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6. What are the main reasons for Marx and Engels's predictions being wrong?

Article )The increasing prosperity of the working class and the decline in worker militancy both went against the predictions in the Communist Manifesto. Marx and Engels reached overly pessimistic conclusions about the economic plight of the working class and overestimated the potential for a proletarian revolution largely because they were writing during the hungry '40s and because they focused their attention on the cotton industry in south Lancashire. They concentrated on the cotton industry because they viewed it as the apogee of industrial capitalism, theplace where ''the effects of modern manufacture upon the working class'' were ''most freely and perfectly'' developed (Engels, 1845 [1987], pp. 82-3).

They interpreted the downturn of 1837-42 and the political discontent that it spawned in industrial cities as evidence that cyclical downturns became ''more violent, more terrible'' over time, and therefore that British capitalism could not long survive. The fact that the cotton industry was particularly hard hit by the downturns of 1841-42 and 1847-48, and that Chartism and other forms of political agitation were centered in the northern industrial cities, provided further evidence for Marx and Engels that a revolt of the proletariat was soon to occur.As the increasingly interventionist stance of the government from the 1840s onwards makes clear, Marx and Engels's analysis of British politics and society was greatly oversimplified. There was not, even during the hungry '40s, a ''veiled civil war'' raging between the capitalists and the workers. Nor was there either a unified middle class or a unified working class, as Marx and Engels asserted. There were significant differences in income and outlook between the capitalist middle class, the lower middle class ofshopkeepers, clerks, and others, and the professional middle class of doctors, clergymen, lawyers, and public officials. The debate within urban town councils over the adoption of sanitary improvements offers an example of the political differences between the capitalist and the professional middle class, on one hand, and the lower wmiddle class, on the other (Hennock, 1963; Wohl, 1983, ch. 7).However, their pessimistic predictions were not simply a result of their observations of the British economy in the 1840s but were also due to their analysis of the British political system. Marx and Engels (1848 [1992], pp. 5, 27) argued that the adoption of the Reform Act of 1832, which enfranchised middle class property holders and redistributed the seats in Parliament, caused the aristocracy to succumb to the ''hateful upstart'' bourgeoisie, who thereby achieved ''exclusive political sway.'' As evidence of the bourgeoisie's control of Parliament, Engels (1845 [1987]) cited the adoption of the New Poor Law in 1834 and, more importantly, the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. This depiction of British politics in the second quarter of the 19th century is largely incorrect. While the Reform Act significantly increased the representation of the northern industrial cities in the House of Commons, Parliament continued to be dominated by the aristocracy and gentry for several decades after 1832. In the 1840s ''between 70 and 80 per cent of the Commons . . came from the landed interest'' (Evans, 1983, p. 216). These landowners supported the New Poor Law, and were instrumental in its passage (Brundage, 1978, chapter 3; Boyer, 1990, pp. 194-204)

Similarly, the working class must be divided into at least two groupsthe ''labor aristocracy'' of highly skilled artisans and the remainder of the manual workers. John Stuart Mill wrote (1848 [1909], p. 393) that ''the line of demarcation'' between different classes of workers was so complete ''as to be almost equivalent to an hereditary distinction of caste.'' Some historians contend that the labor aristocracy ''should be grouped with the middle class[,] many of whose prejudices about keeping down the rates and maintaining social order they probably shared, and a large gap should be marked between them and the mass'' of manual workers (Clark, 1966, p. 132). Chartism offers an example of the differences in outlook within the working class. Its support came largely from ''the casualties of the industrial changes of the period.'' The labor aristocracy was not much involved with Chartism, except during times of ''intense trade depression,'' and the trade unions never became ''part and parcel of the Movement'' (Pelling, 1987, pp. 34-35; Musson, 1972, pp. 45-48; Webb and Webb, 1920, pp. 174-77).

How did Marx and Engels respond to the economic and political developments in England after 1848? According to Hobsbawm (1975, p. 108), they ''maintained some hope of a revived revolution after 1849, . . . then put their faith in the next major economic crisis (that of 1857), [and] resigned themselves to the long haul thereafter.'' Possibly the best statement of their later views was written by Engels in 1885, two years after Marx's death. Engels admitted that 1848 was the beginning of ''a new industrial

epoch.'' The manufacturing capitalists now controlled national politics, but the experience of Chartism had taught them that they could ''never obtain full social and political power over the nation except by the help of the working class.'' As a result, the manufacturers gradually came to support the Factory Acts, trade unions, and even the franchise for the working class (1885 [1971], pp. 389-90). The condition of the factory operatives and the members of the ''great trade unions'' permanently improved after 1850. However, for the majority of workers, ''the state of misery and insecurity in which they live now is as low as ever, if not lower'' (pp. 391-92). Moreover, the relatively high living standards of the factory workers were a result of ''England's industrial monopoly,'' which would soon be ''irretrievably broken up'' by the economic rise of Germany, France and America. The working class then will lose its ''privileged position . . . [relative to] its fellow-workers abroad. And that is the reason why there will be

Socialism again in England'' (pp. 393-94)