From Trier to Manchester via Wuppertal - a short history of the Labour movement

Anmeldung möglich

The labour movement is beyond doubt one of the most consequential (and, indeed, beneficial) developments in social and economic history. Viscerally linked to the Industrial Revolution, it has also been the final liberation of the majority of the population from factual or at least economic serfdom existing throughout the centuries before, fighting against the vested interests of capital to this day.
By a quirk of history, the movement is indelibly linked to places our society has personal links to as well: It was in Manchester where our chair met his later wife, with the two of them living many years in Cottonopolis. And it was in Trier where our deputy chair and lecturer was born, only to then move on to Wuppertal. All three places, of course, are of paramount importance to the labour movement, since Karl Marx was a citizen of Trier, Friedrich Engels of Wuppertal, and it was in the textiles metropolis of Manchester where Engels had many of his factories, instilling him with the determination to change the lot of the labourers working and living in squalid, inhuman circumstances.
Jakob Steffen is an economist and political scientist by training, specialised in macroeconomics and political theory. He is also an operative of the Social Democratic Party of Germany that of course has direct roots in the labour movement of the 19th and 20th century. Thus, he is well placed to introduce us into the socio-economic as well as historical aspects of the subject matter, always willing to engage in lively debate.
Dies ist eine Veranstaltung in Kooperation mit der Deutsch-Britischen Gesellschaft Ruhr e. V. Informationen über die Deutsch-Britische Gesellschaft finden Sie auf www.dbg-ruhr.de