Make no mistake about it, Britain had gulags. They were called workhouses.
After the 1830s, as Britain's elite oversaw the transition to a market economy, outdoor relief for the poor was scrapped - meaning hundreds of thousands entered the work house over the following decades.
After the 1830s, as Britain's elite oversaw the transition to a market economy, outdoor relief for the poor was scrapped - meaning hundreds of thousands entered the work house over the following decades.
This shift was born of the ideological fanaticism of a tiny elite - see the Commission for Poor Law reform - meaning laws helping the poor since the Elizabethan era were overturned.
As the likes of Nassau Senior might have said - you gotta crack eggs to have an omlette >
As the likes of Nassau Senior might have said - you gotta crack eggs to have an omlette >
Don't believe vanilla revisionism. Britain's shift to a market economy was a conscious political shift driven by the elite. From transporting Luddites to the Peterloo Massacre, creating the Workhouse & repealing the Corn Laws, this 'inevitability' was a political project >
The consequences of this were suffering, hardship and - for many - death.
Of course, in the world of capitalist realism, these are closer to natural disasters than the tragedies of 'modernisation' in Stalin's Russia or Mao's China.
Of course, in the world of capitalist realism, these are closer to natural disasters than the tragedies of 'modernisation' in Stalin's Russia or Mao's China.
In parliament Lord Carnarvon said that the English labourer was reduced to a plight "more abject than that of any race in Europe" their employers no longer able to feed and employ them. This was a state with Swing Riots, a Luddite Uprising and Highland Clearances >
not to mention 'Days of May' in 1832 and the rise of Chartism.
As a political response many were murdered/transported - Tolpuddle Martyrs one widely known example. This poem, from 1812, captures quotidian misery of emergence of industrial capitalism. Omlettes and eggs, I guess.
As a political response many were murdered/transported - Tolpuddle Martyrs one widely known example. This poem, from 1812, captures quotidian misery of emergence of industrial capitalism. Omlettes and eggs, I guess.
