The Proletariat

The Proletariat consisted of a social class of Roman citizens owning little or no property. This class in society lives entirely from the sale of the labor power and does not draw profit from any kind of capital. Bourgeois industriousness created wealth, but criticised the moral hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie when they ignored the alleged origins of their wealth – the exploitation of the proletariat, the urban and rural workers.The Proletariat started in the industrial revolution, which was precipitated by the discovery of the steam engine, various spinning machines, the mechanical loom, and a whole series of other mechanical devices. These machines, which were very expensive and hence could be brought on by big capitalists, altered the whole

Today, by some estimates wage laborers are a majority of the world's population.. However it was less in size than its structural and strategic location that made that made the proletariat important..Antagonism with the bourgeoisie leads proletarians to organize themselves into trade unions and other forms of association. Because workers in modern capitalism are concentrated in urban centers and in large workplaces, they have enormous social and economic power when organized, exhibited in their ability to bring whole economies to a halt through the weapon of the mass

We shall find, too, that with the possible exception of the Irish, the degree of intelligence of the various workers is in direct proportion to their relation to manufacture; and that the factory-hands are most enlightened as to their own interests, the miners somewhat less so, the agricultural labourers scarcely at all.

We shall find the same order again among the industrial workers, and shall see how the factory-hands, eldest children of the industrial revolution, have from the beginning to the present day formed the nucleus of the Labour Movement, and how the others have joined this movement just in proportion as their handicraft has been invaded by the progress of machinery. We shall thus learn from the example which England offers, from the equal pace which the Labour Movement has kept with the movement of industrial development, the historical significance of