Lumpen Proletariat - The Revolutionary Class

[apathy maybe]

These are just some thoughts I had to day while listening to a thing on Marx on the radio then giving hay to cows. It isn't really coherent yet, but I am interested in knowing what people think. If I can I'll try and weave it into a proper article later.

In this world of shares and holidays it is my opinion that the Workers do have more to loose then their chains. Most of them (at least in the over-developed countries) seem quite happy consuming their bit. They don't protest because it might mean that they might loose their job or because they don't have time.

It is the unemployed and the students and others who have time that comprise the revolutionary classes.

Bismark was the first leader to introduce a welfare state (he did so into Prussia in). He did so because of the growing tide of discontent among certain segments of the society. The unemployed.

By giving money to these people who had literally nothing to lose, Bismark meant that they were less likely to revolt.

In today's society they still do not have much to loose. Rarely owning their own home (or even having a mortgage) and few expensive consumer goods, they often have time on their hands to be active or political.

[Si Pinto]

These are just some thoughts I had to day while listening to a thing on Marx on the radio then giving hay to cows.

I hope they appreciated it.

-------------------

I think the point is that what was considered the working class in Marx's day (and Bismark's too) isn't really that now, or to be more accurate perhaps there are 'layers' within the working class movement today.

Todays real working class is earning 50p a week making sportswear or building DVD players in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

The old industrialised working class has been duped by technological advances making luxary items cheaper and travel costs lower.

Most of these 'new' working class live in highly oppressed countries were they have little or no chance of 'speaking out' never mind revolt.

But there are signs of them beginning to say no and fight back.

The trouble is that these oppressive countries are all backed by the US/Western Europe.

That's were I think the first signs of 'real' rovolt will come though.

[KC]

I think the point is that what was considered the working class in Marx's day (and Bismark's too) isn't really that now, or to be more accurate perhaps there are 'layers' within the working class movement today.


I disagree.



Todays real working class is earning 50p a week making sportswear or building DVD players in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

You're working class if you sell your labour to survive, regardless of your income. The lives of workers are still in the capitalists' hands, regardless of income. Everything the worker has can be lost if the capitalist wills it to be; all he has to do is fire him. So what happens when these "well-off" workers lose everything? Their demands become the same as those of your so-called "real working class".

[Si Pinto]

Originally posted by Khayembii [email protected] 14 2006, 02:03 PM


I think the point is that what was considered the working class in Marx's day (and Bismark's too) isn't really that now, or to be more accurate perhaps there are 'layers' within the working class movement today.


I disagree.



Todays real working class is earning 50p a week making sportswear or building DVD players in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

You're working class if you sell your labour to survive, regardless of your income. The lives of workers are still in the capitalists' hands, regardless of income. Everything the worker has can be lost if the capitalist wills it to be; all he has to do is fire him. So what happens when these "well-off" workers lose everything? Their demands become the same as those of your so-called "real working class".
Forgive my poor word use, but as I did say....


to be more accurate perhaps there are 'layers' within the working class.

[Hit The North]

I think there's a danger that we overstate the gains the working class have made under capitalism in the West.

I've taken the liberty of reprinting below an extract from an article by John Rees which I think pretty much sums up the condition of the working class in developed Western capitalism. You can find the full article here: http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=3


The condition of the working class

What is happening to the lives of working people? How do they feel about their work? What do they think are the chances of their family and friends enjoying a life that is, at the very least, financially secure? Do they think that they have a chance of a better life than this, a life that is happier and more fulfilling? It is the answers to these questions that ultimately determine the balance of the argument between reform and revolution.

It is often the case that economists judge workers’ standard of living by two measures, unemployment and real wages. In Britain wages are said to have risen in the 1990s, although tax changes under New Labour are now cutting real wages. And while the unemployment rate is low, the way these figures are now calculated does not give a true picture of the employment situation. As one comparative study notes, ‘Once we allow for all forms of non-employment, there is little difference between Europe and the US: between 1988 and 1994, 11 percent of men aged 25-55 were not in work in France, compared with 13 percent in the UK, 14 percent in the US and 15 percent in Germany’.1

But, important as they are, figures for unemployment and real wages do not tell us some of the most important things about working class life. Similar indices, of those possessing certain consumer durables for instance, are also important but still limited in what they tell us about working class experience. They tell us nothing, for example, about the intensity of work or the security of a job. They tell us little about the social wage and the provision of welfare. And, perhaps most important of all, they tell us nothing about the level of inequality in society. Let us look at some of these factors.

One of the great changes that has taken place between the welfare consensus era and the neo-liberal era is the way in which working class people provide for a roof over their head. The sale of council houses and the virtual end of council house building have transformed the way in which people house themselves. In 1945 most people in Britain rented their accommodation. Home owners were only 40 percent of the total. In 1981 that figure had risen to 56 percent. In 2003 the figure for home ownership is 68 percent.

A full quarter of the population in Britain are defined as poor by the government’s Poverty and Social Exclusion Survey. In terms of housing the poor are concentrated in the rented sector. But because of the sheer size of the home ownership sector it is now the case that half the poor are either outright home owners (18 percent) or paying a mortgage (32 percent). Those who are poor and in rented accommodation are more likely to be manual workers, to be single, younger and suffer physical ill health. The ‘new poor’ of home owners are more likely to be office workers or skilled manual workers, to suffer poor mental health, be older, from black or other ethnic minority backgrounds, and to be in families with children.2

On top of this already considerable burden has been added the failure of endowment mortgages—mortgages that depend on investment in the stockmarket to pay off the money borrowed. More than half endowment mortgages are now showing a shortfall according to the insurance industry. More than 6 million people, one in ten of the population, now depend on endowment policies to pay off their mortgage. A report in 2002 noted that ‘in the last two years, some 500,000 people have been sent letters coded “red”—a warning that their policies are likely to be worth too little to pay off their mortgages. A further 2.5 million households have received “amber” letters warning them that the policies are in danger of falling short’.3

One result is that young people and workers simply cannot afford to buy houses any more, certainly not in city centres. The average salary for first time buyers has risen from £19,740 in 1996 to £32,328 in 2003. This 64 percent increase is a full 37 percentage points higher than the rise in average wages. It puts buying a house beyond the reach not only of the poor but also beyond the reach of, for instance, many teachers, rail workers, firefighters and NHS staff. And the amount of the cost of a house that the mortgage covers has declined from 90 percent in 1997 to 76 percent now—leaving borrowers to find an average £27,000 deposit.4

Increasing numbers of these young workers will already be carrying debt accumulated from their time as students. The financial situation of students in higher education is now unrecognisable compared with that of students in the 1960s and 1970s. Then poorer students could claim a full grant, additional payments to cover fares to and from college at the beginning and end of each term plus unemployment benefit when not at college. Now students borrow to pay for grants and tuition fees. They work both in term time and between terms. The courses are narrower and more vocational and many more students continue to live at home while they go to college. At the end of their college lives they are still saddled with many thousands of pounds of debt.

The impact on working class consciousness of this change in access to higher education should not be underestimated. It is still true, as it was throughout the welfare consensus era, that only a small minority of children from working class families ever got a degree. But the hope was there. It was a way out that seemed to depend on merit. Now it seems to depend much more on money. And this visible degrading of one of the primary aspirations of working people for their children has an ideological effect far beyond the numbers that it directly affects.

The same picture emerges if we look at how working people try to look after themselves in old age. Financial security after retirement is a crucial issue for most workers. Fully 80 percent of the half a million extra people who plunged into poverty between 1997 and 1999 were pensioners primarily dependent on state welfare provsion.5 The catastrophic decline in the level of the state pension has led to the mushrooming of private and company pension schemes—essentially the privatisation of pensions. Private pensions depend, like endowment mortgages, on stockmarket investment. And they have suffered an equally disastrous shortfall. Company pension schemes have often either been reduced or raided by companies in one of the greatest frauds of the last two decades.

Every area of working class life that we could choose to examine would show the same deterioration over the last 25 years. The provision of public transport, of healthcare, of pre-college schooling, of social service care for the old—they all show the growth of private provision over public provision. Consequently, they all show that the wealthy are looking after themselves, and the majority, not some underclass but the majority of workers, are suffering a decline in the quality of their lives. There is one index that demonstrates this general situation more clearly than any other—the growth in inequality.

The original income of the top fifth of households is now 18 times greater than that of the bottom fifth, according to the government’s own figures. Even after tax and benefits the top fifth of households are still four times better off than the bottom fifth. Yet despite being 18 times better off the top fifth of households only pay twice as much of their gross income in tax as the bottom fifth (24 percent as against 12 percent).

Moreover, inequality has grown significantly in Britain in the last 20 years. Government figures for disposable income show a sharp rise in inequality in the second half of the 1980s, a slight decrease in the mid-1990s, and a rise under New Labour to the previous high of the Thatcher years. This is in ‘complete contrast to the position in the earlier part of the post-war period. From the 1940s, average income had been rising, and until the late 1970s it had been rising fastest for those in the bottom income groups’.7

Inequality is as important in assessing the stability of society as levels of absolute poverty. If it were only absolute poverty that resulted in high levels of social resistance there would never have been any general strikes or revolutions after the first years of industrialisation. But few people in modern Britain rise in the morning to face a new day and content themselves with the thought that at least they are not living like a 19th century weaver. They ask themselves different questions. Is my child’s life going to be harder than mine? Are we, the people who do the work, getting a fair share of all the wealth that we see around us in this society? It is therefore, as Marx pointed out, not the absolute poverty level but the socially relative poverty level that counts. This is an essential point because many sociologists believe they can prove the class struggle is over so long as they can show that workers now own fridges or cars that they didn’t 50 years ago. But this misses the point: it is relative poverty, the level of inequality, and the intensity of exploitation, that is as, if not more, important."

[violencia.Proletariat]

Originally posted by apathy [email protected] 14 2006, 09:29 AM




In this world of shares and holidays it is my opinion that the Workers do have more to loose then their chains

One weeks vacation (IF, and a big if, you have a good job maybe once or twice a year) or total economic and social liberation? Hmm, lets put that one on the scale.


Most of them (at least in the over-developed countries) seem quite happy consuming their bit.

Really, then why are you and I here? Why are there still militant European workers?


It is the unemployed and the students and others who have time that comprise the revolutionary classes.

And thats why every revolution has been made up of only these parts of the population. :rolleyes:


In today's society they still do not have much to loose.

Well according to you all those French workers who struck with the students should have "lost" their jobs.


Rarely owning their own home (or even having a mortgage) and few expensive consumer goods, they often have time on their hands to be active or political.

How many proletarians, or anyone for that matter, own a home in a large city?

[Janus]

In today's society they still do not have much to loose. Rarely owning their own home (or even having a mortgage) and few expensive consumer goods, they often have time on their hands to be active or political.
So if they're not active participants in the system, what chains do they even have?

[Comrade-Z]

I don't necessarily think people revolt when they "have it bad." Instead, people revolt when they lose something that they had before. That is, when their living standards stagnate or decline (and when they see an obstacle, such as an obsolete ruling class and/or economic paradigm, as a fetter on resuming progress). For that reason (among others), I would not expect the lumpen-proletariat to be the most consistently revolutionary class.

But I don't know that you can classify them as a distinct economic class in the first place. It's a tricky question.


So if they're not active participants in the system, what chains do they even have?

Good point.

[hoopla]

Wasn't Marx a bit hard on the lumpen, and Bakunin a bit more interested in them.

[which doctor]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2006, 02:36 PM

In today's society they still do not have much to loose. Rarely owning their own home (or even having a mortgage) and few expensive consumer goods, they often have time on their hands to be active or political.
So if they're not active participants in the system, what chains do they even have?
The chains of living in society.

[Comrade-Z]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2006, 10:19 PM
Wasn't Marx a bit hard on the lumpen, and Bakunin a bit more interested in them.
I'd say that's accurate.

[Le People]

I have a feeling the modern working class in the the US will be forced into revolutionary politics by their current raping by the capitalist system. Gas, out sourceing, war, inflation, curruption, and supression of freedoms could cause a shift toward the left.

[rioters bloc]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2006, 05:36 AM
So if they're not active participants in the system, what chains do they even have?
* often needing to rely on the state to survive (welfare)
* having less of a voice in many ways, since a job usually brings at least some kind of prestige; unemployment is dirty and unemployed people are regarded as being less intelligent/skilled.
* living on a day to day basis - if you're squatting, there's the possibility that you could be evicted. often need to dumpster dive/steal to eat, not the most reliable sources. having less resources for necessities in general.
* a few other things which i can't think of at the moment.

[Janus]

Yeah, I'm aware of those but apathy maybe stated that they have pretty much nothing to lose. So if they're really a revolutionary class, I would think that they would've revolted by now.

I think that the lumpenproletariat are more or less left out of the system, mainly the wage-labor system. Though they have potential especially if a revolution occured, they can't be counted until then to be really revolutionary as they are excluded from much of the true exploitation.

[STI]

Originally posted by Apathy Maybe

In this world of shares and holidays it is my opinion that the Workers do have more to loose then their chains. Most of them (at least in the over-developed countries) seem quite happy consuming their bit. They don't protest because it might mean that they might loose their job or because they don't have time.

You shut the fuck up right now. Have you ever even worked a normal, full-time job to pay rent and buy groceries? It's shit. I don't know what this "shares and holidays" horseshit is, but you can put it back on the shelf where you got it.



In today's society they still do not have much to loose. Rarely owning their own home (or even having a mortgage) and few expensive consumer goods, they often have time on their hands to be active or political.


Uh, that's pretty much the state of the majority of the working class nowadays... and is increasingly becoming the case.

So there goes your "shares and holidays" fantasy-land.

Us workers are still the revolutionary class.

[Guest1]

When you imply there's a class more revolutionary than the working class, you know you have alot to learn...

[Moves Topic]

[Severian]

Old thread: "The lumpenproletariat, revolutionary potential?" (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=46396&hl=lumpenproletariat)

Briefly: Lumpen are not unemployed workers. They are the scum of all classes, those who live by crime and preying on others.

Unemployed workers are part of our class. This is often forgotten, since the division between employed and unemployed is the deepest of divisions in the working class.

It doesn't help overcome that division to start counterposing the unemployed to the supposedly fat and happy employed workers.

And there are certain practical problems with the organization of the unemployed; it's easy to become isolated and demoralized, plus the unemployed have less social leverage since they aren't presently engaged in production.

Organizations of unemployed workers have a hard time getting going; when they do get going, they're often unstable. They're strongest when allied with unions of the employed.

[CCCPneubauten]

If I'm not mistaken the Black Panthers felt that the lumper were the most revolutionary....and mixed that ideal with Maoism.

[Severian]

Yeah, that was one of their problems. I quote an ex-Panther on how that helped destroy the BPP, in the thread I just linked.

[apathy maybe]

Originally posted by Si Pinto+--> (Si Pinto)I hope they appreciated it.[/b]I am sure they did.

Originally posted by Si Pinto+--> (Si Pinto)I think the point is that what was considered the working class in Marx's day (and Bismark's too) isn't really that now, or to be more accurate perhaps there are 'layers' within the working class movement today.

Today's real working class is earning 50p a week making sportswear or building DVD players in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

The old industrialised working class has been duped by technological advances making luxury items cheaper and travel costs lower.

Most of these 'new' working class live in highly oppressed countries were they have little or no chance of 'speaking out' never mind revolt.[/b]Interesting point. (Point out "real" problem that was also pointed out above.)

These working class people will definitely want to revolt if they had the opportunity I am sure. And the majority of the working class in the over-developed places are buying those sportswear and DVD players.


Originally posted by Khayembii Communique
So what happens when these "well-off" workers lose everything? Their demands become the same as those of your so-called "real working class".When they loose their job? Their home? When they become unemployed?


Originally posted by violencia.Proletariat
One weeks vacation (IF, and a big if, you have a good job maybe once or twice a year) or total economic and social liberation? Hmm, lets put that one on the scale.Depends on where you live I guess...
The point is that even that one week (more in other places) is guaranteed to a certain extent. Total economic and social liberation is not. Even if it is fought for.


Originally posted by violencia.Proletariat
Really, then why are you and I here? Why are there still militant European workers?I didn't say all. Besides I'm a student and both my parents (and me incidentally) are getting government benefits (but my parents were teachers). So does that make me a worker? Or am I part of the lumpen?


Originally posted by violencia.Proletariat
And thats why every revolution has been made up of only these parts of the population.It seems to me that every (leftist) "revolution" that has actually been even a little bit successful was started by people who weren't working full time (if at all). I could of course be wrong, but that seems to be the impression I get.


Originally posted by violencia.Proletariat
Well according to you all those French workers who struck with the students should have "lost" their jobs.Really revolutionary too...


Originally posted by violencia.Proletariat
How many proletarians, or anyone for that matter, own a home in a large city?Fucked if I know. Half? 2 thirds? Depends on the country?


Originally posted by Janus
So if they're not active participants in the system, what chains do they even have?

Originally posted by Fist of Blood
The chains of living in society.

Originally posted by rioters bloc
* often needing to rely on the state to survive (welfare)
* having less of a voice in many ways, since a job usually brings at least some kind of prestige; unemployment is dirty and unemployed people are regarded as being less intelligent/skilled.
* living on a day to day basis - if you're squatting, there's the possibility that you could be evicted. often need to dumpster dive/steal to eat, not the most reliable sources. having less resources for necessities in general.
Seconded.


Originally posted by Comrade-Z
I don't necessarily think people revolt when they "have it bad." Instead, people revolt when they lose something that they had before. That is, when their living standards stagnate or decline (and when they see an obstacle, such as an obsolete ruling class and/or economic paradigm, as a fetter on resuming progress). For that reason (among others), I would not expect the lumpen-proletariat to be the most consistently revolutionary class.This is an interesting point.


Originally posted by Comrade-Z
But I don't know that you can classify them as a distinct economic class in the first place. It's a tricky question.True, it seems some (above) place unemployed in with the prols, others place criminals in with the bourgeois. I would say that they are the class with even less power then those employed more then a little bit. I do class on power, not economics.

Originally posted by Janus
Yeah, I'm aware of those but apathy maybe stated that they have pretty much nothing to lose. So if they're really a revolutionary class, I would think that they would've revolted by now.Interesting. But if the workers are so oppressed, why haven't the revolted? Same answer perhaps.


Originally posted by Janus
I think that the lumpenproletariat are more or less left out of the system, mainly the wage-labour system. Though they have potential especially if a revolution occurred, they can't be counted until then to be really revolutionary as they are excluded from much of the true exploitation.
The state exploits everyone simply by existing.


Originally posted by STI
You shut the fuck up right now. Have you ever even worked a normal, full-time job to pay rent and buy groceries? It's shit. I don't know what this "shares and holidays" horseshit is, but you can put it back on the shelf where you got it.Nope, don't intend to either. Why the fuck should I work if I don't have to? Sure I'll get a job, but it will at most be part time. Leaves me more time to do other stuff. Calm down now.


Originally posted by STI
Uh, that's pretty much the state of the majority of the working class nowadays... and is increasingly becoming the case.

So there goes your "shares and holidays" fantasy-land.
Really? Got any stats on that? Apart from in then underdevoloped and developing parts of the world, I thought the majority of the working class had it pretty good. They live longer, have better toys, and so on compared to even 50 years ago. Life just keeps getting better.


Originally posted by STI
Us workers are still the revolutionary class.
Lovely, when should I expect the revolution then?


Originally posted by Che y Marijuana
When you imply there's a class more revolutionary than the working class, you know you have alot to learn...

[Moves Topic]When you have an admin not noticing that a person is trying to start a debate, what do you do? I don't actually care that it is in learning, but I was trying to start a debate on theory. So fuck your insults. Just 'cause I don't tow your party line doesn't mean I don't know stuff. I'll agree that the working class is the only revolutionary class when the sun burns out and no other class has had a revolution.


Originally posted by Severian
Briefly: Lumpen are not unemployed workers. They are the scum of all classes, those who live by crime and preying on others.Some say that those are the bourgeois ...

[email protected]
Unemployed workers are part of our class. This is often forgotten, since the division between employed and unemployed is the deepest of divisions in the working class.
A number of definitions of lumpen proletariat include unemployed workers.


Severian
And there are certain practical problems with the organization of the unemployed; it's easy to become isolated and demoralized, plus the unemployed have less social leverage since they aren't presently engaged in production.

Organizations of unemployed workers have a hard time getting going; when they do get going, they're often unstable. They're strongest when allied with unions of the employed.I remember reading a very interesting description of an unemployed organisation during the Great Depression here in Australia. Lead by a Marxist I believe.

The unemployed do have social leverage, it only needs a few to block a road. But yes organisation is the problem.



Anyway, this thread was meant to discuss the revolutionary potential of the unemployed and others in the Lumpen class as well as others who have time. That is the point, those with time (for whatever reason, unemployed, under employed, student) are possibly more likely to start a protest that leads to revolution.

[Severian]

Originally posted by apathy maybe+Jul 16 2006, 07:57 AM--> (apathy maybe @ Jul 16 2006, 07:57 AM)

Severian
Unemployed workers are part of our class. This is often forgotten, since the division between employed and unemployed is the deepest of divisions in the working class.
A number of definitions of lumpen proletariat include unemployed workers. [/b]
That's not a very useful definition then. A downright obfuscating definition, if it mixed up unemployed workers together with other classes. Especially if it also includes professional criminals.

[KC]

When they loose their job? Their home? When they become unemployed?

They don't have to get fired to lose everything.


Really revolutionary too...

Every action which brings empowerment to the working class is inherently revolutionary.


But if the workers are so oppressed, why haven't the revolted?

They have repeatedly in the past, and they will in the future.



The state exploits everyone simply by existing.

The state sure is exploiting the bourgeois! :rolleyes:


Apart from in then underdevoloped and developing parts of the world, I thought the majority of the working class had it pretty good.

This statement would be hilarious if you weren't actually being serious.


I'll agree that the working class is the only revolutionary class when the sun burns out and no other class has had a revolution.

The act of revolution itself isn't revolutionary (i.e. progressive). What Marx meant when he said that the only revolutionary class is the working class is that the working class is the only class that is able to move society forward towards communism.



A number of definitions of lumpen proletariat include unemployed workers.


We're not talking about people that are unemployed between jobs. We're talking about people that don't work at all.