"Every great city has one or more slums, where the working-class is crowded together. . . . The streets are generally unpaved, rough, dirty, filled with vegetable and animal refuse [trash], without sewers or gutters, but supplied with foul, stagnant pools instead. . . .The modern art of manufacture has reached its perfection [highest level] in Manchester [in England]. . . . The degradation [disrespect] to which the application of steam-power, machinery and the division of labor reduce the working-man, and the attempts of the proletariat to rise above this abasement [low condition], must likewise be carried to the highest point and with the fullest consciousness."
Background information: Friedrich Engels was a German socialist whose family was wealthy cotton manufacturers. When he was twenty-two, he was sent to work at the family factory in Manchester, England. This excerpt is from his book,The Condition of the Working Class in England, which was published in 1844.
What is the main idea of this passage?
A) Industrialization has created poor working and living conditions for the people.
B) Mass production has created perfection in Manchester.
C) Steam-power machinery has led to the degradation of the environment.
D) The working classes of Manchester have developed most freely and perfectly.
