The lumpenproletariat will be the new popular class

[Ranting Madman]

As the working-class has largely disappeared across the developed world, the lumpenproletariat has being continuing on a meteoric rise. Far from being something ancillary to wider class struggles as they are traditionally viewed; the lumpenproletariat is growing at such a rate that it could soon become the popular class.

I say this having stumbled upon this somewhat old link in my favourites list (I cannot link here due to my post count, but the following figure is accurate as of September 2013): In 30% of Glasgow households, nobody is working at all; never mind the underemployed, temps and struggling one-income households. Although the most notorious in the UK in this respect, most major cities are not far behind.

While mainsteam language and patterns of self-identification tend to mean that these folk are still regarded as working-class, the reality is that they match up far better with Marx's notion of a 'lumpenproletariat' - the chronically unemployed, underemployed, and various sorts on the fringes of society whose condition by nature prevents the emergence of any sort of class consciousness. The consequence of this being that they are supposedly then manipulated by reactionary forces, and become a fundamentally anti-revolutionary class - the ground troops of the bourgeoisie (or something).

So, that's the traditional Marxist take on the lumpenproles. But should we re-assess things given the fact that they have now taken over the mantle as the popular, downtrodden class? Is it true that their condition prevents the emergence of a class consciousness? If it does, are they inherently anti-revolutionary, or would they merely necessitate a strategy of vanguardism?

I think that these are the questions we should be asking, rather than looking back with rose-tinted spectacles on the 'glory days' of the working-class. The rise of an educated class in the developing world means that the Western salariat will soon fall the way of the proletariat, and I am already seeing many of the middle-class youth fall into lumpenproletarian conditions just as the old working-class have. And the excesses of capitalism are creating a very patchy, temporary and inadequate nature of employment - thus removing the potential for working-class consciousness, and forcing even those who work into the lumpenproletariat.

The lumpenproles are the future, and I think it is time people started talking about them a bit more seriously.

Also, just to note: I am not a reactionary, despite being slandered as such. You yourselves can judge if the ideas I have expressed here sound reactionary or revolutionary.

[Tim Cornelis]

I don't think there has been any significant gain or loss in the working class numbers.
As for your assessment of the lumperproletariat, it's utterly wrong. In what world are underemployed workers lumpen? These would be particularly susceptible to class consciousness precisely because they feel cheated by the system (having poured money into their own education yet wielding no rewards due to the lack of jobs). Beggars, thieves and such are lumpenproletariat, not the unemployed and underemployed.
Your entire premise is wrong.

[Sasha]

The precarioussation of the workingclass is something different than its dissapearance.

[Sea]

The dodge that there is no longer any working class has long been a telling component of opportunism. Of course, it is easy to demonstrate that it it blatantly false:

If there were no more significant working class, we would not have very much work to do to see the end of capitalism.

[Lily Briscoe]

This isn't meant as a defense or endorsement of the OP (which I disagree with for the most part), but I think this statement:
[Underemployed workers] would be particularly susceptible to class consciousness precisely because they feel cheated by the system (having poured money into their own education yet wielding no rewards due to the lack of jobs).
is wrong on a couple levels.

First in the assumption that 'underemployed workers' are all college-educated (certainly a significant proportion are not, and it seems likely to me that in most places this would actually be a majority).

Secondly, I don't think there is necessarily a positive relationship between people feeling embittered and 'cheated by the system' on the level of atomized individuals, and the development of class consciousness. To me, it seems more like casualization, the lack of job security, and the general sense of desperation characteristic of the situation a lot of workers are facing today actually serves as a serious barrier to the development of class consciousness rather than being a catalyst for it. It seems way more conducive to resignation and apathy than to collective struggle... It would definitely be nice if I turn out to be wrong on this point, though, as it's hard to see any way of overcoming it (but then maybe I just have a shitty imagination, idk).

[Os Cangaceiros]

Temp workers and the underemployed (and the majority of the unemployment) are not "lumpen". The "real" lumpen are the people who are staying on the criminal grind.

1% biker gangs for example.

BUT, I do think there are some very legitimate analyses regarding the changing structures of work and thus the changing structures of organization & resistance in regards to work, etc.

[Raquin]

Comrades, report to your nearest prison rapist to sign up for the coming revolution.

[Jimmie Higgins]

First in the assumption that 'underemployed workers' are all college-educated (certainly a significant proportion are not, and it seems likely to me that in most places this would actually be a majority).For the US and probably all of the Americas you are correct -- however, I wouldn't be surprised if that's not the case in Northern Europe. Anyway, in the US, education level does make it slightly easier avoid un- and under-employment. Although I think what's happened now is that the college-educated workers are no longer as immune to the precarious effect of neoliberalism at the same time that college costs and competition have greatly increased and so there is a bigger gap between the expectations of college-educated workers and reality than for other workers who have been more directly facing the effects of capitalist restructuring for longer.



To me, it seems more like casualization, the lack of job security, and the general sense of desperation characteristic of the situation a lot of workers are facing today actually serves as a serious barrier to the development of class consciousness rather than being a catalyst for it. It seems way more conducive to resignation and apathy than to collective struggle... It would definitely be nice if I turn out to be wrong on this point, though, as it's hard to see any way of overcoming it (but then maybe I just have a shitty imagination, idk).I think that's been the case too. In the post-war boom the trajectory for workers was up and so struggles generally involved who gets to get a piece of the post-war arrangement (i.e. non-white workers fighting to get fair housing, hiring, and education while the white working class was achieving all those things more than before the war). But in a situation of a race to the bottom, people are much more inclined to just try and cover their asses and keep their heads down in the short-term. I think there are possibly bigger things going on, changes both materially in the economy and in terms of consciousness (many workers realizing that after a generation of accepting sacrifices, that these aren't short-term compromises that will be repaid). It's hard to say at this point, but anecdotally, I think there has been a change in the way people see these things - especially young people - I feel like this can be seen in some of the smaller fights right now over low-wage workers.

[consuming negativity]

Temp workers and the underemployed (and the majority of the unemployment) are not "lumpen". The "real" lumpen are the people who are staying on the criminal grind.

1% biker gangs for example.

BUT, I do think there are some very legitimate analyses regarding the changing structures of work and thus the changing structures of organization & resistance in regards to work, etc.

Pretty much entirely this. It's a nice post, OP, but predicated on a misunderstanding of what it means to be lumpenproletariat a la Engels/Marx (yeah, that's right, Engels represent).


Comrades, report to your nearest prison rapist to sign up for the coming revolution.

Um, what?

This is not okay.

[Revenant]

It appears this "class" if you can call it that, has nothing to lose and everything to gain by the overthrow of class society?


The "real" lumpen are the people who are staying on the criminal grind.Really?
Are the people "on the criminal grind" not part of the merchant class operating illegally, the petit bourgeoisie, i thought the criminal grind is basically pure lassaiz faire?

[Sasha]

for those unfamiliar with the terms precariat and precarity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precarity

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Been saying this forever! Fuck y'all jackals we will rise.

[Os Cangaceiros]

It appears this "class" if you can call it that, has nothing to lose and everything to gain by the overthrow of class society?

Really?
Are the people "on the criminal grind" not part of the merchant class operating illegally, the petit bourgeoisie, i thought the criminal grind is basically pure lassaiz faire?

I mean if you want to get really simple about it, all crime is just capitalism organizing itself among non-normative peer groups. *shrug* Describing some panhandler or small-time coke dealer as being "petty bourgeois" simply because they're "self-employed" is not usually seen though

Marxists still find value in the concept of "lumpen", though, if for no other reason than to ascribe an alien class character to their ideological opponents (although it's used far less than the "petty bourgeois" adjective). I'm cautious about making blanket statements about the revolutionary or reactionary value of the lumpenproletariat, but it is worth noting that criminal organizations like the yakuza in Japan or the Jewish mafia in New York City (before NYC became dominated by the Italian mafia) have been used as muscle against organized labor.

[Os Cangaceiros]

http://westernrifleshooters.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/black-market.gif

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

^get money

I also want to point out that the mob was instrumental in taking down the KKK during the 30s and shit. What do you people have to say about this?

[Geiseric]

^get money

I also want to point out that the mob was instrumental in taking down the KKK during the 30s and shit. What do you people have to say about this?

"The KKK" split a bunch of times, and surprisingly CA and NY have more hate groups than the entire south. Lucky Luciano was Jewish which is why he took out thousands of Nazis with his goons. That's all good, but usually lumpen are basically bourgeois in the money economy who don't have to deal with police due to bribery and who are basically libertarians selling drugs. That's the actual lumpen, a guy selling pot in a suburbs I wouldn't really consider lumpen.

[AmilcarCabral]

Ranting: I am not very sure if the new revolutionary class will be the lumpen-proletariat class. However, what i've been observing in the working class of USA, Europe and even in the working class of poor countries is an extreme egocentrism, an extreme optimism, an extreme trust in their own selves, in which many workers (even low-level workers like Wal Mart workers) think that by working hard, by working in 2 jobs a day (12 hours a day), they can rise to a sort of middle class lifestyle, like the middle class living standards of doctors, small business owners and lawyers (within The Democratic and the republican party (they don't even vote for the green party).

So having said all this, what I've been observing is a shift toward the right-wing of most workers of the world, maybe because workers today are alllowed to use some toys (like playstations), drive new SUVs and new cars, along with a couple of other goodies and toys that the working class of early 1900s were not allowed to use.

I also would like to say very clearly is that the low-wage working class like the workers of Mcdonalds, Wal Marts, K Marts, delivery of pizzas, and many other blue collar low salary workers who refuse to support The Occupy Movement, and labor parties. Who are apatethetic to politics and/or who keep voting for The Democratic Party and the republican party in every presidential elections (by doing that they already become a counter-revolutionary force, a right-wing reactionary anti-change force). Because voting for the democratic party and the republican party is already a counter-revolutionary anti-socialism activity. Even if its caused by ignorance, by the mind-manipulation of CNN, FOX news, ABC and capitalist TV news channels and by the extreme totaliarianism of anti-communism propaganda all over the USA

By the way here is the definition of LUMPENPROLETARIAT i got from http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/l/u.htm

LUMPENPROLETARIAT= Roughly translated as slum workers or the mob, this term identifies the class of outcast, degenerated and submerged elements that make up a section of the population of industrial centers. It includes beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, racketeers, swindlers, petty criminals, tramps, chronic unemployed or unemployables, persons who have been cast out by industry, and all sorts of declassed, degraded or degenerated elements. In times of prolonged crisis (depression), innumerable young people also, who cannot find an opportunity to enter into the social organism as producers, are pushed into this limbo of the outcast. Here demagogues and fascists of various stripes find some area of the mass base in time of struggle and social breakdown, when the ranks of the Lumpenproletariat are enormously swelled by ruined and declassed elements from all layers of a society in decay. The term was coined by Marx in The German Ideology in the course of a critique of Max Stirner. In passage of The Ego and His Own which Marx is criticising at the time, Stirner frequently uses the term Lumpe and applies it as a prefix, but never actually used the term “lumpenproletariat.” Lumpen originally meant “rags,” but began to be used to mean “a person in rags.” From having the sense of “ragamuffin,” it came to mean “riff-raff” or “knave,” and by the beginning of the eighteenth century it began to be used freely as a prefix to make a range of perjorative terms. By the 1820s, “lumpen” could be tacked on to almost any German word. The term was later used in the Communist Manifesto (where it is translated as “dangerous classes”) and in Class Struggles in France, and elsewhere.


.





As the working-class has largely disappeared across the developed world, the lumpenproletariat has being continuing on a meteoric rise. Far from being something ancillary to wider class struggles as they are traditionally viewed; the lumpenproletariat is growing at such a rate that it could soon become the popular class.

I say this having stumbled upon this somewhat old link in my favourites list (I cannot link here due to my post count, but the following figure is accurate as of September 2013): In 30% of Glasgow households, nobody is working at all; never mind the underemployed, temps and struggling one-income households. Although the most notorious in the UK in this respect, most major cities are not far behind.

While mainsteam language and patterns of self-identification tend to mean that these folk are still regarded as working-class, the reality is that they match up far better with Marx's notion of a 'lumpenproletariat' - the chronically unemployed, underemployed, and various sorts on the fringes of society whose condition by nature prevents the emergence of any sort of class consciousness. The consequence of this being that they are supposedly then manipulated by reactionary forces, and become a fundamentally anti-revolutionary class - the ground troops of the bourgeoisie (or something).

So, that's the traditional Marxist take on the lumpenproles. But should we re-assess things given the fact that they have now taken over the mantle as the popular, downtrodden class? Is it true that their condition prevents the emergence of a class consciousness? If it does, are they inherently anti-revolutionary, or would they merely necessitate a strategy of vanguardism?

I think that these are the questions we should be asking, rather than looking back with rose-tinted spectacles on the 'glory days' of the working-class. The rise of an educated class in the developing world means that the Western salariat will soon fall the way of the proletariat, and I am already seeing many of the middle-class youth fall into lumpenproletarian conditions just as the old working-class have. And the excesses of capitalism are creating a very patchy, temporary and inadequate nature of employment - thus removing the potential for working-class consciousness, and forcing even those who work into the lumpenproletariat.

The lumpenproles are the future, and I think it is time people started talking about them a bit more seriously.

Also, just to note: I am not a reactionary, despite being slandered as such. You yourselves can judge if the ideas I have expressed here sound reactionary or revolutionary.

[Comrade #138672]

"The KKK" split a bunch of times, and surprisingly CA and NY have more hate groups than the entire south. Lucky Luciano was Jewish which is why he took out thousands of Nazis with his goons. That's all good, but usually lumpen are basically bourgeois in the money economy who don't have to deal with police due to bribery and who are basically libertarians selling drugs. That's the actual lumpen, a guy selling pot in a suburbs I wouldn't really consider lumpen.(Emphasis added.)

The lumpenproletariat vs. the lumpenbourgeoisie? Even within the "lumpen-environment" there are divisions, as it is often very "hierarchical" (in some kind of pseudo-class way?), with one person at the top owning everything, while the rest has basically nothing.

Has anyone ever analyzed it in this way? If so, what did he/she find?

[Os Cangaceiros]

"The KKK" split a bunch of times, and surprisingly CA and NY have more hate groups than the entire south. Lucky Luciano was Jewish which is why he took out thousands of Nazis with his goons. That's all good, but usually lumpen are basically bourgeois in the money economy who don't have to deal with police due to bribery and who are basically libertarians selling drugs. That's the actual lumpen, a guy selling pot in a suburbs I wouldn't really consider lumpen.

Lucky Luciano was ethnic Sicilian, maybe you're thinking of Meyer Lansky or Bugsy Siegel.

La Cosa Nostra's relationship with Jewish criminals was occasionally cooperative, as seen in Murder Incorporated or the fact that two of the four founders of the modern Mafia were Jewish, but Italian organized crime was also responsible for driving out the ethnic Irish and Jewish mafias from NYC. Meyer Lansky was a well respected figure in the Mafia and was Lucky Luciano's right hand basically, but he wasn't allowed in Commission meetings.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Anyway, the Mafia are mainly scumbag predators who have had the dubious distinction of being parasites on segments of the organized labor movement, defrauding pensions, intimidating & beating those in the movement who try stand up to them, and occasionally committing murder against those very same activists, like Carlo Tresca. One of the only things I can think of that they did good was thoroughly humiliating Benito Mussolini when he visited Sicily early in his political career (for which they earned Mussolini's lifelong ire, with the exception of Vito Genovese, who was Mussolini's buddy)

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

"The KKK" split a bunch of times, and surprisingly CA and NY have more hate groups than the entire south.

I'm well aware of this, PA is racist is shit and actually, me and my former sales crew ran into a trailer court which was infested with klansmen, and we had to get the fuck out due to rocks being thrown at us and shit. What's this have to do with anything? Speakeasies, opium dens, brothels, etc. were desegregated way before the US became formerly desegregated in the 60s. Not to mention crime has historically turned a blind eye towards race, and a famous example of this is Black Caesar, formerly Cpt. Blackbeard's chief Lt on the Queen Anne, whom survived the Maynard incident. Before this he and members of his tribe were able to ward off several slaver's attempts at capturing him but eventually he was captured, brought to the Americas, and through luck and happerstance, he began life of piracy, literally using a lifeboat to plunder. Elevating his influence and status and that of his crew high above any that "polite society," would have afforded at the time. Crime historically has proven a means to survive, if not thrive, irrespective of gender (eg: Anne Bonney), age, race, ethnic background or national origin (Jews, Italians, Irish, Chinese, etc.), and so on. A way to fuck the system which has fucked you.

Also, look at the totally anarchistic nature of pirate democracy during the golden age of piracy. Criminal acts, which I will also point out below, such as counterfeiting, fraud, forgery, cyber crimes and so on are means to combat the capitalist system no different and no less effective than strikes and so on.


Lucky Luciano was Jewish which is why he took out thousands of Nazis with his goons.

It goes even further than that considering crime was crucial to the German resistance movement. Criminal acts such as counterfeiting, clandestine presses, sabotage, raids, black markets, forgery, assassinations, bomb manufacturing, arms smuggling, etc. were all means of subverting and attacking the Nazi regime and were part and parcel to the resistance. I think organized crime also, both in America and in Europe, it's role in fighting the Nazis has been largely underplayed and overlooked, unfortunately.


That's all good, but usually lumpen are basically bourgeois in the money economy who don't have to deal with police due to bribery and who are basically libertarians selling drugs. That's the actual lumpen, a guy selling pot in a suburbs I wouldn't really consider lumpen.

Way to cherry pick situations. It's not so black and white. Dope has taught me that everyone is susceptible to it's charms which includes doctors, lawyers, accountants, and other well off people. Can you find heroin in the middle of a gated community? No, you come to the "ghetto." Often times, they're the ones you'll get the most money out of and will trade their neat toys in exchange for more shit, like flat-screens, jewelry gift cards, etc. Within this context, crime has become a means of the lumpenprole to prey upon and feed off of the privileged. This is on a base, low level too. Obviously, though, there is the whole lumpenbourgeois vs prole issue as well. But I'm just saying what is known as 'Social Banditry' is a thing. Robin hood-esque situations throughout history also come to mind too.

What about the Illegalists?

[L.A.P.]

organized crime also assists fascist groups like the Golden Dawn, anti-union Scandanavian right-wing biker gangs, and puppet dictators backed by US imperialism.......

also, the golden age of piracy shouldnt be lumped in with the Mafias of the post-Gilded Age.

though there is something interesting about the "progressive" facade organized crime often puts up and its relation to the working class, it, for the most part, offers a false resistance to the system. It was amusing, when being in a more urban non-white area, kids would see my Che image and guess it was a "cool" Pablo Escobar image. in reality, organized crime reinforces capitalist relations for those traditionally excluded from it. I don't know much about the history of organized crime, but it seems apparent that the black market is more like a disavowed structurally necessary companion of the legal market. The United States, I would say, was one of many de facto crime-syndicate kleptocratic states (along with Japan, Mexico, Italy) up until the 90's. People really forget how significant the political influence of the Mafias had on the United States not too long ago.

as for counterfeiting, that would be a more complex discussion as that's not really in any capitalist's interest even if they still wrecklessly engage in it

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

organized crime also assists fascist groups like the Golden Dawn and anti-union Scandanavian right-wing biker gangs.......

So, there's no examples of racism or reactionary/unsavory politics among the proletariat? Scabs are a figment of my imagination?

[Os Cangaceiros]

I think it's pretty clear that the so-called lumpenproletariat, like other social groups, will cleave if there were some sort of social unrest between those who support the status quo and those who oppose it (although how it will cleave remains unclear, to me anyway). A lot will probably do what they've historically done in many cases, which is realize that, although they might hate some aspects of the status quo, they all predate off it & that works to their advantage, thus making it's abolition unattractive. Others will get taken up by the opposition's arguments. Still others may have some sort of ideological attachment to the status quo, rather than purely economic self-interest, such as the Hells Angels attacking anti-Vietnam War protesters back during that conflict.

I think someone who employs methods that happen to be illegal against a system they perceive as unjust is different from someone who employs illegal methods either to enrich themselves at the expense of others, or simply to survive. Some Gangster Discliples kid who's slinging rock down on the street corner is different from a Mafia don, who in turn is different from someone running a one-person illegal taxi service, etc. It could be argued that organized crime has enriched society in some ways, for example the Mafia sponsoring and protecting gay bars in the 1950's (even though homosexuality is frowned upon in the Mafia, enough supposedly to warrant a death sentence in at least one suspected Mafia hit), but at the same time I don't think that criminals are really worth romanticizing at all. All of the multi-racial opium dens and gay bars and jazz clubs/speakeasies were just there because organized crime didn't give a rat's ass how it made money, just so long as there was a steady cash flow. That isn't really conducive to positive thinking towards social change, IMO

[L.A.P.]

So, there's no examples of racism or reactionary/unsavory politics among the proletariat? Scabs are a figment of my imagination?

I don't really understand you're point. I don't think you really know what the class composition of those groups are. GD are definitely not made up of a proletarian majority, and from the little I know, Scandanavian biker gangs are overwhelmingly petty bourgeois. Last I heard, some restuarant-owner had his biker buddies harass his SAC-affiliated employees.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I mean if you want to get really simple about it, all crime is just capitalism organizing itself among non-normative peer groups. *shrug* Describing some panhandler or small-time coke dealer as being "petty bourgeois" simply because they're "self-employed" is not usually seen though

Marxists still find value in the concept of "lumpen", though, if for no other reason than to ascribe an alien class character to their ideological opponents (although it's used far less than the "petty bourgeois" adjective). I'm cautious about making blanket statements about the revolutionary or reactionary value of the lumpenproletariat, but it is worth noting that criminal organizations like the yakuza in Japan or the Jewish mafia in New York City (before NYC became dominated by the Italian mafia) have been used as muscle against organized labor.

It seems to me that if there is a lumpenproletariat, it logically follows that there should be a lumpenbourgeoisie. The Yakuza and the Mafia (or at least their upper echelons) would seem to fit that label rather neatly.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

A lot will probably do what they've historically done in many cases, which is realize that, although they might hate some aspects of the status quo, they all predate off it & that works to their advantage, thus making it's abolition unattractive.

I disagree in that any profit gained through dishonesty comes with it the price tag of brevity and eventual misfortune. It's all temporary. Fast cash and the life it leads and all that. The abolition of having to "grind," in such a manner and it's psychological weight, would seem preferential if the alternative was easier work, free access and fair treatment, don't you think? It's case and context dependent I think but again, I think there is something to 'social banditry' and it should be explored.


Others will get taken up by the opposition's arguments. Still others may have some sort of ideological attachment to the status quo, rather than purely economic self-interest, such as the Hells Angels attacking anti-Vietnam War protesters back during that conflict.

The same could be said of the proletariat. I think the point of the OP was a look at the lumpenprole as a class and it's revolutionary potential as a whole.


I think someone who employs methods that happen to be illegal against a system they perceive as unjust is different from someone who employs illegal methods either to enrich themselves at the expense of others, or simply to survive.

Could it not also be argued that the two could coincide?


Some Gangster Discliples kid who's slinging rock down on the street corner is different from a Mafia don, who in turn is different from someone running a one-person illegal taxi service, etc.

Agreed, but that goes back to the whole lumpenprole vs bourgeois issue.


It could be argued that organized crime has enriched society in some ways, for example the Mafia sponsoring and protecting gay bars in the 1950's (even though homosexuality is frowned upon in the Mafia, enough supposedly to warrant a death sentence in at least one suspected Mafia hit), but at the same time I don't think that criminals are really worth romanticizing at all.

I'm not trying to romanticize crime, merely point out, the inconsistencies in the narrative of a "useless, parasitic burden," aka the lumpenproletariat as a class. Plus, speaking of things, what about the resurrectionists of the 18th century? Think about how far along we'd be in terms of medical progress without thieves stealing corpses.


All of the multi-racial opium dens and gay bars and jazz clubs/speakeasies were just there because organized crime didn't give a rat's ass how it made money, just so long as there was a steady cash flow.

That's exactly my point. So?


That isn't really conducive to positive thinking towards social change, IMO

No, but it is a better start than some other places, now isn't it?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Way to cherry pick situations. It's not so black and white. Dope has taught me that everyone is susceptible to it's charms which includes doctors, lawyers, accountants, and other well off people. Can you find heroin in the middle of a gated community? No, you come to the "ghetto." Often times, they're the ones you'll get the most money out of and will trade their neat toys in exchange for more shit, like flat-screens, jewelry gift cards, etc. Within this context, crime has become a means of the lumpenprole to prey upon and feed off of the privileged. This is on a base, low level too. Obviously, though, there is the whole lumpenbourgeois vs prole issue as well. But I'm just saying what is known as 'Social Banditry' is a thing. Robin hood-esque situations throughout history also come to mind too.
I don't know about this at all - at least for the US - I think it's a way over-romanticization. Drugs are used among all demographics pretty evenly, but it's also segregated: middle class white people get drugs not from the "ghetto" but from other middle class white people; rich people from other rich people (or just their doctors or assistants); poor people from other poor people. It's usually through networks of people who know each-other so it tends to be just as segregated and class-divided as other aspects of society. So yes, rich heroin addicts get their heroin from other rich people who sell to cover their own habit or just because it's a quick buck and they are in university or something. Frankly I think it's police propaganda that rich white people go to ethnic ghettos for drugs: it justifies crackdowns on the projects while college dorms and frat-houses can be as much of a market but get no heat for it.

Aside from robbery (and even then only residential and commercial robberies) crime by poor folks tends to be against other poor people. I live in an area with a lot of day-laborers and they are migrants are ones who are mugged by people the most because they are known to carry a lot of money on them (because they get paid in cash and maybe can't get a bank account) and are less likely to go to the cops due to their own legal situation. Drug dealers in poor areas are also targeted for similar reasons.

It's survival and I kinda don't know what to think about the arguments about a "lumpenprol" tendency among workers. I don't ususally use the term and I have only really heard old Stalinists really go hard on these arguments against the lumpen as "class enemies" (but sometimes I think they are usuing it as a justification to accommodate to negative views of segments of the population - not all of M-Lism, just the individuals who've made these arguments). But I do think that in isolation, surviving in this way does not automatically lend itself to class-conscious ideas because the basis of surviving like this is "everyone out for himself" and unlike in wage-work, you can gain from competition which makes solidarity hard. But nothing in society is in isolation and I think you do see like the arguments the Panthers made that "lumpen-prols" can be won to solidarity if it's attached to a bigger social thing: in that case it was a generalized black anti-oppression consciousness, but it could also be a generalized class consciousness.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think it's pretty clear that the so-called lumpenproletariat, like other social groups, will cleave if there were some sort of social unrest between those who support the status quo and those who oppose it (although how it will cleave remains unclear, to me anyway). A lot will probably do what they've historically done in many cases, which is realize that, although they might hate some aspects of the status quo, they all predate off it & that works to their advantage, thus making it's abolition unattractive. Others will get taken up by the opposition's arguments. Still others may have some sort of ideological attachment to the status quo, rather than purely economic self-interest, such as the Hells Angels attacking anti-Vietnam War protesters back during that conflict.

I think someone who employs methods that happen to be illegal against a system they perceive as unjust is different from someone who employs illegal methods either to enrich themselves at the expense of others, or simply to survive. Some Gangster Discliples kid who's slinging rock down on the street corner is different from a Mafia don, who in turn is different from someone running a one-person illegal taxi service, etc. It could be argued that organized crime has enriched society in some ways, for example the Mafia sponsoring and protecting gay bars in the 1950's (even though homosexuality is frowned upon in the Mafia, enough supposedly to warrant a death sentence in at least one suspected Mafia hit), but at the same time I don't think that criminals are really worth romanticizing at all. All of the multi-racial opium dens and gay bars and jazz clubs/speakeasies were just there because organized crime didn't give a rat's ass how it made money, just so long as there was a steady cash flow. That isn't really conducive to positive thinking towards social change, IMO

I really don't know much about the theory behind this designation, but I wonder if what Marx was describing is now an anachronism - at least in the neoliberal era. Marx seemed to have described this tendency or group as basically lots of people who fell through the cracks as industrial capitalism was organizing - so there would be ruined businessmen who turned to illegality as well as people fresh from the country (decalssed peasants) that just never became proletarians in the first place but fell into marginal niches. I think he also described them as specifically people who supported themselves on the margins despite the ability to get wage work (i.e. not mass unemployment or downturn conditions or so on).

Today it seems like just saying that people who support themselves through illegal means is too broad to fit this. A lot of people are basically just "reserve labor" or unemployed labor and so if someone is profiled, arrested, and then has a felony that prevents them from finding steady work and so they turn to selling drugs or whatnot... well I think they would probably be drawn to working class ideas and struggle as much as a worker on benefits or temporarily unemployed. As a class or mini-class it isn't so much in the US that a lot of the people caught up in the legal system who on the surface might fit "lumpen" definitions are reproducing themselves as much as the US ruling class is producing a reserve labor pool by rounding people up. Also with the increased insecurity, precariousness, and loss of wages in the neoliberal era, turning to a little illegal activity has become a way for workers to supplement their incomes, so again, it's not as though a lot of the people engaging in black market activities are "choosing" to live on the margins of capitalist society.

I think with organized crime, it's easier to make the case for a class or sub-set of the working class. In the 50s and 60s, street gangs were mostly made up of young workers and people stopped gang activity basically as they got older and got a job and a family and so on. But groups like the mafia or some biker gang organizations or modern drug-based gang organizations are different because for dedicated members it's not just surviving some precariousness or supplementing things because they can't get regular wage work: crime organizations do reproduce themselves and strive to maintain the conditions which allow them to prosper. Historically they have coordinated with police, been part of political machines for bourgeois parties, and in white and asian ethnic communities (probably others as well, I just don't know enough to say) in the past organized crime was counter-posed to class organizations and struggles and in competition with them.

I think it's a fuzzy category at best and personally I think the subject has to be looked at in practical terms because of the likely divide among this group in times of intensified class struggle that you point out. On the one hand there's long been a tendency to romanticize this group, sometimes in awful sort of noble savage type language, which I think comes from middle class ideologies that project a romantic view of people living on the margins as living more "purely" because they are not bogged down in formalities and autonomously survive through their own efforts. On the other hand sometime people are too quick to overgeneralize or write off a lot of people who might seem to fit this category. Really I think a worker's movement would probably attract a lot of "lumpen" (others might become fascists too) but it wouldn't be possible to have a "lumpen" revolution because by the way people survive and reproduce in this way it's inherently parasitic on capitalists relations: lumpen would have to join their desires for ending oppression and personal freedom to a working class movement that has the inherent social power and potential to create a different way of people surviving.

[tallguy]

Racists have the "blacks" to blame

The middle class have the "chavs" to blame

We all get equal dibs on blaming "the young", the old", "single mothers", "absent fathers", "insert your scapegoat of choice here"

It would appear the revolutionary leftists have the "lumpen proletariat" as their very own whipping boys.


Nice.

[reb]

I really don't know much about the theory behind this designation, but I wonder if what Marx was describing is now an anachronism - at least in the neoliberal era. Marx seemed to have described this tendency or group as basically lots of people who fell through the cracks as industrial capitalism was organizing - so there would be ruined businessmen who turned to illegality as well as people fresh from the country (decalssed peasants) that just never became proletarians in the first place but fell into marginal niches. I think he also described them as specifically people who supported themselves on the margins despite the ability to get wage work (i.e. not mass unemployment or downturn conditions or so on).

Engels in the preface to The Peasant War in Germany says this about the lumpenproletariat "The lumpenproletariat, this scum of the decaying elements of all classes" and I think that ties in somewhat with Marx describing it as the "class fraction" that constituted the political power base for Louis Bonaparte. In a way, I do think it is anachronistic in much of the western world. It is not as if we have whole classes who have been pushed aside by capitalist production wandering the streets as les bohemes. I do think however, that the turn towards illegality in certain sections, does constitute a turn towards lumpenproletariat if we are to think of it as decaying classes. Perhaps with the break down of capitalism sine the 70s and the rise of the black market have a correlation to this.