The Condition of the Working Class in England

Engels explores how competition initially created the proletariat and how it continues to impact working-class living conditions. He believes that the atomization of society, when every individual is concerned solely with his or her success, is a direct result of competition and an example of “all against all” (111).

The proletariat came into being when weavers’ wages increased due to higher demand for their skills, causing them to abandon any kind of farming and dedicate their time to weaving for wages. However, because of the constantly growing number of workers, in times of crisis, when there is no demand for production, their wages can be almost nothing because there are always other men without work who are willing to accept any payment, no matter how little. Furthermore, if everyone in a family works, they can survive on their combined income, even if every individual’s pay is lowered. In this way, to insure some kind of salary, even if it is the absolute minimum, individual workers are willing to accept smaller and smaller wages, decreasing the general average.

In times of crisis, if necessary, manufacturers can close down a mill or a factory and dismiss their workers to save money. This forces the proletariat to search for other income, such as begging, sweeping the streets, colleting dung, or pick-pocketing and robbing. Because there are no provisions made for the poor during times of crises, many people die from starvation or become severely undernourished and prone to sickness. The philanthropic societies and shelters are so few that they cannot support even half of the unemployed.

After a market crisis, when the demand for goods grows again, factory owners must rapidly increase production and, at such a time, wages grow as long as there are more jobs than workers. The British economy is in constant flux between these two extremes. Engels concludes that workers are treated like goods because the value of their labor is dependent on market fluctuations just like any other commodity and not on any intrinsic human characteristic. The proletariat is enslaved by the property-holding class, which uses competition as a tool to suppress and oppress the working classes by keeping them dependent on the manufacturers’ willingness to employ them.

The author briefly examines the role of Irish immigrants in lowering working wages. Engels states that because the Irish are used to extreme poverty—eating only potatoes, living all together in one room, often with their animals, wearing rags, and not bothering with shoes—they bring down the average wage rate by accepting payment deemed too low by English workers. In this way, the mass influx of Irish workers degrades both the wage rate and the general level of existence. Because of their poverty and lack of future prospects, Irish men drink too much and are content to live in the slums. They are often uneducated, coarse, and mean. Since Irish immigrants comprise as much as one-fifth of the working class, their bad habits are gradually adopted by the English workers, whose moral character and behavior deteriorates as a result.

Engels sets out to prove that the terrible conditions of the working class are consciously enforced by the bourgeoisie and, as a result, can be defined as “social murder” (128). He quotes a variety of sources, including newspapers like the Manchester Guardian and reports prepared for Parliament and the government.

Engels underlines that the crowding in the cities leads to chronic lung diseases like consumption. Other diseases caused by the lack of ventilation and the extremely poor housing conditions include scarlet fever and typhus. Furthermore, the lack of proper nourishment affects adults and also children. Most workers who are second- or third-generation proletariat suffer from scrofula and rickets as well as deformations caused by the too-slow hardening of the bones. The lack of physicians and proper medicines further damages the proletariat’s health. Mothers often treat their babies with opium and laudanum, thinking it beneficial, leading to a 57% mortality rate among children under five years old (137).

In addition to these consequences, the terrible living conditions of the working class also lead to moral problems, such as prevalent alcoholism and sexual license, which are the only two ways of finding some enjoyment and escape from reality. Furthermore, there is no mandatory public education, meaning that most workers can barely read and cannot write.

All these problems lead to increased crime, since workers who cannot earn enough money to live off resort to stealing, as well as suicide, as death can seem like the only escape from such a humiliating and degrading lifestyle.