A Revolutionary Idea

May 17, 1856
   Today saw me working again at those crude machines at the factory. Tragically I am afraid I must write of a terrible accident that occurred during the course of my daily work routine; Charles didn’t live to see the end of the work shift. His shirt got caught in the large gears when he got too close to the machines; I don’t think I could ever describe the carnage that ensued, yet the management had us continue working. By the end of my shift the heat that had built up inside of the factory from the blazing sun and the machines, had filled the air with the disgusting smell of decaying flesh and blood. How I had told the bosses that without proper safety equipment, this kind of incident was bound to happen on a frequent basis, but they didn’t even bother to answer or even acknowledge me. It has become apparent to me that they truly do not care about us and that to them we are simply pieces of fodder easily replaced by any man they pull in off of the streets.
Upon discussing my dissatisfaction with some of the other workers, however, they advised me to read a small pamphlet which they handed to me, The Communist Manifesto, which I have been told was written by a pair of German gentlemen named Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.  According to what I gathered from their writing, my suspicions and distrust of my employers is well founded; throughout the history of man there has always been conflict between the working class (or “proletariat” as they put it) and the upper class (“bourgeoisie”).  Is what the writing says true? Has the respect and honor of a hard-day’s work been completely stripped away?  I deeply want to disbelieve in what this literature tells me, but the more I delve into its pages, the more I come to fear that it is indeed the truth.
  The authors said “No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.”, which when I look back at these past few years, it matches up with my life.  The last time I got money for my work, I ended up dishing out every last dollar for some meager bread and a cramped little apartment (with hardly any amenities I might add!). Though this is true, I cannot help but think of my old friend Frederick, who I have seen less and less of in recent days.
   In our last encounter, he had mentioned to me that he probably would not be able to see much of anyone outside of work for a good period of time. He says that his landlord has upped the rent on his own home (which is hardly any better than my own) and that the only way he might be able to afford it now is winning that monthly bonus the company awards. Of course this is only given to the worker who has produce a high enough output so he has been staying well past his shift. Some rumors I have heard going around my other coworkers say he has been found asleep on the factory floor after working himself to the point of exhaustion late in the evening shift. This type of exhausting labor is likely what Marx and Engels meant when they mentioned that workers “…who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital.”  Anymore it seems like that his who life has become nothing but a race, on which a single stumble or hiccup would leave him dead or dying in the even worse-off portion of London.
  With this in consideration, the ideas that the authors are putting forward are increasingly more appealing to me, and many of the other men from the factory floor also seem to be at least partially interested in what “communism” has to offer to them and the rest of England. Perhaps it is better said as what communism has to offer the world, because as the authors point out, a workingman has no country of his own.  Though I like many of the ideas these men offer, I still have some reservations about their new proposed system. It can be said that their system is all about the abolition of private property, which seems rather far-fetched to me.  Can man truly survive in this day and age without such a concept? I myself am quite unsure that it is even feasible to do so.
  If I were to walk about to any stranger upon the streets of this city, neigh, any city in the country and say to them “dear sir, would you be willing to part with your material possessions and personal effects if I told you it would be for the benefit of all the hard working-class folks in England?” (Why, you’d have to be out of your mind to accept such a proposal from a person you know nothing about!) Again however, Marx and Engels address such concerns in a manner than while not completely clear to me, I understand enough of it to agree with it. They say that we have an obsession with our private property and are protective of it simply because that is how the proletariat is conditioned.
  Should all of what they wrote came to pass, it seems like all of the problems I face, as well as those of my friends and neighbors, would be solved by the concentration of power in the state. Surely it would be a wondrous thing to think that the money I have to pay for my rent would no longer go into lining the pockets of these land owners, but rather into the well-being of the public.  If I had to borrow money for some reason, it would also be much smoother and less expensive than trying to borrow from the local land-owners or from the private banks cropping up all over the city of London. A national bank where all of the currency would be concentrated is just the kind of solution that people like myself would want.  Yet I also question if the country were to adapt communism, what would life be like for the children I hope to have some day?
  Marx speaks of a free education for everyone, something that I as a child had very limited access to, especially when my parents had me helping to pay the bills by sending me to work at the factory.  In England, we already have quite a good limitation on how long a child can work, and for what age they can actually be allowed to start working I fear it still would not grant a child of the proletariat time enough to learn properly. Yet upon looking more closely at the pamphlet, it dawns on me that this situation too has been addressed by the authors. When they are talking about the different measures that would be implemented upon the adoption of communism, one measure would be “Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form.”  For me, it is certainly a hope that if I did have any children, that they would not have to work in a god-awful factory or workshop like I have done for so much of my early childhood and continuing on up through my years as an adult.
  So I suppose what it all comes down to, is how people should be able to live their lives. In our current society, it seems like many are content with how they do that, yet how many don’t know any better? Charles certainly didn’t (or won’t ever for that matter) and Frederick does not have a single moment of time to even contemplate any alternatives to the way he slaves to make his family’s ends meet. For me, this world ripe with the exploitation of the working class by the bourgeoisie is hardly how I imagined I would be leading my life. Will I end up working every day until my heart finally can take it no more, just like my father did before me, and his father before that? Communism seems to be that one hope for me; that proverbial light at the end of a dark tunnel. Giving up the ownership of what little meager possessions I own still feels incredibly alien to me but it continues to bind me to the capitalist system.  For even when I work hard and earn enough to pay off one debt or secure another month’s rent, some other money related issue seems to merely take its place and at times they pile up so quickly I am astounded I have gotten so far in my life. The way in which these merchants and landlords do business is simply unacceptable, and know I see that the only way to ever be able to circumvent the greed that they harbor in lieu of fairness and human compassion. Children should never have to be subjected to the indignity that a life of ceaseless yet meaningless toiling brings them, especially at a young age when they should be out learning and living the carefree childhood that we have all yearned to have though must did not.
  With this resolve, I will return to my place of work tomorrow and talk to my coworkers; perhaps I can convince them of the serious need to do away with the capitalist factory owners and help establish a government for the people.
- John Mason