The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844: with a Preface written in 1892Engels, Friedrich
History
The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844: with a Preface written in 1892
Engels, Friedrich
Great Britain -- Economic conditions; Working class -- Great Britain
against a revolt on the part of his hands. He could tyrannise over them
and plunder them to his heart's content, and yet receive obedience,
gratitude, and assent from these stupid people by bestowing a trifle of
patronising friendliness which cost him nothing, and perhaps some paltry
present, all apparently out of pure, self-sacrificing, uncalled-for
goodness of heart, but really not one-tenth part of his duty. As an
individual bourgeois, placed under conditions which he had not himself
created, he might do his duty at least in part; but, as a member of the
ruling class, which, by the mere fact of its ruling, is responsible for
the condition of the whole nation, he did nothing of what his position
involved. On the contrary, he plundered the whole nation for his own
individual advantage. In the patriarchal relation that hypocritically
concealed the slavery of the worker, the latter must have remained an
intellectual zero, totally ignorant of his own interest, a mere private
individual. Only when estranged from his employer, when convinced that
the sole bond between employer and employe is the bond of pecuniary
profit, when the sentimental bond between them, which stood not the
slightest test, had wholly fallen away, then only did the worker begin to
recognise his own interests and develop independently; then only did he
cease to be the slave of the bourgeoisie in his thoughts, feelings, and
the expression of his will. And to this end manufacture on a grand scale
and in great cities has most largely contributed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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