What class are criminals?

[Misanthrope]

As in that's their only source of income. What class are drug dealers? robbers and muggers? ect.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

They are called the Lumpen proletariat and are not considered a class.

[eric922]

They are called the Lumpen proletariat and are not considered a class.
So are the heads of drug cartels and Mafia Godfathers Lumpen bourgeoisie? I know that isn't a term, but it gets at what I'm trying to say. They do control the illegal means of production.

[Lobotomy]

They're called the lumpenproletariat. IIRC Marx thought of them as enemies of the proletariat since it is in their best interests to maintain the status quo.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

So are the heads of drug cartels and Mafia Godfathers Lumpen bourgeoisie? I know that isn't a term, but it gets at what I'm trying to say. They do control the illegal means of production.

I don't know....Lumpen-bourgeoisie maybe?

[Geiseric]

It's not different at all from legal companies, the grunts, drug dealers and muggers are exploited by the heads of criminal organisations, it's not like many choices were available for these people poor enough to turn to crime. The root of "criminals" as deemed by bourgeois law is the poverty that people are more or less born into. career criminals, i.e. tony montana, or the godfather, start off as people trying to make ends meet and even help their familly or community by illegal means, but like all buisnesses the competition and outside forces forces them to be what we see as evil.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Poverty breeds crime. Poverty is a result of Capitalism. Therefore, crime is a result of Capitalism.

I say this about MOST crime (robbing, burglary, drug dealing, etc.). There will always be the crazies who rape and kill for the hell of it.

[unfriendly]

Can we avoid using psychiatric disabilities ("psychopath") disparagingly like that? I know plenty of psychopaths who are fine people and don't go around raping and killing people.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Can we avoid using psychiatric disabilities ("psychopath") disparagingly like that? I know plenty of psychopaths who are fine people and don't go around raping and killing people.

Sorry, edited...

[Iron Felix]

In Marxism the Lumpenproletariat, (it is incorrect to say the Lumpenproletariat is the class of criminals although Marx does put "criminals" in the Lumpenproletaria)is a layer of the working class. What Marx wrote was that they are incapable of achieving class consciousness, much like the peasants, and thus are useless in revolutionary struggle(but are not opposed to the working class as someone above me wrote, though Trotsky wrote that they are prone to reactionary views and thus are not an ally of the revolutionary struggle)

Bakunin's views were opposite. For him the revolution struggle relied on the peasant and the lumpenproletariat, and not the working class. The peasant is the revolutionary, the worker is so deeply integrated in capital that he is the one who is hopeless. The peasant and the lumpenproletariat are the ones not infected with the influence of the bourgeois and only they can bring revolution.

[unfriendly]

"Crazies" is not better, crazy is a slur used against people with psychiatric disabilities.

[ВАЛТЕР]

"Crazies" is not better, crazy is a slur used against people with psychiatric disabilities.

Well idk what else to call them...sorry, as for being a "slur" I dont view it as one and it wasn't meant as one. People can take it how they want.

[Commissar Rykov]

Can we avoid using psychiatric disabilities ("psychopath") disparagingly like that? I know plenty of psychopaths who are fine people and don't go around raping and killing people.
For someone who wants to attack people for using incorrect terms then why are you using Psychopath? That term is no longer correct either. The correct term if we are going to be sitting here having a pissing contest over it is antisocial personality disorder.

[unfriendly]

Excuse me? It's their personality, they can call it whatever the fuck they want and I'll respect that. As a person with numerous psychiatric disabilities myself, I hate the term "personality disorder" more than anything.


Well idk what else to call them...sorry, as for being a "slur" I dont view it as one and it wasn't meant as one. People can take it how they want.


Well, the word you're looking for is a word to describe people who go around raping and killing people for no reason because their neurology works different than yours. You're not going to find a way to do that un-offensively; your problem is the premise that people will just go around raping and killing for no reason.

It's true that there are people who commit "crimes" for reasons other than being too poor not to -- hell, I'm one of 'em -- but mentioning us just to dismiss us as "crazies" is not okay.

[EvilRedGuy]

Psychopaths should be shoot, they are a threat to society, however remember that "psychopath" is a name of a mental disorder that causes the person to not be able to sympathize for others and thuse kill others, same for sociopaths (bourgeoisie) who simply only cares for their own interests and ignores the problems/death they are causing. So yeah, shoot them both. Allso, unfriendly you have Psychopath friends? Did they try to kill you yet, otherwise they aren't psychopaths but just another diagnose? Also being antisocial isn't a mentally diagnose they just don't have common interests with others. Antisocial are usually intelligent people with often no mentally illness so that wording can't be used, psychopaths and sociopaths are not antisocial. They love interacting and ruining peoples life/see them surfer. So shoot them all, dammit!

[Misanthrope]

Troll?^^

[EvilRedGuy]

No. Dead serious.

[Smyg]

Yes, let's round people up and kill them for having a problem they were born with. If that's too grim, maybe we should put them in neat little camps instead?

[EvilRedGuy]

The problem is that they are a threat to society and everyone who lives in it. And do not forget how many resources it costs to provide for them, killing them fast, painlessly is the best solution.

[Misanthrope]

The problem is that they are a threat to society and everyone who lives in it. And do not forget how many resources it costs to provide for them, killing them fast, painlessly is the best solution.

So mass-murder is one of your requirements for communism? Most authoritarian communists are reasonable and fair but people like you are just insane.

[Obs]

INSANITY

ahahahahahahahahahahaha

[jake williams]

To an extent the question is "What class are people with brown hair?"

All sorts of people break the law, some more often than others, some basically all the time, some very rarely. Some people break different laws than others.

There's a group of people we talk about as "criminals" who are basically "the sort of people who go to jail", which means mostly, a semi-arbitrary group of poor people who are disproportionately non-white. But they're not the people breaking most of the laws. They generally break fewer laws, and of less consequence, than lots of people who wear suits and who are (very) gainfully employed.

There are people whose subsistence more or less comes from crime and who aren't otherwise employed in the formal sector. Generally speaking it makes sense to class such people as "lumpen-proletarian", not because they're breaking laws per se but because they exist outside of the normal relationships with the means of production that determine the social relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

But there are lots of other "criminals".

[Rodrigo]

The problem is that they are a threat to society and everyone who lives in it. And do not forget how many resources it costs to provide for them, killing them fast, painlessly is the best solution.

Psychopaths, drug addicted people, sociopaths ... need to be treated, not shoot or imprisoned.

There are treatments for psychopaths, but still no cure. In the worst cases, I think they should be isolated. Since it's an Anti-social Personality Disorder maybe they would be happy with it, but I'm not sure about, I'm no knowledgeable in this subject.

Imprisonment should occur just in the case of drug traffic bosses, drug dealers and stuff like that, but that doesn't mean they should be shoot. Prisons have to educate, treat the prisoner mental illnesses (if they exist), make them do productive work to society (that's very important, since there wouldn't be just resources spent, but also resources being created!) and teach them good social behavior/how to be healthy to society/why not being a psycho is better for everyone in it, etc.

[ВАЛТЕР]

You can't just kill everybody who has a genetic/mental problem. That's a ridiculous idea. You can treat them, put them on medications, there are countless options. IF the situation is somehow bad enough we can simply put them in an asylum. However killing people because of problems they're born with is an insane proposition.

[L.A.P.]

They're called the lumpenproletariat. IIRC Marx thought of them as enemies of the proletariat since it is in their best interests to maintain the status quo.

Not necessarily, they're not as much opposed to the proletariat as much as they're just a politically unstable class.

[EvilRedGuy]

Psychopaths, drug addicted people, sociopaths ... need to be treated, not shoot or imprisoned.

There are treatments for psychopaths, but still no cure. In the worst cases, I think they should be isolated. Since it's an Anti-social Personality Disorder maybe they would be happy with it, but I'm not sure about, I'm no knowledgeable in this subject.

Imprisonment should occur just in the case of drug traffic bosses, drug dealers and stuff like that, but that doesn't mean they should be shoot. Prisons have to educate, treat the prisoner mental illnesses (if they exist), make them do productive work to society (that's very important, since there wouldn't be just resources spent, but also resources being created!) and teach them good social behavior/how to be healthy to society/why not being a psycho is better for everyone in it, etc.


Bullshit. Nobody wants to be isolated, most people aren't anti-social because they choice to most wish they were social and interacted with people more. I think we should ask the psycho/socio-path whether they wanted to be isolated or killed/painlessly, atleast they have the option then. But yeah, if there is a huge group of them it might cost too many resources, but it isn't because people should be forced to be productive(i hate that bullshit argument) they should still get food/cloth/electricity/housing/water/whatever, etc. I'm just afraid of innocent blood getting spoiled, by some psychopaths (like in the Saw movies) brutally torture/kill peoples who haven't done shit and thats WRONG. Whether you want to do work or not, is up to you. But leaving them to brutally destroy others? No.

Hope i got that message clear.

[Rodrigo]

There's a group of people we talk about as "criminals" who are basically "the sort of people who go to jail", which means mostly, a semi-arbitrary group of poor people who are disproportionately non-white.

Poor criminal people are usually involved in robbery for the sustain of its family, but when criminal activity is caused by the need to profit, stomping on other people to "win in life", like capitalism teaches, we can't say this criminal is equal to the first. This one is the drug dealer and mafioso type. They go beyond survival, while the first ones are just trying to survive, have something to eat ... for example, the orphan girl from Charles Chaplin's Modern Times. :p

As you said, the lumpenproletariat is not linked to social production or also the most miserable individuals in society who get into marginal activities. Because of their most degrading situation, a portion of lumpen are more ready to collaborate with the bourgeoisie for small benefits. Another portion enters into the revolutionary movement.


Below, from Wikipédia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpenproletariat

Lumpenproletariat, a collective term from Lumpenproletarier (a German word literally meaning "raggedy proletarian"), was first defined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The German Ideology (1845) and later elaborated on in other works by Marx. The term was originally coined by Marx to describe that layer of the working class, unlikely to ever achieve class consciousness, lost to socially useful production, and therefore of no use in revolutionary struggle or an actual impediment to the realization of a classless society[1]

In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852), Marx refers to the lumpenproletariat as the "refuse of all classes", including "swindlers, confidence tricksters, brothel-keepers, rag-and-bone merchants, beggars, and other flotsam of society". In the Eighteenth Brumaire, Marx rhetorically describes the lumpenproletariat as a "class fraction" that constituted the political power base for Louis Bonaparte of France in 1848. In this sense, Marx argued that Bonaparte was able to place himself above the two main classes, the proletariat and bourgeoisie, by resorting to the 'lumpenproletariat' as an apparently independent base of power, while in fact advancing the material interests of the 'finance aristocracy'.

For rhetorical purposes, Marx identifies Louis Napoleon himself as being like a member of the lumpenproletariat, insofar as being a member of the finance aristocracy, he has no direct interest in productive enterprises.[2] This is a rhetorical flourish, however, which equates the lumpenproletariat, the rentier class, and the apex of class society as equivalent members of the class of those with no role in useful production.


Engels wrote about the Neapolitan lumpenproletariat during the repression of the 1848 Revolution in Naples: "This action of the Neapolitan lumpenproletariat decided the defeat of the revolution. Swiss guardsmen, Neapolitan soldiers and lazzaroni combined pounced upon the defenders of the barricades."[6]

In other writings, Marx also saw little potential in these sections of society. About rebellious mercenaries, he wrote: "A motley crew of mutineering soldiers who have murdered their officers, torn asunder the ties of discipline, and not succeeded in discovering a man on whom to bestow supreme command are certainly the body least likely to organise a serious and protracted resistance."[7]

Marx's description of mutineers as being unreliable could be argued upon at length. Russian Army mutineers and their soldiers committees were critical to the overturning of the Tsarist regime during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Yet, there is a difference in that the Russian Revolution was a general uprising of most of Russia's popular classes, not just a military mutiny.[8] Also, the Russian Imperial Army was a regular army of conscripts,[9] not an army of mercenaries; as such, its social extraction was quite different, and much closer to the peasantry than to the lumpenproletariat.[10]

According to Marx, the lumpenproletariat had no special motive for participating in revolution, and might in fact have an interest in preserving the current class structure, because the members of the lumpenproletariat usually depend on the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy for their day-to-day existence. In that sense, Marx saw the lumpenproletariat as a counter-revolutionary force.[11]

Leon Trotsky elaborated this view, perceiving the lumpenproletariat as especially vulnerable to reactionary thought. In his collection of essays Fascism: What it is and how to fight it, he describes Benito Mussolini's capture of power: "Through the fascist agency, capitalism sets in motion the masses of the crazed petty bourgeoisie and the bands of declassed and demoralized lumpenproletariat – all the countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy."[12]

Marx's definition has influenced contemporary sociologists, who are concerned with many of the marginalized elements of society characterized by Marx under this label. Marxian and even some non-Marxist sociologists now use the term to refer to those they see as the "victims" of modern society, who exist outside the wage-labor system, such as beggars, or people who make their living through disreputable means: prostitutes and pimps, swindlers, carnies, drug dealers, bootleggers, and bookmakers, but depend on the formal economy for their day-to-day existence.

In modern social theory sometimes the word underclass is used as equivalent to Marx' lumpenproletariat.[13]
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _

Lumpenbourgeoisie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lumpenbourgeoisie is a term used primarily in the context of colonial and neocolonial elites in Latin America, which became heavily dependent and supportive of the neocolonial powers. It is a hybrid compound of the German word Lumpen (rags) and the French word bourgeoisie.

Lumpenbourgeoisie is a term most often attributed to Andre Gunder Frank in 1972[1][2] [a] to describe a type of a middle class[1] and upper class[3] (merchants, lawyers, industrialists, etc.)[4]; one that has little collective self-awareness or economic base[1] and who supports the colonial masters.[1][3] The term is most often used in the context of Latin America.[2][4]

Frank writing on the origins of the term[2] noted that he created this neologism[1] lumpenbourgeoisie from lumpenproletariat and bourgeoisie because while the Latin America's colonial and neocolonial elites were similar to European bourgeoisie on many levels, they had one major difference. This difference was their mentality of the marxist lumpenproletariat, the "refuse of all classes" (as described in Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon) easy to manipulate to support the capitalist system, often turning to crime.[2] Similarly, the colonial elites would—while not involved in crime activities—hurt local economy by aiding the foreign exploiters.[2][5] Foreign colonial powers want to acquire resources and goods found in the colonies, and they find this facilitated with incorporation of the local elites into the system, as they become intermediaries between the rich colonial buyers and the poor local producers.[5] The local elites become increasingly reliant on the system in which they supervise gathering of the surplus production from the colonies, taking their cut and before the remaining goods are sold abroad.[5] Frank termed this economic system lumpendevelopment[5] and the countries affected by it, lumpenstates.[4]

The term Lumpenbourgeoisie was already used in Austria by about 1926. The author was an Austrian social democratic journalist and he used the term in at least one article in a Viennese periodical. Another example of the use of the term was given by Czech philosopher Karel Kosík in 1997. In his article, Lumpenburžoazie a vyšší duchovní pravda ("Lumpenbourgeoisie and the higher spiritual truth") he defines Lumpenbourgeoisie as "a militant, openly anti-democratic enclave within a functioning, however half-hearted and thus helpless democracy".

[Rodrigo]

Bullshit. Nobody wants to be isolated, most people aren't anti-social because they choice to most wish they were social and interacted with people more. I think we should ask the psycho/socio-path whether they wanted to be isolated or killed/painlessly, atleast they have the option then. But yeah, if there is a huge group of them it might cost too many resources, but it isn't because people should be forced to be productive(i hate that bullshit argument) they should still get food/cloth/electricity/housing/water/whatever, etc. I'm just afraid of innocent blood getting spoiled, by some psychopaths (like in the Saw movies) brutally torture/kill peoples who haven't done shit and thats WRONG. Whether you want to do work or not, is up to you. But leaving them to brutally destroy others? No.

Hope i got that message clear.

The message clear, we just didn't like your conclusions.

Of course nobody wants to be isolated, but neither be killed. A person with strong psychopath disorder would have a choice, like you said? No, there's not a choice. Also one doesn't chose to have mental disorders. Saying they have to be killed because of it is nothing more than an indirect Nazi supremacist ideology.

Only IF it's so bad it can't even be treated (treatment is not the same as cure!), I agree with you, killing them would be the only option of ending their pain. But these cases are minoritarian even in the worst capitalist societies. With the destruction of capitalism and the building of socialism, those kind of problems would gradually disappear, since they're not disconnected from society as a whole. For example... Why there are many psychopaths and serial killers in USA, comparing to other countries? Why so many psychopaths and sociopaths in capitalist countries, comparing to others? There are sociological explanations for that.

[EvilRedGuy]

Well, some are just born as psychopaths and sociopaths so some of it isn't sociological.

Or maybe i should stop watching so many movies...

[Commissar Rykov]

Well, some are just born as psychopaths and sociopaths so some of it isn't sociological.

Or maybe i should stop watching so many movies...
I have never once heard of anyone born that way it is developmental retardation usually specifically traumatic events or crossing of some kind of mental wires. There is no indication it can't be fixed it is usually just not caught in time due to parents typically being in denial about the behavior.

[Desperado]

And do not forget how many resources it costs to provide for them, killing them fast, painlessly is the best solution.

Your signature says post-scarcity...

[Dimmu]

What kind of "criminals" are we talking about here? The petty thief who steals some money to survive or a boss in a drug cartel? There is a huge difference between the two.

One is working class and just takes the money which were stolen from him while the other is just a capitalist who works outside "the law".

[Rodrigo]

Well, some are just born as psychopaths and sociopaths so some of it isn't sociological.

Or maybe i should stop watching so many movies...

What makes someone a psycho or sociopath is his/her experiences on life (like childhood traumas), not biological determinism.

[Tomhet]

As in that's their only source of income. What class are drug dealers? robbers and muggers? ect.
What is the nature of the crime? against who? ..
The class they are depends on their relations to the means of production..

[A Marxist Historian]

Poverty breeds crime. Poverty is a result of Capitalism. Therefore, crime is a result of Capitalism.

I say this about MOST crime (robbing, burglary, drug dealing, etc.). There will always be the crazies who rape and kill for the hell of it.

Actually, no, there won't be.

Any serious criminologist will tell you that people like that almost invariably were horribly abused as children. And that simply won't happen in a socialist society, as, for among other reasons, the family, which is the main vehicle for that sort of thing in peaceable societies, will wither away and be replaced with a more intelligent way of organizing things. And we won't have wars and economic catastrophes and so forth destroying families the wrong way instead of the right way.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Well idk what else to call them...sorry, as for being a "slur" I dont view it as one and it wasn't meant as one. People can take it how they want.

The usual polite phrase is "mentally challenged."

For that matter, why are we using charged and hateful terms like "criminal." How about "legally challenged";-)

Most of the legally challenged are just trying to get by the only way they can, and would jump at the chance to live a normal life if they could. Some of course are hardened and *like* living that way, the true "lumpenproletariat." But most are not.

In America these days, if you are black, selling drugs, hooking or mugging are the most practical way to survive, and we all have to survive somehow.

-M.H.-

[Commissar Rykov]

Actually, no, there won't be.

Any serious criminologist will tell you that people like that almost invariably were horribly abused as children. And that simply won't happen in a socialist society, as, for among other reasons, the family, which is the main vehicle for that sort of thing in peaceable societies, will wither away and be replaced with a more intelligent way of organizing things. And we won't have wars and economic catastrophes and so forth destroying families the wrong way instead of the right way.

-M.H.-
True most are abused but Dahmer comes to mind as someone who wasn't sexually abused or physically abused but was a rather prolific and horrific serial killer. Though some do assume it was his torturing of animals while going through puberty that he made a mental connection with killing being sexually gratifying. I think it was a mix of suppressing his being a homosexual, slaughtering of animals, and the natural awkwardness people go through during puberty that created the perfect storm.

[A Marxist Historian]

You can't just kill everybody who has a genetic/mental problem. That's a ridiculous idea. You can treat them, put them on medications, there are countless options. IF the situation is somehow bad enough we can simply put them in an asylum. However killing people because of problems they're born with is an insane proposition.

There was a large and important group of people which had this idea, and tried to carry it out.

It was the Nazi Party of Adolph Hitler, which sent those seen as mentally defective to Auschwitz in order to improve the Aryan race.

-M.H.-

[TheWhiteStreak]

@EvilRedGuy

You describe a psychopath as someone who kills others due to lack of sympathy for them....
In that case it sounds like you should be one of the people who gets rounded up and shot? ;)

[EvilRedGuy]

@EvilRedGuy

You describe a psychopath as someone who kills others due to lack of sympathy for them....
In that case it sounds like you should be one of the people who gets rounded up and shot? ;)

I only kill fascists/nazis/psychopaths, so you're right, i have no empathy, but only for psychopaths. ;)

[A Marxist Historian]

True most are abused but Dahmer comes to mind as someone who wasn't sexually abused or physically abused but was a rather prolific and horrific serial killer. Though some do assume it was his torturing of animals while going through puberty that he made a mental connection with killing being sexually gratifying. I think it was a mix of suppressing his being a homosexual, slaughtering of animals, and the natural awkwardness people go through during puberty that created the perfect storm.

Out of a quarter of a billion people you get one Jeff Dahmer, a serial killer not abused as a child. And there are probably one or two others out there. No doubt close study of his bio would be enlightening.

As a general proposition, remember that the USA was founded on slavery and genocide, and maybe Dahmer soaked that up somehow in a particularly vile way.

It is not accidental that in America serial killers are almost always white and male.

-M.H.-