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Product Description
Review
"This is a very nicely-produced edition at a price practical for course use. David McClellan's introduction is clear and useful."--J. Boyden, Tulane University
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Book Description
The Condition of the Working Class in England is the best known work of Engels, and still in many ways the best study of the working class in Victorian England. What Cobbett had done for agricultural poverty in his Rural Rides, Engels did - and more - in this work on the plight of industrial workers in England in the 1840s.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A vivid and Uncompromising Indictment of Capitalism,
By
This review is from: The Condition of the Working Class in England (Paperback)
Most folks are aware that the Industrial Revolution wreaked terrible havoc on a huge percentage of the population of England. It was not always so clear however and Fredrick Engels (1820-1895) set out to document not only the general conditions but the misery and degradation and alienation of workers under Capitalism. He uses his own eye witness accounts, those of others and a number of reports to paint a vivid picture of those (many of them children and women) who were forced to toil for starvation level wages, breathe polluted air, drink water fouled by industrial waste and primitive to non existent sewage treatment. They lived in grotesquely overcrowded housing (as many as two thirds of families lived in one room) which was unfit for even animal habitation. He writes an angry (quite justified) polemic but in doing so he brings what we would recognize today a kind of anthropologist's eye for detail and to the effect it all had on peoples' behaviour (by and large chaotic), morals (degraded) and life span (very short). He also accomplishes two further objectives. First he provides a clear analysis of the process of Capitalism as it goes through its boom and bust cycles. (We can rather see it working away today in different but related ways) Finally he makes a powerful indictment of the unthinking and uncaring behaviour of the bourgeoisie toward the brutalized working class. He goes on to suggest that as a consequence of the greed of the 'money grubbing' bourgeoisie and Capitalism's need for markets for expansion and ever cheaper labour, which leads to an increasingly numerous, alienated and enraged working class. Of course he was quite wrong about a coming class war. Indeed he demonstrated considerable naïveté in his misunderstanding of the complexities of the interaction among issues of class, nationality (to be fair this was just beginning to exert extensive power over the imagination) and religion. As well, there was (and is) the power of elite institutions to shape public understanding of conditions. These have made it difficult for workers to organize. But this is a quibble. Engels, at a time when he only new Marx on a superficial basis analyzed Capitalism and was able to convey the turbulence and horror of the times. And he was only 24 years old and doing this research and writing in his spare time. A classic.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Engels,
By Rob Carson (Rimersburg, PA, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Penguin Classics The Condition Of The Working Class In England (Paperback)
In this book, Karl Marx's friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels describes the lives of England's laboring classes in the worst days of the industrial revolution. This includes dangerous working conditions, meager pay, child labor and explotation. Being the son of the owner of a textile factory, Engels knew of these conditions first hand. In these days it was said that the fastest way out of Manchester was a bottle of gin. This book contains images that are pathetic in the true sense of word, one catches glimpes of life so wretched that they are scarely belivable. Writings such as this one eventually exposed the misery of the working classes and had a profound influence on socialists and labor movement leaders. The book is a tour-de-force and truly speaks for it's self.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A visit to the Dark Satanic Mills of England,
By
This review is from: Penguin Classics The Condition Of The Working Class In England (Paperback)
Engels was the engine behind Karl Marx, one that gave him all the support he could, so to permit Marx to dedicate himself almost completely to the completion of his works. Judging himself many degrees bellow Marx in terms of intelect, Engels nonetheless is capable of writting a book such as this which describes all the impoverishment of the working class in the beginning of the industrialization in England, being helped by some well porputed factories labor fiscalization agents who allowed Engels to flip trough their reports. Strong terms like "the dark satanic mills" describe fully what were the working conditions of the time in a so rich country as England. An historical document lest no one forget what can happen again if the free hand of capitalism is allowed to run free of any barriers.
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