The Labor Movement: Origins, Ideologies, and Organizations
The Labor Movement
The labor movement began in the mid-19th century. Its aim was to improve the poor living and working conditions of workers during the industrialization process. The level of development of the labor movement varied between countries, based on their level of industrial development, the class consciousness of the workers, whether or not there were laws permitting freedom of association, and how much the labor movement ideology influenced workers.
The Ideology: Socialism
Paradoxically, the first supporters of the labor movement were wealthy middle-class intellectuals. They were the first ones to denounce the exploitation of workers and set out the need to improve living conditions for the working class.
As of 1820, utopian socialists proposed idealistic solutions to social inequalities. For example, in 1825, Robert Owen…
However, utopian ideas had little influence on the workers themselves. The schools of thought that mobilized the proletariat the most were Marxism and anarchism.
CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS
This Marxist concept refers to the way in which members of a social class are aware that they belong to that class and of the differences between it and the other classes. In the case of the working class, class consciousness is the awareness of one’s alienation because of one’s exploitation by the capitalist economic system.
Labor Movement Organization
Trade unions, working-class parties, and international organizations were formed.
The first trade unions were mutual aid associations. The membership fees paid by workers were used to support those who were unemployed, ill, or whose relatives had died. Later, trade unions began to use strikes to demand that business owners provide better working conditions for their employees. The first English trade unions were established in the 1820s.
Other European countries did not have trade unions until the second half of the 19th century. This was the result of delayed industrialization and repression of the labor revolts in 1848.
Proletarian Internationalism
Proletarian internationalism emerged in the 1860s. In 1864, the International Workingmen’s Association (IWA) was founded in London. It was later called the First International. The most important thinkers of the period, Marx and Bakunin, were the organization’s leaders, but they clashed over their different stances on the proletariat’s involvement in politics. The differences of opinion between Marxists and anarchists were so great that the First International was dissolved in 1876. It had also been affected by repression following workers’ involvement in the Paris Commune in 1871.
During the 1870s, socialist parties were founded in various European countries. These working-class parties came together in 1889 to found the Second International. There were disagreements within the organization, between supporters of the Marxist revolution and revisionists, who supported gradual reform of capitalism.
Luddism
When industrialization began, working-class protest movements developed in many European countries. The Luddites used violent methods to destroy machines to stop them replacing human workers. This movement is named after Ned Ludd, a young English man who supposedly organized several acts of machine destruction.