrialization, and is often considered a cornerstone in the development of socialist thought and labor rights discourse. Engels, a German philosopher, social scientist, and collaborator of Karl Marx, drew from both personal experiences and extensive empirical research while writing this work. Having witnessed the grinding poverty and exploitation firsthand, Engels felt a moral obligation to expose the injustices inflicted upon the working class. His role as a co-founder of Marxism also established a framework for his critiques, as he sought to illuminate the intrinsic link between economic systems and social conditions, paving the way for revolutionary thought. This book is a must-read for anyone intrigued by the historical aspects of labor movements, socio-economic theory, or the roots of modern socialism.
Stats for nerds
5recommend
10mentions
9people
2015–2026years
50% recommend50% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- _The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844_ would be a classic on the subject: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17306
- A few books to recommend here:
"The Condition of the Working Class in England" by Friedrich Engels, a firsthand account of the struggles and conditions faced by workers in industrial England.
"The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, about the exploitative conditions in the meatpacking industry and helped lead to the passage of food safety laws.
"The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan, detailing the struggles and discrimination faced by women in the workforce and paved the way for the feminist movement.
- If you read Friedrich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England, you'll see how capital works. It is the LAW of the capital, not an arbitrary decision: http://www.theinternationalism.org/2021/06/engels-in-new-cen...
- How The Other Half Lives [0] really is a worthwhile read, if you're at all interested in the history of NYC or of social reforms, or just want a reminder to be grateful for your own modern middle-class living conditions. The poverty described can be deeply overwhelming.
It's also basically the American counterpart to Engels' classic The Condition of the WOrking Class in England [1].
[0] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45502/45502-h/45502-h.htm [1] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17306/17306-h/17306-h.htm
- When I first got to Baltimore there were a lot of studies on cities, and I became very involved in the problem of housing -- housing finance, housing collapse in the inner city, housing conditions in general. I was fascinated to do a series of reports for the city, and also for other agencies, about how to approach the whole question of urban regeneration, which is very much on the agenda there.
It was extraordinary to me that some of the ideas I got for that came out of reading Engels's famous saying on the condition of the working class in England in 1844; and also the housing question where he says the bourgeoisie had only one way to solve its housing problem: it moved it around. When I started to look at what some of the proposals were, they were about gentrification, which, in effect, would displace people and just simply move the problem around.
So I made a big pitch in these reports, saying, "If you're going to address this question, you can't address it in a way that simply moves it around. In order not to move it around, we have to deal with basic questions about income distribution, wealth and the like, and, also, of course, racism, and housing markets and so on." This was a very important principle that came out of reading Engels, and then importing it. I put it into these reports; I didn't cite Engels. I didn't cite Engels, and everybody thought this was a fantastic insight, and somebody said to me, "Where did you get that from?" I said, "From Engels," and they said, "Who is he?"
"Tom Engels, the local congressman"!
"Does he work for the Brookings Institution?" or something like that. It was funny. But this was how I would sometimes find myself using this stuff in factual ways, and it resonated with people. I got a lot of encouragement to stay with this framework, that when you actually laid it out, used it in this way, using these kinds of concepts, people understood what you meant. The only time they turn around and walk the other way is when you tell them where it came from.
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people4/Harvey/harvey-con2....
- > As though you rendered the proletarians a service in first sucking out their very life-blood and then practicing your self-complacent, Pharisaic philanthropy upon them, placing yourselves before the world as mighty benefactors of humanity when you give back to the plundered victims the hundredth part of what belongs to them!
Friedrich Engels: The Condition of the Working-class in England
Related
Communist Manifesto
31 recommend · 308
The making of the English working class
4 recommend · 10
Progress and poverty
42 recommend · 129
Das Kapital
40 recommend · 228
Capitalist Realism
41 recommend · 100
2013–2026
Wage Labour and Capital
6 recommend · 18
London labour and the London poor
3 recommend · 4
