What was the position of the working classes before the Industrial Revolution?
At different stages of the evolution of society, the working class has occupied different positions in relation to the owning and ruling classes. In ancient times the workers were the slaves of the landowner, as they still are in many backward countries, and even in the Southern part of the United States [i.e. 1847]. In the Middle Ages they were the serfs of the landowning noble, as they are yet in Hungary, Poland and Russia. In the Middle Ages also, and until the Industrial Revolution, there were handicraft guilds in the towns under the control of small masters, out of which developed manufacture, the factory system, and the wage-worker employed by a capitalist. 7. What distinguishes the proletarian from the slave? The slave was sold outright. The proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly. It is to the interest of the slave-owner than his property, the slave, should have an assured existence, however wretched that may be. The individual proletarian, the property, so to speak, of
