Karl Marx made a lasting impression on 19th century British industrial society.  His published works illustrate how new political philosophies were being shaped and his perspectives highlight how some workers and academics viewed the events around them.  In his 1853 article published in the New York Daily Tribune, titled “The Labour Movement in Britain,” Marx discusses the patterns he saw emerging, and the actions that workers needed take in order to accomplish their goal.  He immediately makes his position on workers’ strikes very clear, saying

I am, on the very contrary, convinced that the alternative rise and fall of wages, and the continual conflicts between masters and men resulting therefrom, are, in the present organization of industry, the indispensable means of holding up the spirit of the labouring classes, of combining them into one great association against the encroachments of ruling class, and of preventing them from becoming apathetic, thoughtless, more or less well-fed instruments of production[i] (Marx 127).

Marx believed that strikes unified the working class, that they were a manifestation of class struggle and directly undermined elite members of society.  Marx continues on to say that the results of the strikes were irrelevant and it was the nature of the protest that was important.  Marx believed that through strikes and other class protests, workers won a moral and political victory. Understanding Marx’s view on strikes helps show how important strikes were, not only in bringing about economic change, but in defining the class struggles that, at times, characterized industrial British society (Marx 126-130).

- Adam Bischoff