Skip to main content
NEU Senior Regional Support Officer
From Engels to Boris Johnson: the return of ‘social murder’
The PM’s inaction over Covid has parallels with politicians of mid-19th-century England, writes KEITH FLETT
Engels (right) with Marx, statue in Berlin [Manfred Bruckels/cc]

FRIEDRICH ENGELS’s book, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, is a well-known classic of social history. 

His investigations helped to inform the important understandings of Karl Marx and himself about how capitalism does and does not work.

One concept that he mentions in the book has recently begun to receive attention again. 

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Ramsgate beach 1899
History / 14 August 2025
14 August 2025

The summer saw the co-founders of modern communism travelling from Ramsgate to Neuenahr to Scotland in search of good weather, good health and good newspapers in the reading rooms, writes KEITH FLETT

Features / 14 April 2025
14 April 2025
From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor of the Exchequer
Features / 17 March 2025
17 March 2025
Starmer’s slash-and-burn approach to disability benefits represents a fundamental break with Labour’s founding mission to challenge the idle rich rather than punish the vulnerable poor, argues KEITH FLETT
A cartoon depiction of the arrest of the Cato Street Conspir
Features / 4 February 2025
4 February 2025
The legacy of an 1820 conspiracy in revenge for Peterloo resonates down the ages, argues KEITH FLETT