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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Dec 27, 2023 3:16:23 GMT
First hand accounts are what you really need to go by to understand history. I have one here of some missionary gent who visits Manchester during the time of Marx and Engels. Indeed in the following passage he briefly mentions Engels as a contemporary thing.
So was it bad? Yes it was by our standards, but life on the farm was no better really and likely poorer. However there is a positive side to it as well. Manchester was officially the first place in the world to industrialise, so in a way these guys were all world leaders, as in a part of the leading edge in what would revolutionise the world. So we have to ask why was it so bad. We know what Dickens wrote about and we know what Marx's view was, but in a a way it was like the upper class looking at the working class conditions and thinking ah, what an awful stench. These guys were in one way champagne socialists. Now it is important to note also the champagne socialism seems to have come from Christianity, so it had good intentions, but once mixed up in politics it caused havoc, and little of the Christian way is recognised in Marxism. Marx's first political influence was via this guy he met who was some Christian anarchist. Yes I know that looks like an oxymoron, but you can see how he got that revolutionary spirit they run on. So we have three factors which created the scene. There was a the snobbery factor of the out of touch middle class lads not used to this way ordinary people lived, but also the revolution was so successful that Manchester was a victim of its own success. It grew so fast the accommodation and civil infrastructure could not keep pace as a huge influx of people arrived to make it into a city, ironically coming to find work as they would have heard of the booming trade. Then there is the third factor. Initially they were earning more, but there is mention that due to war the industrialists seemed to be diverting funds to the war effort and the workers were the ones who ultimately footed the military bill.
Oh well, and everyone since then thought it was just evil capitalists. This is indeed an interesting thing because you get the distinct impression the whole system was very market-orientated. If you were skilled you could work your way up to OK money to live on. Remember at this time the fertility rate peaked at 4.2. That's a fair few mouths the mother would feed. It s nice to see charitable organisations at work too. You can see some quality architecture so I can't really see how Engels could describe it all as a hell hole. The boy was biased!
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Post by seniorcitizen007 on Dec 27, 2023 10:34:32 GMT
In the early 19th century there was an opinion that Britain was overpopulated. That the introduction of farm machinery, etc. meant that fewer people were needed. Laws were introduced to prevent the rural unemployed from leaving their parishes ... where they were expected to "die off". The rich would become richer whilst having to provide for fewer workers. Someone said that the rural poor in Britain were being treated worse than American slaves. Then, in 1830, the rural poor revolted and scared the living daylights out of the ruling classes. There is evidence that one of the organisers of the uprising was a nine year old girl, "of exceptional intelligence", who traveled around the country with her uncle.
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Post by Einhorn on Dec 27, 2023 10:56:37 GMT
If you were skilled you could work your way up to OK money to live on. Did you watch the video you linked, Baron? |
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Post by Einhorn on Dec 27, 2023 11:10:17 GMT
First hand accounts are what you really need to go by to understand history. I have one here of some missionary gent who visits Manchester during the time of Marx and Engels. Indeed in the following passage he briefly mentions Engels as a contemporary thing. So was it bad? Yes it was by our standards, but life on the farm was no better really and likely poorer. However there is a positive side to it as well. Manchester was officially the first place in the world to industrialise, so in a way these guys were all world leaders, as in a part of the leading edge in what would revolutionise the world. So we have to ask why was it so bad. We know what Dickens wrote about and we know what Marx's view was, but in a a way it was like the upper class looking at the working class conditions and thinking ah, what an awful stench. These guys were in one way champagne socialists. Now it is important to note also the champagne socialism seems to have come from Christianity, so it had good intentions, but once mixed up in politics it caused havoc, and little of the Christian way is recognised in Marxism. Marx's first political influence was via this guy he met who was some Christian anarchist. Yes I know that looks like an oxymoron, but you can see how he got that revolutionary spirit they run on. So we have three factors which created the scene. There was a the snobbery factor of the out of touch middle class lads not used to this way ordinary people lived, but also the revolution was so successful that Manchester was a victim of its own success. It grew so fast the accommodation and civil infrastructure could not keep pace as a huge influx of people arrived to make it into a city, ironically coming to find work as they would have heard of the booming trade. Then there is the third factor. Initially they were earning more, but there is mention that due to war the industrialists seemed to be diverting funds to the war effort and the workers were the ones who ultimately footed the military bill. Oh well, and everyone since then thought it was just evil capitalists. This is indeed an interesting thing because you get the distinct impression the whole system was very market-orientated. If you were skilled you could work your way up to OK money to live on. Remember at this time the fertility rate peaked at 4.2. That's a fair few mouths the mother would feed. It s nice to see charitable organisations at work too. You can see some quality architecture so I can't really see how Engels could describe it all as a hell hole. The boy was biased! If a champagne socialist is somebody from a privileged background who is sympathetic to the conditions of the less well off, what is the opposite of that? Take someone whose ancestors lived in absolute squalor, but nevertheless describes that era, the time of empire, as Britain's proudest moment. What is he called? A patriot? What about the soldiers who rode out to quash the march at Peterloo? If they were from a poor background but they served the interests of those who kept their families poor, are they the working class or poor class equivalent of a champagne socialist? They are poor and they serve the rich, so they are the equivalent of the rich who serve the poor, aren't they? Just to be clear: if privileged people who work against their own class interests are called champagne socialists, what are the poor who work against their own class interests called? |
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Post by piglet on Dec 27, 2023 12:18:09 GMT
I grew up in something like that, South street Cambridge, you would think Cambridge would not have slums, it was demolished in in the early sixties, god knows when it was built. We moved to Gwydir street, those houses were built about the 1860s, and in comparison were luxurious. My father bought it for 2,500 in 1961 and they are now worth close to a million, they are a stones throw away from the city centre.
The houses in Gwydir street are slums, they are astonishingly small, put furniture in and you cant move. In any other city they would have been demolished a generation ago, or more. Both my parents were immigrants, but aspired to better things, even in south street, they owned it, they never claimed a penny off the government. The poor can lift themselves up, if they want to.
The problem is that life down there is too good. We pay the poor not to work, while they make money on the side. So we let immigrants in to work in social care, nhs etc. The parties pay poor people to vote for them, look at Sunaks hand outs to business etc. Shocking.
A hard life is the driver in making things better.
Someone born in Oldham for instance, wont have grown up in Trusgne Italy, or some god forsaken sh it hole in belorussia, i never found out where my father was born, in the early 1920s. See the difference? Social security is an idiot.
And whatever hardships my parents went through did them good, as my hardships in the 60s did me good. I remember being given two fingers of a bar six and thinking i was in heaven. My father had a good saying, when he thought i was too demanding, that i wanted my bread buttered on both sides. My contempt for the british poor knows no bounds, thay dont know when they are well off.
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Dec 27, 2023 12:48:41 GMT
In the early 19th century there was an opinion that Britain was overpopulated. That the introduction of farm machinery, etc. meant that fewer people were needed. Laws were introduced to prevent the rural unemployed from leaving their parishes ... where they were expected to "die off". The rich would become richer whilst having to provide for fewer workers. Someone said that the rural poor in Britain were being treated worse than American slaves. Then, in 1830, the rural poor revolted and scared the living daylights out of the ruling classes. There is evidence that one of the organisers of the uprising was a nine year old girl, "of exceptional intelligence", who traveled around the country with her uncle. Yes but there was also the thing it was trying to do overseas. You see India was a pretty rich country before the British set foot and they had their own indigenous textile industry. The Brits in their grand holiness invented trade dumping. They would dump cheap British manufactured textiles onto the Indian market and wipe out local producers wholesale, thereby taking control of the market. India did not like this very much but when backed up by the British army, there was not a lot they could do about it. Meanwhile back in Britain we needed millions of factories and workers to make the cheapest stuff possible and by economy of scale. It was another reason why they were worked to the bone. They had to undercut Indian cottage industry. We were making the world's products which were shipped out across the expanding empire. |
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Dec 27, 2023 12:51:23 GMT
If you were skilled you could work your way up to OK money to live on. Did you watch the video you linked, Baron? Yes and they were at least able to afford meat. The thing was everyone was poorer in the past, except the very rich, as in the factory owning middle class and the aristocracy. They lived to the south of Manchester and you can still see the homes they lived in. |
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Post by Einhorn on Dec 27, 2023 13:10:27 GMT
Did you watch the video you linked, Baron? Yes and they were at least able to afford meat. The thing was everyone was poorer in the past, except the very rich, as in the factory owning middle class and the aristocracy. They lived to the south of Manchester and you can still see the homes they lived in. They worked long hours. Very long hours. Then, they returned home to slums and hungry children. If you can't work your way out of it with a 12-hour shift, how do you work your way out of it? Meanwhile, they were told that they supposedly ruled a third of the world. LOL!!!! |
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Post by wapentake on Dec 27, 2023 13:44:09 GMT
Iirc the Industrial Revolution began in Ironbridge in Shropshire,interesting place to visit but anyway the Industrial Revolution made the wealth of this country,but not for the plebs.
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Post by Hutchyns on Dec 27, 2023 14:14:03 GMT
Darling
Tough times for a year or two certainly, but it wouldn't have been long before the kids could pull their weight and make life better for the family as a whole. Chimneys didn't sweep themselves, and with a couple of extra incomes coming in, things are soon looking up ... even if you do have to wipe a bit of soot out of your eye first.
As wapentakes says, it wasn't solely the Industrial Revolution that set the plebs on the road to the cushy life under capitalism the majority of them enjoy today. It had to be combined with the division of labour before capitalism could work its magic and put living standards into overdrive, and it didn't take too long.
Just look a few years on to Upstairs Downstairs ..... warm and cosy even below stairs: Hudson was well paid for essentially doing nothing more than answering the door, or helping people on with their coat ....Rose made the beds and maybe did a bit of sewing, but there was loads of free time every evening to sit around chatting by the fire ... and rent free accommodation at that ..... two or three meals a day, no charge for them either ......and it just got better from then on, no wonder the openly declared Marxist candidates never get more than a couple of hundred votes when they try to entice the plebs with Communism.
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Post by Einhorn on Dec 27, 2023 14:18:16 GMT
Darling Tough times for a year or two certainly, but it wouldn't have been long before the kids could pull their weight and make life better for the family as a whole. Chimneys didn't sweep themselves, and with a couple of extra incomes coming in, things are soon looking up ... even if you do have to wipe a bit of soot out of your eye first. As wapentakes says, it wasn't solely the Industrial Revolution that set the plebs on the road to the cushy life under capitalism the majority of them enjoy today. It had to be combined with the division of labour before capitalism could work its magic and put living standards into overdrive, and it didn't take too long. Just look a few years on to Upstairs Downstairs ..... warm and cosy even below stairs: Hudson was well paid for essentially doing nothing more than answering the door, or helping people on with their coat ....Rose made the beds and maybe did a bit of sewing, but there was loads of free time every evening to sit around chatting by the fire ... and rent free accommodation at that ..... two or three meals a day, no charge for them either ......and it just got better from then on, no wonder the openly declared Marxist candidates never get more than a couple of hundred votes when they try to entice the plebs with Communism. I shall meet your sarcasm with the observation that Bentley's cat is prettier. |
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Post by Hutchyns on Dec 27, 2023 14:39:50 GMT
Bentley's cat was different class. My more scrawny cat was selected as a tribute to Bentley while being sufficiently obviously inferior as to not upstage his cat. And what thanks did I get ? .... Bentley trying to scratch my eyes out on Christmas Eve ! ..... even when I'd explained it was the sherry typing  . Getting back to the point, not that I fully remember what it was, but I'm sure The Baron has explained how China's astronomical transformation to wealth came about, and I doubt he told us it was due to a strict adherence to the teachings of Marx. Mind you, I think Xi Jinping had some complimentary words to say about Chairman Mao over Christmas ...... so there could be a suggestion that Marx was half right. |
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Dec 28, 2023 22:13:53 GMT
Darling Tough times for a year or two certainly, but it wouldn't have been long before the kids could pull their weight and make life better for the family as a whole. Chimneys didn't sweep themselves, and with a couple of extra incomes coming in, things are soon looking up ... even if you do have to wipe a bit of soot out of your eye first. As wapentakes says, it wasn't solely the Industrial Revolution that set the plebs on the road to the cushy life under capitalism the majority of them enjoy today. It had to be combined with the division of labour before capitalism could work its magic and put living standards into overdrive, and it didn't take too long. Just look a few years on to Upstairs Downstairs ..... warm and cosy even below stairs: Hudson was well paid for essentially doing nothing more than answering the door, or helping people on with their coat ....Rose made the beds and maybe did a bit of sewing, but there was loads of free time every evening to sit around chatting by the fire ... and rent free accommodation at that ..... two or three meals a day, no charge for them either ......and it just got better from then on, no wonder the openly declared Marxist candidates never get more than a couple of hundred votes when they try to entice the plebs with Communism. Life expectancy rapidly increased. This is the shock. A bit of industry did them a lot of good. Also during this time many common killer diseases were sussed. It was not only the industry but the science as well. |
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Post by Einhorn on Dec 29, 2023 0:58:30 GMT
Darling Tough times for a year or two certainly, but it wouldn't have been long before the kids could pull their weight and make life better for the family as a whole. Chimneys didn't sweep themselves, and with a couple of extra incomes coming in, things are soon looking up ... even if you do have to wipe a bit of soot out of your eye first. As wapentakes says, it wasn't solely the Industrial Revolution that set the plebs on the road to the cushy life under capitalism the majority of them enjoy today. It had to be combined with the division of labour before capitalism could work its magic and put living standards into overdrive, and it didn't take too long. Just look a few years on to Upstairs Downstairs ..... warm and cosy even below stairs: Hudson was well paid for essentially doing nothing more than answering the door, or helping people on with their coat ....Rose made the beds and maybe did a bit of sewing, but there was loads of free time every evening to sit around chatting by the fire ... and rent free accommodation at that ..... two or three meals a day, no charge for them either ......and it just got better from then on, no wonder the openly declared Marxist candidates never get more than a couple of hundred votes when they try to entice the plebs with Communism. Life expectancy rapidly increased. This is the shock. A bit of industry did them a lot of good. Also during this time many common killer diseases were sussed. It was not only the industry but the science as well. 1) Life expectancy would have increased a hell of a lot more if many families didn't have to live in slum tenements, a whole family to a damp room. 2) Killer diseases could have been eradicated without slum tenements, low wages, and appalling working conditions. |
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Dec 29, 2023 1:14:21 GMT
Life expectancy rapidly increased. This is the shock. A bit of industry did them a lot of good. Also during this time many common killer diseases were sussed. It was not only the industry but the science as well. 1) Life expectancy would have increased a hell of a lot more if many families didn't have to live in slum tenements, a whole family to a damp room. 2) Killer diseases could have been eradicated without slum tenements, low wages, and appalling working conditions. 1) Yes we know that, but it was likely because as an example, the Irish rural farmer was on the verge of starving and immigrated over to the place which had the jobs. The overcrowding was far from intentional. Industrialists often donated money to build schools and universities, and Manchester University was one such place.
2) No they could not. I have a fascinating video fir you here, to demonstrate my argument of why not. If you were a chemist, you would recognise the following tool of your trade.
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