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Post by thomas on Dec 29, 2023 12:37:35 GMT
All the Brits have. It is so infused in our culture now, but was not back then when they knew the reality of it. Rural life was extremely hard and unforgiving. Brits are taught egalitarianism, not Marxism. I think you mean `exceptionalism` dyno..................... |
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Post by Einhorn on Dec 29, 2023 12:38:18 GMT
Brits are taught egalitarianism, not Marxism. I think you mean `exceptionalism` dyno..................... No. |
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Dec 29, 2023 12:40:24 GMT
All the Brits have. It is so infused in our culture now, but was not back then when they knew the reality of it. Rural life was extremely hard and unforgiving. Brits are taught egalitarianism, not Marxism. I think you are creating a false dichotomy here. One look at the dictionary entry for egalitarianism should put you straight.
I'm trying to keep my sources politically neutral here.
However it is true to say Marx was not the only one. There was also another giant influence of this period with John Stuart Mills.
Ah that Indian company gets another mention. Perhaps he was some sort of PR agent! We need to take a look at Engels at this point.
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Post by thomas on Dec 29, 2023 12:41:36 GMT
I think you mean `exceptionalism` dyno..................... No.  my bad . This thread is fucking hilarious. I haven't laughed so hard since reading Churchills history of the English speaking peoples.... |
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Post by Einhorn on Dec 29, 2023 12:44:51 GMT
Brits are taught egalitarianism, not Marxism. I think you are creating a false dichotomy here. One look at the dictionary entry for egalitarianism should put you straight.
I'm trying to keep my sources politically neutral here.
However it is true to say Marx was not the only one. There was also another giant influence of this period with John Stuart Mills.
Ah that Indian company gets another mention. Perhaps he was some sort of PR agent! We need to take a look at Engels at this point.
Egalitarianism is the dominant philosophy promoted in British schools - the idea that people are equal and deserving of equal rights. Whether people are equal and receive equal rights and opportunities is another matter. |
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Dec 29, 2023 12:49:32 GMT
Compared to their continental counterparts the British working-class lived like royalty, at least from around the middle-19C on. By that point the worst of the slums were being eradicated (or re-populated by immigrants principally from Eastern Europe or Ireland) while their diet consisted of the produce and fruits of Empire. Tinned salmon from British Coloumbia, frozen beef from Argentina, butter and lamb from New Zealand, bananas and citrus fruit from the West Indies, white bread from Canadian wheat, peaches and sherry from South Africa, tea from Ceylon and so on. All the while their German counterparts would still be accommodated in Wohnkaserne, subsisting on a diet of dark bread, potatoes, turnips and the occasional piece of fatty Speck. washed down with ersatz coffee made from acorns. LOL!!!! The British working class lived like royalty!!!! Sorry, I didn't make it past that sentence. They lived in slums. They worked long hours in dangerous conditions for subsistence wages. Old people were often found starved to death on the streets, there being no pension system. Prostitution was widespread. Incest was widespread. Families were split up and packed off to workhouses. And when the people took to the streets to demand better at Peterloo, they were mown down by the cavalry. They did receive special treatment in one sense, though. At least, they weren't tied to cannons and blown to pieces by the army in the same way their Indian counterparts were. Social security was invented back then with the workhouses. OK it is true to say the church also provided for the poor with medieval almshouses.
Maybe you should take a look at it. One of them still exists today. The ceilings are very low with low doorways. People were not so tall back in those days.
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Post by Einhorn on Dec 29, 2023 12:52:27 GMT
LOL!!!! The British working class lived like royalty!!!! Sorry, I didn't make it past that sentence. They lived in slums. They worked long hours in dangerous conditions for subsistence wages. Old people were often found starved to death on the streets, there being no pension system. Prostitution was widespread. Incest was widespread. Families were split up and packed off to workhouses. And when the people took to the streets to demand better at Peterloo, they were mown down by the cavalry. They did receive special treatment in one sense, though. At least, they weren't tied to cannons and blown to pieces by the army in the same way their Indian counterparts were. Social security was invented back then with the workhouses. OK it is true to say the church also provided for the poor with medieval almshouses.
Maybe you should take a look at it. One of them still exists today. The ceilings are very low with low doorways. People were not so tall back in those days.
Great! Create conditions of mass poverty and then claim to be acting charitably by splitting families up and degrading them. I've no idea what the nonsense about religion is doing on this thread. |
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Post by Hutchyns on Dec 29, 2023 13:02:29 GMT
Darling
What a pity they couldn't have got word back to the rural workers and those still living in the Countryside to say 'The conditions here are awful, for God sake don't make the mistake we've made by coming to an Industrial city to live and work !'
Why didn't the masses of new arrivals take one look at the place and the condition of accommodation they'd be in, and turn on their heel and head straight back to the farm ?
Isn't it similar to modern day demands to close down foreign sweatshops producing cheap clothing etc, when those places provide the most lucrative employment their workers can find ? If there were better conditions and employment elsewhere, then the Sweatshop workers would be out of their present employment like a shot, and grabbing the more cushy jobs instead.
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Post by Baron von Lotsov on Dec 29, 2023 13:05:40 GMT
I think you are creating a false dichotomy here. One look at the dictionary entry for egalitarianism should put you straight.
I'm trying to keep my sources politically neutral here.
However it is true to say Marx was not the only one. There was also another giant influence of this period with John Stuart Mills.
Ah that Indian company gets another mention. Perhaps he was some sort of PR agent! We need to take a look at Engels at this point.
Egalitarianism is the dominant philosophy promoted in British schools - the idea that people are equal and deserving of equal rights. Whether people are equal and receive equal rights and opportunities is another matter. I'm in full agreement with your last statement there. The buzzword for it is equality. It's interesting to note wimin's lib also started around the end of the 19th century. Annie Besant is an important name here. That's another strand of it. Marx was focused on worker's rights and working class "struggle". |
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Post by Hutchyns on Dec 29, 2023 13:20:01 GMT
A little remedial reading is called for in your case Darling. Start with EP Thompson's 'The Making of the English Working Class' perhaps followed up by Roberts's 'The Classic Slum'. Hoggarts' 'The Uses of Literacy' could also be helpful. I'm assuming you've already read Engels but his depiction of the very worst of early 19C Manchester pre-dates the period I refer to. For a continental perspective, you could do worse than visit Dresden's Stadtmuseum which has a very educational exhibition on the life of the working class in 19C industrial Saxony. The world is your oyster when you set out on a voyage of discovery! In addition, for something a little more modern can I recommend In Defence of the Slum Landlord to Darling. link - Defending The Slum Landlord
'It should be remembered that the basic cause of slums is not the slumlord, and that the worst "excesses" of the slumlord are due to governmental programs, especially rent control. The slumlord does make a positive contribution to society; without him, the economy would be worse off. That he continues in his thankless task, amidst all the abuse and vilification, can only be evidence of his basically heroic nature' - Walter Block |
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Post by Einhorn on Dec 29, 2023 13:23:45 GMT
Darling What a pity they couldn't have got word back to the rural workers and those still working in the Countryside to say 'The conditions here are awful, for God sake don't make the mistake we've made by coming to an Industrial city to live and work !'
Why didn't the masses of new arrivals take one look at the place and the condition of accommodation they'd be in, and turn on their heel and head straight back to the farm ? Isn't it similar to modern day demands to close down foreign sweatshops producing cheap clothing etc, when those places provide the most lucrative employment their workers can find ? If there were better conditions and employment elsewhere, then the Sweatshop workers would be out of their present employment like a shot, and grabbing the more cushy jobs instead. You tell us. I suppose conditions were just as bad in rural areas. The choice was between a subsistence income in the country or a subsistence income in the city. If the country or city couldn't provide a subsistence income, then it would have been necessary to look to the other to provide a subsistence income. |
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Post by bancroft on Dec 29, 2023 13:25:21 GMT
I think the working class had a pretty tough time until the 1950s when things started to improve perhaps due to labour shortages.
We were an empire so a big need for merchant seamen and a navy, miners also needed for coal and iron. Iron because we exported things.
Educated people often went to admin posts in the empire. Others became professionals in the white collar trades. We made things so professionals would include engineers with lots of poorly made machine workers.
Blue collar trades did not get paid much.
Not sure how good education was my Dad learnt to read and write and said his father could which was unusual in those days. His dad was born around 1905. Not a good example as he had to leave the country after standing up to a rich thug and join the Merchant navy at 16 on the advice of a local policeman. His father never owned his own property my Dad did yet through hard work rather than hand outs and being able to buy in the early 70's before the oil crisis. Both his parents worked yet did not earn much and liked the pub.
On the other side of the family my maternal grandmother got her first pair of shoes from working in service. She married and also got on the housing ladder though her husband worked in the electric industry. When he died in his 50s he hd forgot to renew his life insurance so she had to sell up and go and live in leased property. She worked into her 70s before dying painfully from liver cancer.
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Post by sheepy on Dec 29, 2023 13:25:31 GMT
I think you mean `exceptionalism` dyno..................... No. Well actually Britons are known for their inventive nature. Probably why we are so watched. |
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Post by Einhorn on Dec 29, 2023 13:27:52 GMT
Well actually Britons are known for their inventive nature. Probably why we are so watched. What have you invented, Sheeps? |
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Post by sheepy on Dec 29, 2023 13:28:40 GMT
Whereas the Anglo-Saxons are known as being pretty dim and the Normans known as the murdering greedy savages they are.
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