40 pages • 1 hour read
Friedrich EngelsThe Condition of the Working Class in England
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1845A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-7
Chapter 6 Summary: “Single Branches of Industry. Factory-hands”
The author goes into more detail about the various problems facing the proletariat at the workplace. To add credibility and better illustrate his points, he cites official reports, personal letters of workers, as well as his own conversations with people employed at factories.
The major problem inherent in the mechanization of production is the reduced demand for human labor. The more advanced the jenny, loom, and other devices become, the less need there is for people, which leads to prevalent unemployment. The bourgeoisie’s claims that lowering the cost of products leads to new factories and more jobs is only partially true, as it takes years for this process to result in more work, and even then technological progress keeps reducing the need for human labor. Furthermore, many jobs involving the supervision and maintenance of machines are better suited to the smaller and more nimble hands of children and women, who are also paid less. As a result, adult men are displaced from the workplace by the cheaper labor of younger people and women.
Engels challenges another claim of the bourgeoisie—that machines make workers’ lives better—through vivid descriptions of the horrendous conditions in factories. For example, afraid of losing their jobs, women, whether pregnant or ill, keep going to work for 12 hours a day. Sometimes they are forced to give birth on the factory floor and come back to work after three or four days. Since they cannot feed their babies at regular intervals, new mothers’ breasts become painful and leak throughout the day.
In addition to being forced to work through pregnancy or sickness, the long work hours result in deformities, especially in the young. Children who oversee machines are forced to stand upright for six, seven, or eight hours a day. Young women, similarly, spend 12 hours a day bent over their looms or other machines, causing problems in their spines and hips.
The author argues that forcing children and women to work undermines the very fabric of society. When both parents spend all day at work, it is impossible to create a true family. Children born to proletariat parents have no understanding of how to maintain a family of their own, perpetuating the disintegration of society. Furthermore, since men are increasingly displaced from the workforce, gender roles at home are reversed without a similar change happening in the rest of society, leading to dissatisfaction and humiliation. Men are still expected to be the breadwinners without having the means to do so.
Furthermore, machines can cause injuries and death. The workers who are forced to labor so long every day are often too tired or sick to be careful and can easily suffer a smashed joint or lose a finger or a hand. Sometimes, if caught in a big machine, they are killed. Since machine maintenance is not considered labor, workers are not paid extra to do it and, in theory, are supposed to clean the equipment in their free time. To avoid having to stay even later and work for free, they often try to do maintenance while the machines are working, resulting in even more accidents.
Two more aspects of the factory system contribute to the virtual enslavement of the workers. The first one, the Truck system, has to do with paying in goods. Manufacturers open their own shops in which they sell products that are more expensive than in other stores; they also pay their workers with a type of coupon, forcing them to buy overpriced food. The second way factory owners exploit their workers is the Cottage System. There is usually not enough housing for all the workers at big factories or mines. The owners, then, are forced to build cottages for their employees. The rent is often higher than that of other properties, but part of the contract is for the proletariat to pay rent, even if they do not reside in these dwellings. There is also only a week’s notice if the manufacturer wants to evict a worker and, as a result, if someone decides to protest or go on a strike, they will be left without a salary and without a home.
Chapter 7 Summary: “The Remaining Branches of Industry”
Engels looks at the working conditions in the industry branches, which utilize the raw products manufactured in the factories. He examines the iron-working, lace, pottering, and sewing branches, and demonstrates that the factories’ terrible and often lethal working conditions are universal.
For example, in the stocking-weaving and lace industries there is often night work, which is very bad for the eyes. The results are near-sightedness or blindness. In the bobby-lacework branch of lace-making, young women spend long hours every day bent over. To support the torso in such an uncomfortable position, they wear wooden stays, which gradually displace their ribs and narrow the chest, often resulting in the development of consumption. In the bleaching industry workers breathe in chlorine, which damages their lungs. In the metal-wares industry those who spend their lives behind a lathe develop a crooked “hind-leg” (213). In the pottery industry the children who dip the finished products into a finishing liquid containing lead and arsenic develop severe pains, partial paralysis, and even convulsions, which can lead to death.
The situation is no better in the dress-making industry. During the fashionable months, these establishments employ large numbers of girls just arrived from the countryside. These young women often work for as long as physically possible, with brief breaks between shifts. They are not allowed any respite and sleep on the premises. Because of the long hours spent in small, stuffy, badly lit rooms, they suffer from headaches and chest pain, and some eventually go blind.
Chapters 6-7 Analysis
These two chapters illustrate that the privation suffered by factory workers in cities is the rule, not the exception. The author repeatedly demonstrates that the condition of the working class is fundamentally flawed—there are no aspects of their lives that can be seen as redeeming. Engels could have described life in some of the more affluent industry branches or those not involving physical labor, but that would have been counterproductive and misleading. He is not concerned with evaluating specific situations or individual factories or mills; he is denouncing the entire system.
To draw and keep his readers’ attention, Engels accuses the bourgeoisie of “social murder,” which would have guaranteed a strong and negative reaction, characteristic of most provocative gestures. The upper-middle class readers would not have agreed with the author’s viewpoint, but they would have probably debated and discussed these accusations in an attempt to refute them, bringing the conditions of the working class into the public discourse. Engels vehemently objects to the claims made in the press or in Parliament speeches that the workers have good lives and there is no need for any change. Citing official reports by respected doctors and specialists would have made it difficult to outright dismiss his claims without further investigation.
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