The Labor Movement and the Rise of Socialism
The Labor Movement
The 18th century in England saw significant changes in the workplace. With the introduction of the freedom of production, which allowed for new manufacturing outside of union rules, traditional craftsmen lost their privileges. Factory owners dictated the conditions of production and hiring, leading to low wages and exhausting workdays. This sparked conflict and the emergence of workers’ associations formed by artisans facing proletarianization.
Luddism: Anti-Industrialism
Captain Ned Ludd’s name became synonymous with the anti-industrialist movement. Letters threatening factory owners were often signed with his name. The Luddites believed that machines were harming workers’ interests by reducing wages.
Utopian Socialism
This term describes thinkers like Friedrich Engels who envisioned ideal societies but didn’t engage in the necessary struggles to achieve them. Charles Fourier advocated for phalansteries, communal groups with collective property and shared tasks. Étienne Cabet designed Icaria, a communist country promoting complete social equality. Robert Owen (1771-1858) championed worker-owned cooperatives, establishing a model factory in New Lanark based on these principles:
- A worker’s quality of life is directly related to improvements in housing, hygiene, education, and the prohibition of child labor, with established minimum working hours.
- Social change can be achieved through community reform, independent of political action.
- Agricultural communities should exist without private property.
- Work is the measure of value.
- Trade is based on the value of labor.
Early Unionism
The first worker organizations were clandestine mutual aid societies, providing support during illness or unemployment. In England, the National Association for the Protection of Labor (1830) united construction, textile, metallurgy, and mining associations. Its failure led to discussions and the formation of the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union (GNCTU) in 1834, which aimed to create worker-owned production cooperatives.
Chartist Movement
This movement advocated for political and social reform in the UK, outlining its principles in the People’s Charter.
Marxism
Developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century, Marxism presented scientific socialism as an alternative to utopian thought. Its core tenets included:
- Class struggle
- Surplus value (the difference between a worker’s wage and the value they produce)
- A future communist society achieved through workers seizing political power
- Dictatorship of the proletariat, leading to a classless, egalitarian society
Anarchism
This model rejects authority. Anarchy envisions a society based on individual freedom, social solidarity, criticism of private property, collective ownership, and opposition to hierarchical organizations in religion and politics. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon advocated for a system based on independent study and expansion. Mikhail Bakunin believed in destroying the state to create an egalitarian society based on free association.
The First International
The International Workingmen’s Association, founded in London in 1864, united English, French, Italian, and German unions and political exiles. Early congresses focused on reduced working hours, abolishing child labor, improving women’s working conditions, abolishing standing armies, and socializing the means of production, advocating strikes as the most effective means to achieve these goals.
The Paris Commune (1871)
Following France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, a conservative government prepared to surrender to the Germans. Paris revolted, establishing the Paris Commune, a democratic and social republic. Reforms included nationalizing church assets, reforming the justice system, replacing the army with militias, abolishing the police, giving abandoned companies to workers, and establishing free, secular education.
Crisis and Dissolution of the First International
Conflicts between Bakunin and Marx led to the International’s dissolution at the Hague Congress in 1872. Marxists formed national labor organizations, while Bakunin’s followers created the Anti-Authoritarian International.
The Progress of Unionism (1880s)
Capitalism’s growth led to a rise in the industrial proletariat and new labor laws in England and Germany. Unions demanded state intervention to resolve conflicts, curb employer abuses, and ensure fair labor laws. Early labor laws addressed:
- Child and women’s labor: setting a minimum working age of 9
- Compulsory insurance: covering illness, accidents, disability, and old age
- Working hours: limiting workdays to 10 hours in workshops and 8 hours in mines
Socialist Parties and Unions
The German Social Democratic Party (SPD), founded in 1875, aimed to achieve a socialist society through revolutionary action and democratic social reforms. These included universal suffrage for women, proportional representation, equal rights, direct taxation, and improvements in healthcare and education. The SPD also sought better working conditions, including reduced working hours, higher wages, the prohibition of child labor, and social insurance. It promoted the creation of national unions, such as the General Commission of German Trade Unions in 1892. Similar movements emerged in other countries, including the UGT in Spain (1888) and the Labor Party in England (1905).
The Second International (1889)
Founded in Paris to commemorate the French Revolution’s centenary, the Second International was a more ideologically unified organization. It advocated for worker protection laws, the 8-hour workday, the abolition of child labor, the extension of democracy, peaceful revolution, labor market regulation, and the end of sexual discrimination and other inequalities.