"Lumpen precariat" and the observation of more lumpen classes

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/simplification-class-relationsi-t73419/index.html


The first factor that should be considered when analyzing classes on the basis of production is the wage-labour system. While most people exist within the wage-labour system, many do not. Some of those who do not are what Marx called the “lumpenproletariat.” In modern times, since this group has elements that prey on underclass fellows, there are actually three underclasses: the proper lumpenproletariat (like low-level gangsters and modern pirates), the lumpenbourgeoisie (like loan sharks and human traffickers), and the lumpen (like beggars, chronic drug addicts on the streets, other homeless people, unemployables, etc.).

There is also the question of welfare to consider. Those who are without work and available to work, but have no intention whatsoever to enter the workforce (instead making a living out of fraudulent welfare compensation) – the so-called “welfare cheats” – are part of the lumpen.

Now, some Guy Standing stuff: The Precariat: why it needs deliberative democracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net/guy-standing/precariat-why-it-needs-deliberative-democracy)

Finally, Guy Standing might have hit something accurately on class relations. I don't agree with his "salariat" and "profician" stuff, and I also think that the word "precariat" is misleading if referring to some new class and not to a new stratum crossing classes (http://www.revleft.com/vb/all-things-precariat-t148669/index.html?p=2004687). The error in his thinking is as follows:


There are three ‘varieties’ of precariat, all detached from old political democracy and unable to relate to twentieth-century industrial democracy or economic democracy. The first variety consists of those drifting from working-class backgrounds into precariousness, the second consists of those emerging from a schooling system over-credentialised for the flexi-job life on offer, and the third are migrants and others, such as the criminalised, in a status denying them the full rights of citizens. Each has a distinctive view on life and society.

He could have said "freelancing" and/or "freelancers" to make things simpler. The degree to which these types are really working-class is questionable.

However, the term "lumpen precariat" may indeed be a suitable replacement for the proper lumpenproletariat referred to above:


The precariat is not an underclass. If it were, one might dismiss it as a fringe, consisting of misfits who can be treated as suffering from social illnesses, to be ‘re-integrated’ into society. Governments have been tempted to treat it this way. That may succeed in lessening disruptive behaviour for a while but not for long.

Nevertheless, part of the precariat is drifting into a lumpen precariat, unable to survive in a milieu of precarious jobs, many drifting into gangs, or becoming ‘bag ladies’ or addicts of some kind.

Thoughts?

[blake 3:17]

I haven't had the chance to go through Standing's writing properly at all.

The fault line that is seriously crazy is that there are quite a lot of us who are highly educated and often quite experienced work wise who CAN'T FIND ANY JOBS. I know a dozen or so people who are perfectly employable at skilled jobs who've had to move in parents/family in the past year or so, because we can't find jobs. People I know in this situation are primarily in their late 30s early 40s. It's hit people in other age demographics I just don't know as many.

We can't find minimum wage jobs because employers won't hire us because our literacy is too high and we have too much education. It's very frustrating writing resumes where you're taking your education, experience and skills off the resume, because you know potential employers will just throw it in the garbage.

From what I've read of Standing, he identifies the precariat as forming the social base for a new base for right wing politics. In the absence of a credible left, that'll happen.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

My thoughts?

Articles with, variously: "precariat", "lumpen precariat", "profician", "salatariat" are terminally uninspiring and dull.

Also, your line on modern-day pirates is wrong and, in addition, your line on drug addicts and the homeless is despicable. Shame on you. Fucking shame, you utter cretin. You've obviously never spent an hour on the streets selling the Big Issue or something similar, simply to get yourself a bed for the night, never mind spent days or weeks on the streets in the bitter cold. Sorry for the emotive arguments, but I thought it was obvious - politically, economically and socially - that the homeless and drug addicts are not the underclass, for (economically) they are potentially productive, (politically) Socialism is in their class interest as opposed to Capitalism [and as opposed to the true lumpen underclass whose class interests are probably served more by Capitalism, or are class-neutral/don't have the ability for class consciousness].

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ By your standards, Marx was an "utter cretin" too.


From what I've read of Standing, he identifies the precariat as forming the social base for a new base for right wing politics. In the absence of a credible left, that'll happen.

And a left that concedes some agitational methods and peripheral policy planks to populism, too.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Care to elaborate? The homeless are not the lumpen proletariat. Homelessness is another by-product of flexi-labour and rising housing costs. That you ignore it shows how shallow your analysis of social and occupational structure is.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

I can't be bothered to read this to find out for myself but can someone please confirm whether the "lumpen precariat" is a new term invented by DNZ or not?

[Die Neue Zeit]

No, that's Guy Standing's, not mine.

[blake 3:17]

No, that's Guy Standing's, not mine.

I would advocate for socialists to abandon "lumpen" altogether. In my just over 20 years on the radical & revolutionary Left, I've never heard it used as a useful term. It always come across as an insult, and doesn't advance the cause in any way.

If we're talking about particular groups that are marginalized through exclusion from work or housing, or forced into criminality, then talk about those groups and social relations in a specific way.

[el_chavista]

I know it is not the original usage, but the compound word "lumpenproletariat" should address precarious workers and others. "Lumpen" alone for the (non bourgeois) delinquents and vagabonds. The idea is to encompass the "new subclases."

[Die Neue Zeit]

Only a small minority of precarious workers are in the proper lumpenproletariat, comrade. Most are very much inside the wage labour system as we know it.