Engels: Capitalist?

[Rafiq]

Anyone have info on how and why Engels owned capital and a factory? How'd he treat his workers? Why he such a hipocrite?

Thanks, I am just curious because it's a bit Ironic.

[Kalifornia]

His father was a capitalist, who owned textile factories, he got Engels a job running a factory in Manchester I think.

Without Engels, Marx would have died of starvation lol.

Engels wrote a letter to Marx saying his wife had died, and in his reply, Marx asked for more money off Engels lol.

Basically, Engels used his position to finance Marx and was dedicated to Proletarian Liberation.

[red cat]

He was a class traitor by all means. :lol:

[gestalt]

Engels worked in a mill co-owned by his father, first as a clerk and then as a manager, primarily to earn funds to support Marx while he wrote Capital. As far as his treatment of employees, I have no idea. Engels was opposed to child labor and a proto-feminist, so seeing as how most textile workers were female we can speculate. He did not inherit ownership outright and was not allowed to access his shares for a period of time because his father thought he would squander it on communist causes.

Some accounts do say that he continued capitalist practices like investment in stocks after retiring from the mill to provide for himself, his partner and Marx.

His work clearly demonstrates whose side he was on and calling him a "hypocrite" is counterproductive as capitalism is pervasive and we all partake or give tacit approval to the system in some way.

[Sixiang]

From what I understand (I could be wrong), Engels detested the position and used it mainly as a means to support himself and Marx. I doubt Engels took joy from that position.

[Widerstand]

He was a bourgeois. He was also most obsessed with spreading dialectics. Do the Dots connect now?

[Rafiq]

Okay stop taking a shit on me. I didn't know. All I heard once was that "Engels extracted surplus value from workers while he wrote things about worker's liberation".

[Widerstand]

That's what he did though.

[the last donut of the night]

engels was an OG

[Zanthorus]

He was also most obsessed with spreading dialectics.

Can we please keep the tiresome point-scoring arguments to the board appropriate for them (i.e philosophy)?

[Kalifornia]

engels was an OG

Original Guerrilla:cool:

[Sixiang]

Along with working as a capitalist, a job he personally hated, Engels also helped organize workers in Germany, took part in an uprising in Germany, and wrote for radical newspapers in Germany, England, and France. Just sayin'.

Sources:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/bio/engels/en-1892.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/work/england/manchester/article_4.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/work/england/manchester/article_5.shtml

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

let's also consider that all great theorists in this regard came from privaledged backgrounds. engels would've welcomed his overthrow just as kroptkin denounced his title as prince, and che guevara left behind his privaledged existence. in these days, the only people that would've had the chance to bear the fruits of their intellect were from the bourgoisie. workers weren't publishing their analyses, if they had them, thanks to their socio-economic constraints. only the bourgoisie had the opportunity to put these theories onto paper.

[ZeroNowhere]

He wasn't particularly fond of it, but in either case he wasn't a hypocrite, and communism is not a lifestyle.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

This great theorist doesn't need justifying.