The Social Consequences of Economic Expansion

17.3.1 The Middle Class and the Proletariat

The wealth amassed by the western nation-states in the second half of the nine­teenth century, thanks to the Technical Revolution, the consolidation of the liberal model of state, and the fact that European states controlled virtually the entire globe by way of colonial imperialism, brought essential social and political changes.

Just when the middle class was gaining access to political representation, however, the social order was once again shaken up and blurred as a consequence of the momentous economic transformations spawned by the triumph of Big Capitalism (Wahrman 2003, 411). While the “free” person, i.e. one not subject to any feudal servitude and living off the fruits of his own labor, was a social type which appeared in the Renaissance and spread throughout Europe in the seven­teenth century, by the mid-nineteenth century the “working class” was a result of the abovementioned transformations that had led to increasingly uneven distribu­tions of wealth. Enormous fortunes stood in stark contrast to masses of people wallowing in the most absolute poverty. Beneath the middle class arose a new European social stratum: the proletariat (from the Latin proles, meaning “off­spring”), thus called because its members had no assets but their own children.^[980] The proletariat was also referred to as “the Fourth Estate” to differentiate it from the former tripartite estate system under the Ancien Regime: the two privileged classes (clergy and nobility) and the Third Estate, made up of the common people.

scene in the mid-nineteenth century, aiming to achieve the political influence necessary to alter a constitutional system in Europe (Neale 1972, 15-40)^[981] which had relegated workers to a life of misery. This is what came to be known as “the social question” (Moggach 2000, 21).

17.3.2 The Origins of “the Social Question”

The Industrial Revolution rapidly and dramatically transformed the agricultural society of the Old Regime. With less and less work in the countryside, the cities were flooded with people, where conditions were often dire. The glut of labor available allowed factory owners to impose draconian conditions on their employees. Working hours were endless, there were no mandated rest periods, and workers could barely survive on their wages.

These “labor” difficulties spurred many Europeans to emigrate, primarily to the United States. Between 1580 and 1815 (235 years), three million Europeans had emigrated to America. From 1815 to 1860 (45 years) five million Europeans emigrated to the U.S. alone, and between 1860 and 1927 (67 years) the figure reached 27 million.^[982] Major waves of European emigration also headed for South America, particularly Italians and Spaniards leaving for Argentina, and Portuguese leaving for Brazil (Moch 2003, 147-157). Millions of Europeans also settled in Australia (West and Murphy 2010, 9). The conditions, which these immigrants encountered, were often precarious. Nevertheless, the New World’s unstoppable growth offered many more opportunities than the “Old World”, where society was much more structured and opportunities for social mobility much more restricted.

Nevertheless, while many left, even more stayed on the Continent, and this generated an increasingly unsustainable situation for the growing mass of people crowded into its cities, many unemployed, or with jobs that confined them to perpetual poverty.

The abominable conditions to which these proletarian masses were subjected during the second half of the nineteenth century in Europe are expressly described in the following text by Vicens Vives, one of the most lucid Spanish historians of the twentieth century:

...

Large industrial companies, which amassed enormous amounts of capital, had thrived thanks to economic liberalism. Liberal economists called for the absence of any intervention in corporate production and labor policies. The enrichment of the nation seemed to ratify the validity of their doctrines, but it should not be overlooked that this wealth ended up in the hands of a relatively small economic elite. To increase their revenues early and mid 19th- century industrialists did not hesitate to subject their workers to the harshest of labor conditions. Although these conditions varied greatly between the different nations, broadly speaking workers toiled for 13 to 14 hours a day, under unhealthy conditions, and for wages which barely allowed them to survive given the cost of living. With unrestrained access to cheap labor, companies even turned to employing children and women, upon whom the long hours and grueling work took a heavy toll (...) There were no social welfare laws providing workers with any protection in the event they were disabled, or any security once they were too old to work any longer.

But even more disturbing was the worker’s new spiritual condition and his relationship to his trade and employers. Traditionally apprentices and workers labored alongside master craftsmen to learn the different trades, with the latter group inculcating a love for the craft and a dedication to fine work in the former. Between employer and worker and master and apprentice there existed ties of friendship and solidarity.

The glaring inequalities between employers and their employees were the first factor giving rise to a collective awareness among them regarding the shared interests it behooved them to defend. (...) Opposition to the working conditions of the day crystallized in a broad social movement, whose manifestations ranged from constructive to destructive, from peaceful to violent. The most relevant and consequential aspect of the workers movement was the collective dimension it adopted, in both the social and political spheres. Through this collectivism the masses, for the first time, took history into their own hands and became its protagonists.^[983]

The emergence of organized labor movements began to transform European economics and society, soon impacting its politics and constitutions, as the surging pressure exerted by the proletariat called into question the principles of the liberal state which, according to its critics, had allowed for deplorable degrees of human exploitation.

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