What is the working class?

In aristocratic society most people lived in peasant villages or were part of some aristocrat’s household. They either grew their own food or ate from the aristocrat’s kitchen. There were some agricultural day laborers, but relatively few people depended on a daily wage to put food on the table. Even in the cities less than half the adult population were wage earners. Merchants and master craftsmen lived off their profits. Apprentices were paid very little and ate most of their meals in their master’s kitchen while they learned their trade. Journeymen were sometimes paid wages, and there were unskilled day laborers who worked for money.

When the aristocrat peasant relationship breaks up, some peasants are able to retain their land and become modern farmers. Many peasants are not so lucky. They are left without any land and have no choice except to become laborers. At the same time increased economic activity is creating a demand for more wage labor. There are roads to build, canals to dig, and trees to be sawed into lumber. In the 18th century the industrial revolution began in England. The new factory system requires large amounts of unskilled wage labor.

There is a lot of work to do, but usually the supply of labor is greater than the demand. Employers are able to keep wages at subsistence levels. For the new class of wage earners, low pay and long hours are not the only problems. Most jobs are temporary and accidents are frequent. Workers live in a constant state of uncertainty. They never know whether they will be working next week or not. If not, how will they feed their families?

The working class first became a large part of the population in 19th century Europe, but the same basic conditions exist today in most developing nations. In oligarchic societies there is no safety net, no workman’s compensation, and no unemployment insurance. Workers are at the mercy of their employers, most of whom are not concerned about their welfare. The poverty, hardship, and uncertainty of the workers lives convince many people that something is fundamentally wrong with this new kind of society.

In 19th century Europe, it was the rise of markets and capitalism that created the working class. People began to romanticize about the good old days in the peasant villages. Life may have been hard, but at least people did not need money to buy food. They did not have the uncertainty of not knowing where their next meal was coming from. Thinkers and philosophers began trying to imagine a new kind of society, one that would not have this kind of terrible exploitation of the working class.