Labor aristocracy and Third Worldism - are they the same thing?

[Marxaveli]

Ive seen these two concepts mentioned quite a bit here, and took it upon myself to research exactly what both entail. But I am still left with the question, what is the difference (if any) between these two concepts?

I strongly reject Third Worldist ideology for obvious reasons (workers in the First World ARE oppressed, even if less so than in developing nations, not to mention the vestiges of nationalism within 3rd Worldist thought). Yet, in reading about the idea of a labor aristocracy as conceived by Lenin there does seem to be some truth to it - that workers in the first world, despite being exploited, have a sense of privilege and are reluctant to give it up. The conservative Teamster union being an example.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

Lenin´s notion of the labor aristocracy does not encompass the working class of the "developed"/imperialist countries as a whole, only a small privileged minority who enjoyes higher wages, more power and economic security within the economies og those countries. The labor aristocracy is the trade- union bureaucracy and those sectors of the working class best represented by it. According to Lenin the labor aristocracy is the social base of reformism/revisionism. I´m not sure Third- worldism can properly be seen as an extension or further development of Lenin´s labor aristocracy theory and there is no reason in conflating them IMO.

[Lensky]

There is also the factor of Protracted People's War to consider when discussing Third-Worldism. If looked from a military standpoint, a group of dedicated revolutionaries will be more likely to avoid annihilation if operating in an asymmetric environment. The large masses of exploited and semi-feudal peasants are more likely to support such a group than the petite-bourgeois that exists in the first world.
Urban warfare is a debated topic, some believe that militant groups can be easily cornered and destroyed, whilst others see cities as concrete jungles.

Personally, it is wrong to see the first-world as lacking revolutionary potential - especially with increasing austerity.

[synthesis]

Labor aristocracy is a tenet of Third-Worldism, to answer the question in the thread title.

It is a problematic concept because in Marxist theory, the oppression of workers is secondary to and a function of their exploitation for surplus value.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Labour aristocracy implies a position of power. If I've experienced anything as a first world proletariat it is a complete lacking of power over my own life and the surplus value extracted from my labour.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Labour aristocracy implies a position of power. If I've experienced anything as a first world proletariat it is a complete lacking of power over my own life and the surplus value extracted from my labour.

I think that misses the point - I don't think anyone is conflating the labour aristocracy with the bourgeoisie. The labour aristocracy are still workers - ie we lack control of the means of production - but our affluence, collectively if not individually (that is, our relative certainty of having a roof every night, food every day, and beer on the weekend), means we're unlikely to constitute ourselves as a class-for-itself. This is certainly changing, and things are getting worse with the acceleration of "neo-liberalism", but, for the moment, a critical mass of first world workers still have more to lose than our chains (e.g. our housing security, our food security, our transit, our healthcare . . .).

[Fred]

Labor aristocracy is a tenet of Third-Worldism, to answer the question in the thread title.

It is a problematic concept because in Marxist theory, the oppression of workers is secondary to and a function of their exploitation for surplus value.

Yes. And don't forget Marx's emphasis on the social power of the working class. It is the only class that can bring down capitalism and replace it with something other than utter catastrophe.

As for the OP, Lenin did have a narrow view of the Labor Aristocracy. I think the notion that world revolution will occur on the shoulders of the peasantry of third world nations is pretty discredited.

[Comrade #138672]

They are not the same thing. However, they are closely linked. Third-worldism relies on the labor aristocracy theory, but it places it ahead of everything else, even ahead of the exploitation by capitalists of workers in general. I am not in favor of third-worldism, but I do think that their points are not entirely invalid. On the one hand, if we are not careful, the labor aristocracy can seriously harm the struggle by merely focusing on reformism and "moderate" social-democracy, mostly favoring the labor aristocracy itself, and thereby becoming the left-wing of capital. On the other hand, third-worldism can also harm the struggle by merely focusing on divisions between countries, thereby ignoring classes and ending up favoring the petty bourgeois nationalists of third-world countries.

I think we need to find some midpoint, so that both sides are incorporated.

[Thirsty Crow]

Ive seen these two concepts mentioned quite a bit here, and took it upon myself to research exactly what both entail. But I am still left with the question, what is the difference (if any) between these two concepts?Some demoralized people have distorted the concept of the labor aristocracy in the past and put it to a different use, to claim that all of the so called West workers are in fact the labor aristocracy.

Which is quite frankly, bullshit.

In its original use, and I think it was Anton Pannekoek that pushed the concept the most within the Second International, the notion referred not to workers per se, not even to skilled labor, but foremost to the union apparatus which had become a barrier to working class struggle.


Lenin´s notion of the labor aristocracy does not encompass the working class of the "developed"/imperialist countries as a whole, only a small privileged minority who enjoyes higher wages, more power and economic security within the economies og those countries.I'm not so sure about that, I think Lenin used the term in the same way I briefly outlined above, but could be wrong.

[Marxaveli]

Thanks for clearing this up comrades. Makes more sense now.

[synthesis]

I think that misses the point - I don't think anyone is conflating the labour aristocracy with the bourgeoisie. The labour aristocracy are still workers - ie we lack control of the means of production - but our affluence, collectively if not individually (that is, our relative certainty of having a roof every night, food every day, and beer on the weekend), means we're unlikely to constitute ourselves as a class-for-itself. This is certainly changing, and things are getting worse with the acceleration of "neo-liberalism", but, for the moment, a critical mass of first world workers still have more to lose than our chains (e.g. our housing security, our food security, our transit, our healthcare . . .).

Do "third world" workers not have families and such? Isn't that "something to lose" just as much as any of that stuff you mentioned? At exactly what point does "having something to lose" make someone a labor aristocrat?

And regardless of the accuracy of this, how is it useful to Marxist praxis? Besides, of course, serving as a tool for academic types to justify the reason their ideology hasn't gained traction among their national working class.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Do "third world" workers not have families and such? Isn't that "something to lose" just as much as any of that stuff you mentioned? At exactly what point does "having something to lose" make someone a labor aristocrat?

Ironically, this is never a thing that I find requires explaining to anyone other than Marxists. Talk to any random person on the bus and ask, "Do you have it better than you would in the third world?" And I'm sure it won't take long to suss out general consensus the answer.

On a more theoretical, less "common sense" level, there's a distinction to be drawn between what's necessary for the reproduction of the labour force (of which family is part) and what's beyond that. So, do third-world workers have some things? Sure, of course - but, for the majority, these are not things that capital can take away and still maintain the workers-as-workers. In the first world, on the other hand, the vast majority of (white) workers possess significant amounts of "stuff" that is not necessary for our reproduction, which ties us to the interests of capital.


And regardless of the accuracy of this, how is it useful to Marxist praxis?

Extremely! It means we have to look at and grapple with what is actually possible to accomplish, in the short term, with what will remain, in the short term, a minority politics. Instead of deluding ourselves into thinking huge numbers of white workers are going to flock to communist politics because of "their interests" we have to look at the difference between their short-term interests (which lay with capital!) and their long-term interests (which don't).
This is the terrain we have to fight on, and it's clear that lionizing "the workers" in this context remains a strategy for losing.


Besides, of course, serving as a tool for academic types to justify the reason their ideology hasn't gained traction among their national working class.

I don't know what academics you've been rolling with, but I'd love an introduction. In my experience, profs not only have all sorts of delusional notions about noble nature of "the working class" but consider their bourgie-ass selves part of it. Probably if they got out of the ivory tower and did some concrete investigation among the working class they'd be horrified to find that hockey has better traction in conversation than class war. Sorry, Doc.

[synthesis]

To use your terminology, I'm asking you to "problematize" what makes someone a "first-world worker" as opposed to a "third-world worker." What exactly differentiates a worker in Italy from a worker in the "third world" if they have the same material conditions? Do you not believe that they exist? Does a "third-world worker" become a "first-world worker" just by immigrating to a "first-world country"?

I think you have an idealist notion of what separates the "third world" from the "first world," as do many of your "random people on the bus," and in trying to determine why your local working class may not be possessed of the degree of class consciousness you'd like, you're abandoning actual class analysis - as in someone's relationship with the means of production - entirely.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

To use your terminology, I'm asking you to "problematize" what makes someone a "first-world worker" as opposed to a "third-world worker." What exactly differentiates a worker in Italy from a worker in the "third world" if they have the same material conditions?

Well, sure, but let's be realistic for a second. Given the global arrangement of the capitalist economy, how likely is it that an Italian worker and a worker in Vietnam are going to have the same conditions? Slim. And even if it were the case in an individual circumstance, we have to talk about the class (and its consequent forms of organization, etc.). So, sure, an individual in the "first world" and an individual in the "third world" might have similar conditions, but, on the whole, conditions are different. Production is arranged on globally in a particular way.


Do you not believe that they exist? Does a "third-world worker" become a "first-world worker" just by immigrating to a "first-world country"?

Generally no - look at Guatamalen or [email protected] farm labour in the U$, or Filipina domestic labour in Canada, or . . . Point being, it's not just about where you are, though that's certainly a big part of it. The working class is stratified along racial and gender lines as much as along geographical ones.


I think you have an idealist notion of what separates the "third world" from the "first world," as do many of your "random people on the bus," and in trying to determine why your local working class may not be possessed of the degree of class consciousness you'd like, you're abandoning actual class analysis - as in someone's relationship with the means of production - entirely.

Sure, if we deal with it in purely geographical terms we'll miss the mark. In fact, generally, I try to avoid talking about the first and third worlds - but it's the popular shorthand, and generally people get what you mean.
That said, we have to look at the means of production in global terms, and not cling to reductionist, ahistorical "class analysis" that doesn't actually look at what is produced where by whom under what conditions. The working class isn't homogenous, and there are real consequences of its real divisions.

[synthesis]

Well, sure, but let's be realistic for a second. Given the global arrangement of the capitalist economy, how likely is it that an Italian worker and a worker in Vietnam are going to have the same conditions? Slim. And even if it were the case in an individual circumstance, we have to talk about the class (and its consequent forms of organization, etc.). So, sure, an individual in the "first world" and an individual in the "third world" might have similar conditions, but, on the whole, conditions are different.

But how? Where and how do you draw the line between the two? Where exactly do the conditions for a "third world" worker become such that their interests align with a "first world" worker? How far (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Flats) from the center of Cape Town does someone have to live to be considered "third world"? This seems important to explain, given your argument that these groups have opposite interests and that at some point the conditions become such that they are no longer valuable to the revolutionary cause.

And what about the difference between the urban and rural working class in the countries you'd describe as "third world", which are often just as drastic, if not more so, than "first world" workers and so-called "third-world" workers? How is a Marxist to decide if the "fourth world" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_World) concept is relevant to their analysis? At some point, you're drawing so many potentially artificial divisions that your analysis ceases to be Marxist and becomes academic and sociological and therefore completely useless to working class politics.

(I mean, sometimes the line between petit-bourgeois and bourgeois can be blurry, but their interests are not as diametrically opposed as they both are to those of the working class, which is pretty simple to distinguish from the petite and haute bourgeoisie.)

And, tangentially, all this ignores the fact that even if the first-second-third world system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World#Three_World_Model) was well-defined or useful to Marxism, it should be relegated to obsolescence given the fall of the Soviet empire - arguably even before that, owing to the Sino-Soviet split. You say that you dislike using this system, but I'm not sure what your alternative is.


Generally no - look at Guatamalen or [email protected] farm labour in the U$, or Filipina domestic labour in Canada, or . . . Point being, it's not just about where you are, though that's certainly a big part of it.

Then what exactly is it about? What this ineffable factor that separates the "labor aristocracy" from the rest of the working class?

[robbo203]

Im surprised this hoary old chestnut - the so called "Labour Aristocracy" theory - is still doing the rounds after it has been so comprehensively demolished by the likes of Charles Post and others in recent years. There are of course several versions of the labour aristocracy thesis but the one most people think of is Lenin's version according to which a particular stratum of workers - chiefly skilled workers - in the developed countries are "bribed "by the capitalist class there and that this bribe is financed out of the "super-exploitation" of workers in the Third World which generates "super-profits" part of which is diverted into the pockets of the labour aristocracy in return for their political compliance and conformity as the "labour lieutenants of the capitalist class" (Preface to Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism,1916)

This fairy tale story of capitalist generosity has not a shred of empirical evidence to back it up. For starters whatever the rate of profit made from "imperialist investment" in the Third World , the mass of such profits is nowhere near big enough to empirically substantiate Lenin's theory. As Post puts it:

"Imperialist investment, particularly in the global South, represents a tiny portion of global capitalist investment. Foreign direct investment makes up only 5% of total world investment - that is to say, 95% of total capitalist investment takes place within the boundaries of each industrialized country. Of that five percent of total global investment that is foreign direct investment, nearly three-quarters flow from one industrialized country - one part of the global North - to another. Thus only 1.25% of total world investment flows from the global North to the global South. It is not surprising that the global South accounts for only 20% of global manufacturing output, mostly in labor-intensive industries such as clothing, shoes, auto parts and simple electronics". ("The Labor Aristocracy Myth" , International Viewpoint Online magazine : IV381 - September 2006


Out of this 1.25% of total investment flows we are expected to believe that a portion of the returns on such investment go into the pockets of the labour aristocracy. But there is no way this could account for the wage differentials between the labour aristocacy and other workers in the developed countries - even assuming such a bribe existed. Marxists would argue instead that such differentials can be accounted for on quite other grounds - the variable costs of producing and reproducing one's labour power. Simply being in recept of relatively higher wages does NOTnecessarily make you any the less exploited. Exploitation does NOT correlate with absolute wage levels as some Third Worldists naively assume. Furthermore profits made from US investments in the Third World is a tiny tiny fraction of the wages bill of the American workforce. Any bribe, if it existed at all, would be absolutely minuscule even by comparsion with this relatively small sum.


Its worth pointing out also that the empirical evidence shows that in the early 1900s when Britian was still the leading capitalist power - when Lenin was putting together his theory - investment trends were quite the opposite of what would be the case if Lenin's theory held any water. Foreign Direct investment by British capitalists in the colonies fluctated in line with fluctuations in domestic investment. So when domestic investment increased so did investment in the Third World. When domestic investment declined so did investment in the Third World decline. You would expect quite the opposite to happen if the notion of "super exploitation" was correct. Declining returns on domestic investment would surely induce capitalists to step up investment abroad in the Third World. But that did not happen. Why?

Not only that - the idea that "labour aristocacy" is bribed out of the capitalists superprofits made in the Third World would suggest that the income differentials between the labour aristocrats and ordinary worlers in the developed countries would widen over time given that the latter is supposed to have their income supplemented by a bribe. Once again the truth of the matter is the exact opposite of what theory predicts. Tony Cliff in an article written back in the 1950s entitled "Economic roots of reformism" (Socialist Review, Vol.6 No.9, June 1957) maintained that increases in the average standard of living tend to go with a narrowing of wage differentials (though, of course, this would not necessarily apply to the relative position of workers as a whole vis-a-vis the capitalists). Cliff went on to present data which clearly showed that the ratio of wages of skilled labour to unskilled labour was markedly lower in an economically advanced country such as Britain than in a relatively backward one like Rumania. Not only that, whereas the former had significant investments in parts of the world from whence so called "superprofits" could be drawn, the latter had virtually none and presumably therefore had no means of "bribing" its own labour aristocracy. In short, the relative position of the well paid worker compared to other workers was significantly better in a "non imperialist" country like Rumania than it was in "imperialist Britain". This directly contradicts what the labour aristocracy thesis would lead us to expect.

Perhaps most tellingly, there is this point to consider - if Western capitalists were so amenable to sharing the proceeds of their investments abroad with (some of) their workforce at home, one might surmise that they would be less resistant to the pressure from the latter for better wages than is actually the case. As Cliff rightly points out, "No capitalist says to the workers: 'I have made high profits this year, so I am ready to give you higher wages' ” (ibid). Quite so. In fact, Lenin, rather contradicted himself in this respect by pointing out that superprofits are obtained over and above "the profits which capitalists squeeze out of the workers of their "own" country"., (Preface to Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism) The fact that the latter had to be "squeezed out" of the domestic workforce at all implies the need for the capitalists to exert a degree of downward pressure on wage levels in the first place and in the face of worker resistance - meaning they needed to reduce their costs. It makes no sense for them to then take with one hand and give with the other. Competition between capitalists does not cease, even under a system of so called monopoly capitalism; it merely becomes competition between fewer, but significantly larger, capitals whose scope of operation is often international, not just national. Indeed such competition becomes all the more ferocious at that and it therefore behoves competing capitalists to hold down their costs as far as is practicably possible. This applies as much to the wage bill as to any other cost of production. Excessively high wage bills from their point of view in fact can provide a strong inducement to relocate production abroad where wage levels are significant lower and where the existence of a very large "industrial reserve army" tends to keep wage levels very low. It is the difference between these wage levels that create the optical illusion of a bribe being bestowed on the labour aristocracy but no such bribe exists; that difference can be satisfactorily explained on quite other grounds as I said.


Thus, the notion that a small category of workers should receive "bribes" on top of their relatively good earnings for the sake of some vague, ulterior, socially engineered outcome, seems inherently implausible . Amongst other things, it overlooks that what might theoretically be in the interests of the capitalist class as a whole, colluding together as a class, might not be in the interests of individual capitalists via whom the actual payment of such bribes would be effected

This is the problem with the labour aristocracy thesis - it is completely unable to demonstrate in practice the mechanism by which a portion of the capitalists profits made in the Global South are transmitted to the labour aristocracy in the Global North in the form of a bribe. This is not simply because it is impossible to disaggregate the income of the labour aristocracy into a "legitmate" wage income and an"illegitimate" bribe component. If capitalists do make higher profits there is absolutely no quarantee whatsoever that the workers will receive higher wages. It is up to the latter to push for that through trade union struggle and they are not likely to do that particularly effectively by taking the side of those who must foot this bill. Political compliance by a labour aristocracy will if anything weaken, not strengthen, their bargaining position vis a vis their capitalists paymasters. In all probablity that would more than wipe out the value of any hypothetical bribe they might have been in receipt of.


Lenin's argument that by bribing the labour aristocracy, the capitalist class then use this stratum of the working class to divert the mass of the working class away from social revolution and towards reformism (hence ensuring the perpetuation of capitalism) seems to imply that relatively well paid workers are naturally more inclined to support capitalism because of their circumstances and that the poorer you are as a worker the more likely you are to want to get rid of capitalism. But there is no reason to think that this must be so. Ironically, as Post notes:

The backbone of Lenin’s Bolsheviks (something he was most definitely aware of) were the best paid industrial workers in the Russian cities - skilled machinists in the largest factories. Lower paid workers, such as the predominantly female textile workers, were generally either unorganized or apolitical (until the beginnings of the revolution) or supported the reformist Mensheviks.
(http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/129).

In fact, if anything it could be argued that, on the contrary, it is those workers whose circumstances are particularly wretched who are possibly more easily "bribable" for that very reason. Recall Marx's comment about the Lumpenproletariat, becoming a "bribed tool of reactionary intrique". This dogma that the less well paid you are as a worker the more likely you are to be subject to revolutionary impulses goes hand in hand with another dogma that I fundamentally question - that only a severe crisis can precipitate a socialist revolution. On the contrary there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it can also provide a very fertile ground for the spread of conservative and even fascist ideas.

The subject of the labour aristocracy becomes more complicated when we come to consider who exactly constitutes this aristocracy. Where exactly do you draw the line between those in this supposed aristocracy and those outside it? In its classical form, the theory refers to a small stratum of the working population - the skilled workers. However recent developments such as the decline of the traditional smokestack industries and the lay off of skilled blue collar jobs in their droves has put a strain on this particular construction of the labour aristocracy. How could the capitalists think to make redundant the very workers - their handpicked "lieutenants" - who supposedly performed such a useful political function for them? Not that one should imagine that those erstwhile members of the labour aristocracy, unceremoniously given the boot in this fashion, have ceased to perform this political function and have stopped advocating reformism or supporting reformist political parties. To the contrary, this can precipitate an increased involvement on their part in such reformist poilitical activity. And that in itself must make one wonder why the capitalist class should even have bothered to bribe the labour aristocracy with a backhander to undertake a political service on their behalf in the firsrt place when they could have secured this outcome, anyway, and pocketed the money themselves.

In any event, it is in response to such developments that some writers like, Zak Cope, author of Divided World Divided Class: Global Political Economy and the Stratification of Labour Under Capitalism (Kersplebedeb Press: 2012) have sought to widen the parameters of the labour aristocracy to include also a majority of workers in the developed world. Cope's argument seems to be that these workers are not really exploited at all and whatever signs of militancy they may exhibit, from time to time, really amounts to little more than an attempt to extract, or renegotiate, a larger share of the capitalists' superprofits made in the Global South.

Perhaps Cope and his ilk should ask workers in the developed world what they think, now that, according to him, they have seemingly joined the ranks of the capitalist class living off the fruits of Third World exploitation. These are the same workers who have seen their real wages stagnate or even decline since the 1970s while the incomes of the super-rich have soared into the stratosphere. You would have thought that the latter would be in an even better position now to bribe the so called labour aristocracy (however this might be constituted) . But has that happened? Well, no. One wonders why?


Nope. "Third worldism" is a thoroughily reactionary not to say pernicious ideology, the function of which is not only to sow divisions with the global working class and to ludicrously maintain that some workers have a material interest in the preservation of capitalism where others dont but also to obscure the exploitative role of domestic capitalism and domestic capitalists within the Third World itself - precisely in the interests of that Third World bourgeosie. It must be uncompromisingly opposed.

[A.J.]

The backbone of Lenin’s Bolsheviks (something he was most definitely aware of) were the best paid industrial workers in the Russian cities - skilled machinists in the largest factories. Lower paid workers, such as the predominantly female textile workers, were generally either unorganized or apolitical (until the beginnings of the revolution) or supported the reformist Mensheviks.
(http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/129).

In fact, if anything it could be argued that, on the contrary, it is those workers whose circumstances are particularly wretched who are possibly more easily "bribable" for that very reason. Recall Marx's comment about the Lumpenproletariat, becoming a "bribed tool of reactionary intrique". This dogma that the less well paid you are as a worker the more likely you are to be subject to revolutionary impulses goes hand in hand with another dogma that I fundamentally question - that only a severe crisis can precipitate a socialist revolution. On the contrary there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it can also provide a very fertile ground for the spread of conservative and even fascist ideas.


The lumpenproletariat is defined by their habitual existence outwith the wage-labour system. Not, as you seem to believe, performing unskilled labour and/or being of a low income level(indeed, on the last point, you can get quite rich lumpens such as drug dealers and pimps)

http://www.mltranslations.org/us/rpo/classes/classes4.htm

[robbo203]

The lumpenproletariat is defined by their habitual existence outwith the wage-labour system. Not, as you seem to believe, performing unskilled labour and/or being of a low income level(indeed, on the last point, you can get quite rich lumpens such as drug dealers and pimps)

http://www.mltranslations.org/us/rpo/classes/classes4.htm

I wasnt actually trying to make a point about the composition or occupational status of the lumpenproletariat. Not did I suggest they were necessarily engaged in wage labour. The point I was trying to make is fairly obvious in context: "Those workers whose circumstances are particularly wretched" , I suggested, are not necessarily more inclined than others to become revolutionary in outlook (to the contrary, some would argue). That can reasonably be said to describe the lumpenproletariat. After all, the very term itself means in German "the ragged proletariat"

[robbo203]

Ironically, this is never a thing that I find requires explaining to anyone other than Marxists. Talk to any random person on the bus and ask, "Do you have it better than you would in the third world?" And I'm sure it won't take long to suss out general consensus the answer.

.

The problem with the labour aristocracy thesis is not in pointing out that there are significant differences in earnings and living conditions amongst workers across the world (although these pale by comparison with the global capitalist class) but rather in the explanation it puts forward to account for these differences

Since its diagnosis of the situation is fundamentally mistaken then so too is its prognosis and proferred solutions

[synthesis]

The problem with the labour aristocracy thesis is not in pointing out that there are significant differences in earnings and living conditions amongst workers across the world (although these pale by comparison with the global capitalist class) but rather in the explanation it puts forward to account for these differences

Since its diagnosis of the situation is fundamentally mistaken then so too is its prognosis and proferred solutions

And, of course, the fact that such a theory completely ignores the concept of the relationship to the means of production - i.e., the entire basis of Marxist class analysis.

[Devrim]

The lumpenproletariat is defined by their habitual existence outwith the wage-labour system. Not, as you seem to believe, performing unskilled labour and/or being of a low income level(indeed, on the last point, you can get quite rich lumpens such as drug dealers and pimps)

I don't think that people's involement in crime makes them a part of the lumpen-proletariat per se.

The people at the top of the drug chain are certainly part of the bourgeoisie. I would say that pimps are part of the petite-bourgeoisie, perhaps a lumpen petite-bourgeoisie.

Devrim

[synthesis]

I don't think that people's involement in crime makes them a part of the lumpen-proletariat per se.

The people at the top of the drug chain are certainly part of the bourgeoisie.

I agree that simply committing criminal acts does not make someone a lumpenproletarian, and this might just be a minor quibble, but I don't know if I agree that the people at the top of organized crime are always part of the bourgeoisie proper. I think "lumpen bourgeoisie" is still a useful descriptive term, in part because it reflects the relatively extreme precariousness of such a position, in terms of material conditions, that also characterizes the other "lumpen" classes. No matter how high you rise in organized crime, there is always the hyper-amplified possibility that someone - the state or other criminals - will come and take all your shit, all your capital and "means of production," and best-case scenario you suddenly become part of the proletariat proper if you live in the Western world, lower petit-bourgeosie if you're really lucky. This risk also exists for the bourgeoisie proper, but when they go down, they don't necessarily lose everything, and therefore it's significantly easier to recover one's class position, so significant that I think it warrants the "lumpen" difference.

There's also the factor of such "lumpen bourgeois" tending to associate more with other people somewhere along the lumpen food chain than the rest of "regular" class society, but I'm not sure how relevant that is to class analysis.