News from Nowhere

Guest returns to the question of how this all came about and asks Hammond if the transition was peaceful. He says no: It was war. People in the 1800s speculated about communism, but they were so deeply entrenched in their situation that they did not believe it possible. They thought a gradual change in the condition of labor would naturally change the class dynamics. The working class saw a happy future without imagining the specifics of how to get there. Slowly, the workers demanded more from their masters, and the masters controlled less of the money, even if the workers’ lives did not actually improve much. This power struggle went on for half a century, with workers going on strike and masters giving in only as much as they had to. Eventually, the state took over the factories, in accordance with state socialism, and Hammond admits that they were close to the bread rations that critics of socialism always reference. The workers resolved to control the means of production, and the masters took that as a declaration of war. The workers met in Trafalgar Square, and the police, “civic bourgeoisie guard,” according to Hammond, arrested most, hurt many, and killed some of the attendees (131).