Engels' 1844 Summary Of Condition Of English-Speaking Workers Under Capitalism Revisited

As long ago as 1844, Fred Engels summarized how the majority of English-speaking workers were forced to live under a capitalist economic system in predominantly English-speaking countries, in the following way:

"The vast majority of the inhabitants of the great towns are workers...The workers...nearly all live from hand to mouth on their wages. Society having degenerated into a collection of selfish individuals, no one bothers about the workers and their families. The workers are not given the means whereby they can make satisfactory and permanent provision for their families. Even the most highly-skilled worker is therefore continually threatened with the loss of...livelihood and that means death by starvation. And many do indeed die in this way. The working-class quarters of the towns are always badly laid out. Their houses are...kept in a bad state of repair. They are badly ventilated, damp and unhealthy. The workers are herded into the smallest possible space...The clothing of the workers is also normally inadequate. The workers' diet is generally poor...From time to time many workers' families actually go short of food and in exceptional cases they actually die of hunger.

"The working classes of the great cities exhibit a variety of standards of living. In favorable circumstances some of them enjoy, at least temporarily, a modest prosperity. Sometimes high wages can be earned...In bad times, however, the unlucky worker may sink into the deepest poverty, actually culminating in homelessness and death from starvation. On the average the condition of the worker approximates much more closely to the worst we have described than to the best...While it is true that particular groups of workers have an advantage over their fellows and are relatively well off, nevertheless the condition of all workers is liable to fluctuate so violently that every single workers is faced with the possibility of passing through the stages that lead from relative comfort to extreme poverty and even death from starvation..."