Starting in the 18th century, transformations in commerce led to the emergence of the early factory system and the birth of the British working class. Displaced from the countryside, these new workers flooded into textile mills that would fuel the growth of British capitalism. Combining archival footage, interviews with historians and testimonies from modern factory workers, A HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS outlines the development of new forms of discipline and time management that would transform the lives of workers and their nascent political consciousness. The Luddite movement, Peterloo Massacre, and demands for universal suffrage are discussed as early high watermarks in the development of working class politics, foreshadowing the uprisings of the 19th and 20th centuries.
A bearer of hope and utopias in troubled times, the working class acquires an exceptional influence in the second half of the 20th century. (Final episode)
Europe has industrialized everything, including war. The laws of the WWI front extend to the factories, and the American methods of rationalization come to make the “good worker” a “good soldier”. From the Russian Revolution to the Spanish Civil War, the demands of the working class are materializing.
French workers organize themselves and fight for their rights with the “barricade” as their preferred weapon. Great insurgencies shook Europe at the end of the century, leading to the construction of a new unified working class.
The beginnings of the “Factory System. New conceptions of work and time trigger a certain class consciousness that will make history.
Starting in the 18th century, transformations in commerce led to the emergence of the early factory system and the birth of the British working class. Displaced from the countryside, these new workers flooded into textile mills that would fuel the growth of British capitalism. Combining archival footage, interviews with historians and testimonies from modern factory workers, A HISTORY OF THE EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS outlines the development of new forms of discipline and time management that would transform the lives of workers and their nascent political consciousness. The Luddite movement, Peterloo Massacre, and demands for universal suffrage are discussed as early high watermarks in the development of working class politics, foreshadowing the uprisings of the 19th and 20th centuries.
