friedrich engels the condition of working class in england

Engels predicts that proletarians, driven to despair by their conditions and these new laws, will revolt against the bourgeoise. The text describes in detail the conditions endured by workers in specific industries, including manufacturing and agriculture.Īfter addressing how these inhumane conditions drive the working class to unionize and rebel, and how the bourgeoisie enacts new laws in response, the final chapter surveys the bourgeoisie’s attitude toward the proletariat. The subsequent chapters explore the proletariat’s working and living conditions, the effects of immigration on the labor market, and the bourgeoisie’s motivations in enforcing this status quo. The prefaces clarify the text’s purpose, then the Introduction traces the development of the proletariat, particularly through technological advancements that reshape both society and the dynamic between property holders and the working class. In discussing the fundamentally incompatible interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, Engels aims to provoke his readers to demand social change as a last attempt to prevent workers from taking matters into their own hands and triggering a new French Revolution. The “savage” conditions to which the proletariat was reduced motivated Engels to write an account of his observations and unmask the hypocrisy of his fellow members of the elite, who purposefully hid their employees’ terrible situation, maintaining that the working class in England lived well. Employed as a representative of his father’s German manufacturing firm in Manchester, Engels witnessed firsthand how the emerging capitalist mode of production lead to a systematic exploitation of workers by the upper-middle class.

Friedrich engels the condition of working class in england