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(b) THE WORKING CLASS IS FORCED BY HISTORY AND A DEMOCRATIC RULING CLASS TO DEVELOP
The struggle for the 10 hour day was beginning at this time. The existence of an unreformed Parliament, election to which depended more on the decision of the ruling class than on the will of the people, did not deter the working class from using Parliament and their right of petition effectively. The Short Time Associations of Lancashire and Yorkshire not only used Parliament, they dictated to the MPs what they wanted legislated. And the Parliament listened. There was nothing in the form or appearance of Parliament which forced Parliament to listen - it did so because its responsibility was not to the ruling class or to the limited number of electors, but to the society. Recognising that the working class were fast becoming the majority of the society and that they were the producers of wealth, Parliament legislated for a 10 Hour Day in l847 after the working class had developed its case through the existing political institutions (creating some ad hoc institutions like the Short Time Associations on the way. The room in British society for voluntary institutions like these is crucial to this type of government. If the voluntary organisation has some substance in the society, it will show this by continuing to gain membership, make its voice heard and, through gaining more and more adherents, will develop and refine its case - i.e. begin to make more and more sense to the society. Its case will be more and more in line with what it is possible to achieve in the present situation. When that case has been thoroughly aired, it will be evident to the ruling class how much of it is essential to adopt and give legitimacy to and what is inessential.)
Not only did the ruling class 'permit' the working class to make use of 'exclusive' political institutions, the ruling class was also tackling the job of making the working class conscious of the new capitalist society so that it could participate directly in its institutions. The education of the working class as a class was begun on a voluntary basis by progressive members of the ruling class as early as the end of the l8th century. Lord Brougham (Liberal cabinet minister) and the Glasgow capitalist Birkbeck were amongst the first who provided lectures in political economy, philosophy, and science to mechanics in the evenings. By 1886 Gladstone was able to say that the ruling class as a whole had understood the need for education of the working class, that the working class also understood this need and that therefore the Government was taking up the question while in no way limiting the continued activity of voluntary associations. To those 'Marxists' who howl that the ruling class fed the working class opiate ideology but called it education, one can only reply that the education provided in no way held the working class back from self-development. We would ask these 'Marxists' to produce evidence of the ruling class in Britain ever holding back the working class, keeping them at bay, with idealism, metaphysics or religion. The ruling class's arguments with socialists or democrats have not been arguments of principle but of practice - that the society itself is not ready to absorb such changes. And the ruling class has only held back the development of such changes when the class has seen them threatening social stability - i.e. when anarchy rather than a further development of society would be the consequence. In point of fact, the last time it was necessary for the ruling class to hold back such a movement in the British working class was Chartism. Since that time the working class has thrown up no demand for social change and development that the ruling class has not met.