Sunday, January 08, 2017

What sort of productive system Marx and Engels saw in Britain


Nasir Khan, January 8, 2017

The following photo is from Victorian England, which in those days had the largest empire in the world. It gives a small glimpse into the living conditions of young children.

Where did the wealth by trade and commercial activity with the colonies and the rest of the world go? Certainly, it didn’t go to the working class people, the poor, the paupers, and their children but only in the coffers of the ruling elite and the bourgeoisie.

Many writers and social historians wrote about the wretched conditions under which the poor and underprivileged people lived. Among them were two friends of German origin, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, who witnessed the condition of the working class and poor people in Britain.

In their prognosis, the expanding capitalist system was based on greed and profit-making, where the social, economic welfare of the working class had no meaning for the owners of means of production and the control they exercised over the process of production.

Such an unjust and inhumane system needed to be replaced by a system where the means of productions were not to be left in the hands of a tiny minority but were held jointly by the majority to create a humane and caring society. Marx and Engels formulated their ideas in their books and papers that form the basis of Scientific Socialism.

Anita Sullivan

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