Socialismo e Welfare nel XIX secolo: Marx e la leglislazione sociale

[Autom. eng. transl.] Among the most radical opponents of this social policy, Karl Marx (1818-1883) occupied a prominent position. He expressed an extremely negative judgment on Poor Laws (considered a vestige of the feudal past) and on the Speenhamland system (considered as a mechanism that allowed landowners to keep wages low). On the contrary, Marx studied and appreciated a series of laws that go under the name of Factory Acts - legislative interventions that, starting in 1802, sought to impose certain rules on industrial work in terms of schedules, child labor, minimum security conditions4. His positive judgment shows that in addition to the usual revolutionary attitude, it is possible to trace in Marx's writings a strong attention to the institutions that determined the working conditions. Even if the social reforms could not have substantially changed the hard life of the workers, nor led to an adequate redistribution of income aimed at their full sustenance, they would have put a brake on the exploitation of the labor force by the capitalists.