Sandwichman — The Political Economy of the Working Class

Karl Marx chronicled and contributed to the political economy of the working class. He did not invent, conclude or supersede it.

He did not invent, conclude or supersede it. In his Inaugural Address to the International Working Men’s Association, Marx celebrated the first victory of the political economy of the working class, the passage, in 1847, of the Ten Hours' Bill:

This struggle about the legal restriction of the hours of labor raged the more fiercely since, apart from frightened avarice, it told indeed upon the great contest between the blind rule of the supply and demand laws which form the political economy of the middle class, and social production controlled by social foresight, which forms the political economy of the working class. Hence the Ten Hours’ Bill was not only a great practical success; it was the victory of a principle; it was the first time that in broad daylight the political economy of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the working class.

This passage tells us what we most need to know about the political economy of the working class. It is founded upon "social production controlled by social foresight" in opposition to "the blind rule of supply and demand laws." The "most notorious organs of science" had predicted and "proved" that "any legal restriction of the hours of labor must sound the death knell of British industry" and, of course, they were subsequently proved absolutely wrong. Not 'merely' wrong, but the exact opposite of apposite....

Econospeak

The Political Economy of the Working Class

Sandwichman