The Lumpen Proliteriat is the most Revolutionary Class

[Raisa]

I was in a debate on the internet with some comrades who suggested to me when they straight up told me that they believe that the lumpen proliteriat is not a revolutionary class.
I actually believe that the lumpen proliteriat is the most revolutionary class of all because they have been excluded from the whole class system and opressed in a way that pushes them to the very bottom.
Some one please say it in my face and explain to me why you think the lumpen proliteriat is not a revolutionary class.
And dont quote motherfuckers at me either, I want to hear it in real talk, explained in real life examples on why the most excluded and abused class in Imperialist america is not revolutionary if not the most revolutionary because, if you think that their not it is probably why we arent getting anywhere.


I also think we need to thnk of a better word then lumpen proliteriat, thats an insulting sounding word to describe the royalty we really are, that invokes predjudice towards us. Lumpen.WHo the fuck wants to describe themselves as that? It deters us from class contiousness alomst.

[Die Neue Zeit]

1) A lot of them don't work and have no incentive to work.

2) There's a regressive drug culture that affects them more than working-class folks.

3) Historically, the lumpenproles have been good recruits for fascist movements.

[BobKKKindle$]

The proletariat is the only class capable of leading the revolution, because only workers are capable of developing a class consciousness. Working together, in close proximity to other workers who are paid the same wages and have to face the same kind of problems, creates a collective ethos which can develop into a class consciousness. By contrast, peasants and lumpen-proletarians lack this understanding of the need for collective action, and so are not capable of being a leading revolutionary class, although they may cooperate with the proletariat, especially in a country which lacks an industrial base and where most people would still be working on the land.

[Raisa]

1) A lot of them don't work and have no incentive to work."

Thats because they have been excluded from being able to work with prison records since childhood usually. Or they found a better way to make money.


2) There's a regressive drug culture that affects them more than working-class folks."

That is because of several reasons, but that doesnt stop them from being revolutionary.

Where ever you are trying to get the working class to get to, the lumpen proliteriat in america is already there.
We hate teh system, we are tired of not being able to participate in the life around us like citizens, and being harassed and opressed and given the worst things from a state that benifits of the imprisonment of our descendants and ancestors.
Alot of people in hte lumpen proliteriat see this shit for what it already is.
But you brush them aside like the enemy does, because you dont know what to say to them?
Thinknig they are just drug dealers and lazy people who dont portray your glorified image of a worker?

[Poum_1936]

Yes, the lumpen proletariat are there. But they are not the revolutionary class. Its THE working class that has to take charge. I sympathize with the lumpen, because alot of times they get the shit end of the stick. But not always the case with certain individuals. While its the working class thats the majority.

While the majority at large wont give a shit if so-called "vagrants, drug addicts, hobos, homeless" decide to rise. Because thats how the Lumpen are viewed, and thats in no small part reason why they are the lumpen (by the marjority). I personally believe theres alot of upstanding people in the Lumpen. I myself could have been included in the Lumpen. But it can not be solely them. Its a way to small class. While the proletariat (theres tons of shit bag's in the class) but its the class than seal the deal so to speakl.

Also, I think the RCP of America considers the Lumpen the most revolutionary. If not the most, but somewhat revolutionary.

[Hit The North]

1) A lot of them don't work and have no incentive to work.


What incentive do any of us have to work under capitalism?


2) There's a regressive drug culture that affects them more than working-class folks.As opposed to the progressive drug culture of the working class? Millions of workers return home from work and drink alcohol (at least) in order to throw off the stresses of the day. Thousands of workers die of alcohol related diseases every year.

Alcohol is a less demonized but more destructive drug than most of the illegal ones you're thinking of.


3) Historically, the lumpenproles have been good recruits for fascist movements.So have elements of the bourgeoisie, the petite bourgeoisie and the working class. Let's not romanticize the lumpen proletariat by giving them a definite political character!

On the substantive point, bobkindles is correct in pointing out their lack of power within the productive relations of society as the main reason why these folks cannot occupy the role of a revolutionary force - except when they join forces with the rest of the proletariat.

[The Feral Underclass]

The proletariat is the only class capable of leading the revolution, because only workers are capable of developing a class consciousness.

That's totally unfounded!


By contrast, peasants and lumpen-proletarians lack this understanding of the need for collective action

On what basis is that true?

[The Feral Underclass]

bobkindles is correct in pointing out their lack of power within the productive relations of society as the main reason why these folks cannot occupy the role of a revolutionary force

That may have been what he meant, but it certainly is not what he said. "Lumpen" proletariats are perfectly capable of developing class consciousness in the sense that they understand the antagonisms in a class society and the need to challenge those relationships - That's what class consciousness is and it's not exclusive to people who have jobs, although it's reasonable to assume that people who have jobs and face struggles are more likely to develop a practical understanding of that consciousness, which is obviously more useful.

Aside from that, I agree that people who work within capitalism are the only force capable of bringing it down, but this has to do with material fact, rather than the ability to understand ideas. In any case, there is a limited working class capable of achieving such an objective, so it's debatable whether you could include the entire proletariat in the first place.

[BobKKKindle$]

That's totally unfounded!The peasantry is a heterogeneous group, and so they do not view the world in the same way, and do not have a common outlook on how the world should be changed. Workers share a common relationship to the productive apparatus, and interact through the social nature of production (which increases as manufacture takes place in larger units of production) which means that they can realize their strength as a class and can be organized through a vanguard party. This contrasts with the atomization of the lumpen proletariat, which creates a low potential for organization. The lumpen proletariat shares many of the features of the peasantry (they are also heterogeneous, comprised of many different groups) but unlike the peasantry are also numerically a small class in every society, regardless of the level of industrial development, and so are even more incapable of being the revolutionary class.

Thus, the working class is the sole class capable of leading the revolution, not solely because of their conditions, but also because the nature of their productive activity means they are more receptive to radical ideas, and can be organized.

Just because a class may have the poorest conditions (as is arguably true of the lumpen proletariat) that does not mean they are revolutionary, because poor conditions do not always result in a desire to effect radical change - they can also result in political apathy, or support for reactionary movements such as fascism.

[The Feral Underclass]

The peasantry is a heterogeneous group, and so they do not view the world in the same way, and do not have a common outlook on how the world should be changed. Workers share a common relationship to the productive apparatus, and interact through the social nature of production (which increases as manufacture takes place in larger units of production) which means that they can realize their strength as a class and can be organized through a vanguard party.

It does not follow that they are unable to become class conscious.


This contrasts with the atomization of the lumpen proletariat, which creates a low potential for organization.

This doesn't follow either.


Thus, the working class is the sole class capable of leading the revolution, not solely because of their conditions, but also because the nature of their productive activity means they are more receptive to radical ideas, and can be organized.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but you claimed that it was not possible for "lumpen" proletariat to become class conscious on the basis that they do not work. That's a totally fallacious claim to make.

[Luís Henrique]

I was in a debate on the internet with some comrades who suggested to me when they straight up told me that they believe that the lumpen proliteriat is not a revolutionary class.
I actually believe that the lumpen proliteriat is the most revolutionary class of all because they have been excluded from the whole class system and opressed in a way that pushes them to the very bottom.

Not at all.

All of us proletarians have to sell our labour force in order to survive. A lumpen proletarian is someone who has to sell his labour force... but has managed to avoid it in some way. So your average lumpen proletarian is someone who has accomodated into the margins of the capitalist system, and believes he is very smart in being able to avoid a regular job.

So, as a whole, the lumpen proletariat is not revolutionary; it is the most backward fraction of the proletariat. Evidently, individuals will be exceptions. Also, it should be evident (but for some reason it is not) that the lumpen are not a class of themselves, but merely a fraction of the working class, which is revolutionary. They merely happen to consistently be in the rearguard of the class.


And dont quote motherfuckers at me either, I want to hear it in real talk, explained in real life examples on why the most excluded and abused class in Imperialist america is not revolutionary if not the most revolutionary because, if you think that their not it is probably why we arent getting anywhere.Because if being the most excluded and the most abused would be revolutionary, I would be a Christian. You don't get much worse than being whipped while carrying a huge cross on your shoulders, and then being nailed to it until you die of dispnaea.

Have you ever met lumpen proletarians? "Real" lumpen proletarians? Beggars, whores, pocketpickers, swindlers, rank-and-file drug dealers? Have you ever seen them organise and demand their rights? Have you ever been at the wrong point of one of their weapons?

Have you a real knowledge of the "real" lumpen proletariat, that you come here to demand "real" talk about "real" life? Or do you get your notions about the lumpen proletariat from literature?


I also think we need to thnk of a better word then lumpen proliteriat, thats an insulting sounding word to describe the royalty we really are, that invokes predjudice towards us. Lumpen.WHo the fuck wants to describe themselves as that? It deters us from class contiousness alomst.Are you trying to tell us that you are a lumpen proletarian?

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

On the other hand, you can't be the "most excluded and abused class" in a society if your name isn't insulting, for starters. Or do you think "proletarian" is a term of endearment?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

The peasantry is a heterogeneous group, and so they do not view the world in the same way, and do not have a common outlook on how the world should be changed.

You are confusing "class consciousness" with "revolutionary class consciousness". The peasantry is usually class conscious, much more than the proletariat - it happens that their class consciousness is not revolutionary. Instead, it is the class consciousness of small proprietors - who know they need to defend petty property against great property, and also to defend property in general against those who have nothing.

(evidently, the most class-conscious class in our societies is the capitalist class.)


This contrasts with the atomization of the lumpen proletariat, which creates a low potential for organization. The lumpen proletariat shares many of the features of the peasantry (they are also heterogeneous, comprised of many different groups) but unlike the peasantry are also numerically a small class in every society, regardless of the level of industrial development, and so are even more incapable of being the revolutionary class.

Their situation is however very different from the situation of the peasantry. They are not petty proprietors, they are proletarians, ie, they have nothing to sell except their labour force. If they would become class-conscious, then this would have to be their class consciousness: the consciousness of having nothing to lose, except their chains. But they do have, usually, a quite acute "stamental" consciousness: the notion that they are above the proletarian mass, because they found some trick to elude wage slavery (that's why their slang has the most offencive terms towards working class people, always underlining the fact that we are idiots because we subject ourselves to the tyranny of jobs).

Luís Henrique

[Die Neue Zeit]

What incentive do any of us have to work under capitalism?

I find my work to be enjoyable (were it not for long hours on salary):

As Luis said:


All of us proletarians have to sell our labour force in order to survive. A lumpen proletarian is someone who has to sell his labour force... but has managed to avoid it in some way. So your average lumpen proletarian is someone who has accomodated into the margins of the capitalist system, and believes he is very smart in being able to avoid a regular job.

There's no incentive, positive or negative, for a lumpenprole to enter the workforce.


So, as a whole, the lumpen proletariat is not revolutionary; it is the most backward fraction of the proletariat. Evidently, individuals will be exceptions. Also, it should be evident (but for some reason it is not) that the lumpen are not a class of themselves, but merely a fraction of the working class, which is revolutionary. They merely happen to consistently be in the rearguard of the class.

Like I remarked elsewhere, the lumpenproletariat is a class unto itself, existing outside the wage-labour system.


As opposed to the progressive drug culture of the working class? Millions of workers return home from work and drink alcohol (at least) in order to throw off the stresses of the day. Thousands of workers die of alcohol related diseases every year.

Alcohol is a less demonized but more destructive drug than most of the illegal ones you're thinking of.

True. :(

There's just something about heroine and cocaine that really creeps me out, though. The scientific research suggests that moderate drinking is OK (and that includes wine ;) ). I drink alcoholic stuff, on average, once a year. :p

Also, what about caffeine in coffee and tea (and I drink two full glasses of tea almost everyday)?

Actually... you should've used tobacco instead, which offers no medical benefits whatsoever.

[Luís Henrique]

Also, what about caffeine in coffee and tea (and I drink two full glasses of tea almost everyday)?

Do they make you psychotic?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Also,

Or they found a better way to make money.

If they have found "a better way" to make money, they can't be the "most exploited". The "most exploited" are those who make money in the "worst way". Ie, through wage slavery.

Luís Henrique

[Unicorn]

3) Historically, the lumpenproles have been good recruits for fascist movements.
How do you explain the fact that unemployed workers were much less likely to vote for the Nazi party in 1932 than employed workers. The Nazis were the most popular party among workers getting 25% of their votes, more than either KPD or SPD. Yet only 13% of unemployed workers voted for Nazis.

http://www.johndclare.net/Weimar6_Geary.htm

[AGITprop]

Have you a real knowledge of the "real" lumpen proletariat, that you come here to demand "real" talk about "real" life? Or do you get your notions about the lumpen proletariat from literature?

Are you trying to tell us that you are a lumpen proletarian?

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

Actually, Raisa is a lumpen-proletariat.

[Leo]

Actually, the most prominent lumpens are bourgeois or petty-bourgeois rather than proletarian those days.

Lumpen doesn't refer to the unemployed, it refers to those who make a living at others expense, and of course that means mostly workers expense.

http://www.thesmilies.com/smilies/animal/lion.gif

[Luís Henrique]

How do you explain the fact that unemployed workers were much less likely to vote for the Nazi party in 1932 than employed workers. The Nazis were the most popular party among workers getting 25% of their votes, more than either KPD or SPD. Yet only 13% of unemployed workers voted for Nazis.

http://www.johndclare.net/Weimar6_Geary.htm

Unemployed workers are not the same as lumpen proletariat.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Actually, Raisa is a lumpen-proletariat.

Oh, yes? A swindler, I guess? or a beggar?

Luís Henrique

[Unicorn]

Unemployed workers are not the same as lumpen proletariat.

Luís Henrique
According to Wikipedia the term refers to all people outside the wage-labor system, including unemployed welfare recipients.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpenproletariat

[Marsella]

deleted

[Luís Henrique]

According to Wikipedia the term refers to all people outside the wage-labor system, including unemployed welfare recipients.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpenproletariat

Well, I am a Marxist, not a Wikipedist... so I will stay with the Marxist concept, that the lumpen proletariat is a small minority that accommodates within the margins of the wage-labour system, not a vast amount of people who are unemployed in lesser or greater extent varying with the capitalist cycles...

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

That Wiki article is so ridiculous it even believe the Fabians have influenced Marx... :crying:

Luís Henrique

[Unicorn]

Well, I am a Marxist, not a Wikipedist... so I will stay with the Marxist concept, that the lumpen proletariat is a small minority that accommodates within the margins of the wage-labour system, not a vast amount of people who are unemployed in lesser or greater extent varying with the capitalist cycles...
Hmm... well, why do you think the employed workers were more likely to vote for Nazis than the unemployed? (25% vs. 13%)

I also think that this debunks the theory that the German working class opposed Nazism and the German people is not "collectively guilty".

[Luís Henrique]

In any case, you may now see that the article does no longer adhere to the mistaken notion that welfare dependents are "lumpen-proletariat". Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that everyone can edit...:lol:

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Hmm... well, why do you think the employed workers were more likely to vote for Nazis than the unemployed? (25% vs. 13%)

I also think that this debunks the theory that the German working class opposed Nazism and the German people is not "collectively guilty".

If you don't break those numbers further, it is unlikely you will come to useful conclusions.

For instance, how many unionised workers voted for the Nazi? How many productive and improductive labourers voted for them? How many women and how many men? Skilled workers versus unskilled workers? How do those numbers compare with the other massive classes in Germany (peasantry and petty bourgeoisie)?

How can a whole people be "collectively guilty", regardless of their own individual acts?! That's a pre-medieval concept, undeign of a socialist!

Luís Henrique

[Die Neue Zeit]

In any case, you may now see that the article does no longer adhere to the mistaken notion that welfare dependents are "lumpen-proletariat". Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that everyone can edit...:lol:

Luís Henrique

In my chapter article (and yes, since we're talking about separate classes here, the article must be mentioned), I didn't list ALL welfare dependents as lumpenproles. There are the honest ones trying to get back into the wage-labour system (as "Class #2," proles, coordinators, or petit-bourgeois), but then there are the "welfare cheats" who live off welfare and have NO intention of returning to the workforce.

The latter are part of a separate class that includes beggars and gangsters.

[Raisa]

[quote=Luís Henrique;1105700]Not at all.

<<All of us proletarians have to sell our labour force in order to survive. A lumpen proletarian is someone who has to sell his labour force... but has managed to avoid it in some way. "So your average lumpen proletarian is someone who has accomodated into the margins of the capitalist system, and believes he is very smart in being able to avoid a regular job.">>

Your average lumpen proliteriat is someone who has FELONY or even MISDEMEANOR charges against him, maybe even from before he was an adult, that stop him from being able to get a regular job, so he resorts to doing some otehr kind of work not for established capitalist buisnesses to get money which usually is still selling his labor in a different way. He usually has to for example, sell drugs most of which belong to someone above him. There can be alot of trouble if the drugs are not sold. The ironic thing is alot of the time, the same government who gave him the Felony charge probably imported the drugs for him to sell and get arrested with.
If he is on drugs himself, he might sell shit he stole.
If he is disabled then he might get a check from the government for disability which isnt enough to live on. Usually his disability came from some shit blameable on capitalism.
You need to erase this picture out of your head that a lumpen proliterian is some one who is lazy, because alot of times it is a person who got fucked up in the system and is having a hard time establishing the simple things the proliteriat struggles for in their lives. This steriotype you are having is bad for you and the whole revolution.

After that you can take the time to realize that we ARE the most exploited class of people at least in the united states because the Prison Industrial War Complex is founded upon us. Imagine seeing people you love enthralled in the suffering of this life of abject poverty and its decorations, and knowing that there is a system based upon their very situation. And that without these people suffering the way they are, there is no system. They make little neighborhoods with few rescources for the lumpen proliteriat to live in, and count away at the clock untill they begin the life long journey of going to jail, not getting a regular job, having to do illegal shit to make money, going to jail longer, losing touch with the way the world works, coming out, going in.....getting discourages, being high
This is a reality, there are alot of troubling realities about the lumpen proliteriat in america. Thats the country I meant when I wrote this post, I dont know who else has the same kind of prison system anywhere in the world, but america. But Im sure there are other countries too who benifit from prison. More proliterians end up in the ghetto -> they have children or their children grow up in the ghetto -> someone in the family will most likely go to jail or become a drug addict -> this happens continuously untill jail is too full -> the government makes another jail -> more professional jobs are created that make at least 30,000 USD a year -> the government taxes their money -> maybe they can buy bombs or something. And the story goes on. And more regular lumpen proliterians ( not just activists and black panther followers) are starting to recognize the cycle in a class conscious perspective.


<<<Because if being the most excluded and the most abused would be revolutionary, I would be a Christian.>>

They make neighborhoods just for the lumpen proliteriat to live in and die in. This is a genocide for money?!!!! But in your ignorance you mock my point, because wherever you are in america or the wrest of the world you are not educated about the entails of the lumpen proliteriats daily life.

<<<Have you ever met lumpen proletarians? "Real" lumpen proletarians? Beggars, whores, pocketpickers, swindlers, rank-and-file drug dealers? Have you ever seen them organise and demand their rights? Have you ever been at the wrong point of one of their weapons?""">>>

It doesnt matter if I did or I did not meet or know any "real" lumpen proliterians. I dont feel like I owe you that explanation, because if I have a point, I have a point. Asking me if I have ever been at the wrong point of their weapons sounds very borugeois and hysterical. Not only I believe do you have a disdain for hte lumpen proliteriat and see them as a class of lazy drug addicts and bums, you are subcontiously afraid of them, so you will never come deal with them politically, and I thnk that is a problem, because in the united states, this is what is stopping communism from being upheld by the people. Im not here to insult or argue with you, I just think as communists we should adress this point in detail, so please stop approaching my points in the pompus ass way you have been dealing with them, comrade. Becasue in this economic time we are living in, it is very easy for any proliterian to become a lumpen proliteriat, and the sight of the lumpen proliteriats life is the real depiction of the reguard the capitalist has for any of our lives. Most people dont become whores and drug addicts themselves.

Have you a real knowledge of the "real" lumpen proletariat, that you come here to demand "real" talk about "real" life? Or do you get your notions about the lumpen proletariat from literature?

Why would you ask me that? Does it matter? Most people on here are middle class or better, so they learned about the proliteriat through literature, and I find that quality very respectable. It kind of disturbs me that you keep asking me that because what if I told you yes? What if I told you I had more real knowlege about the lumpen proliteriat then you could believe? I wouldnt, and I hope the conversation doesnt come up here, because you have already painted the lumpen proliteriat with your words as drug addicts, dirty ass derilects, theives, prostitues and low life people as if they didnt have their own stories to tell or lives to survive in, like their not real people, like their not someone's son or daugther- and thats how you see them. So what would it do for ME to actually answer that question for you, if the answer was yes beside make me feel ashamed or humiliated or angry?
You have already aproached me with the concept of a lumpen proliterian as some kind of a peice of shit or derilect, so how could you really expect an answer from me in reguards to whether I am one or not?

Lets stick to the point we are descussing and not talk about each other's lives.

And on the proliteriat being the most revolutionary class , here is another thing to throw in.
I think the only proliterians ( non communist working people) who can really understand the disrespect capitalism has for us enough to want to revolt are the ones who have been lumpen proliterians.
Alot of proliterians are dumb motherfuckers unfortunately who still believe they are going to make it to a better life. Its nice to try, but the ironic thing is that their only other option is to be a lumpen proliterian, that is the threat that encroaches upon them. They will struggle to not become one, even try idenitifing with another class in their minds "oh were middle class"..... to not put any of that "bad ghetto luck" around their minds. Their hardworking joes, they dont want to hear your communist mambo jumbo, its negative and dreary, they jsut want to provide for their families.
Proliterians who have been lumpen proliterians on the other hand, they can probably complete your sentances because they KNOW what this shit here is really about. Its about DEATH and MONEY.

But proliterians who have been on the otherside before as lumpen proliterians KNOW the system completely for what it really is.
They are usually the ones who hear you or agree with you when you talk about your views to them. And they are no different now that they have a job. Before marx defined the proliteriat as the one who sells his labor for money by the hour, the ROMANS invented the word as "the person who produces babies for the rich"
And that is what we are doing as well. The difference is, the rich like our babies to join the army or go to jail, before working at burger king. And with that kind of a designation- how can you not see an opressive system for what it really is?!
What do YOU think on terms of these different proliterians?

[Luís Henrique]

Your average lumpen proliteriat is someone who has FELONY or even MISDEMEANOR charges against him, maybe even from before he was an adult, that stop him from being able to get a regular job, so he resorts to doing some otehr kind of work not for established capitalist buisnesses to get money which usually is still selling his labor in a different way.

Which is another way of saying, they have accommodated at the margins of the system. They have, in your own words "found a better way to make money".


You need to erase this picture out of your head that a lumpen proliterian is some one who is lazy,

I don't think they are lazy; certainly it takes a lot of effort to do the things they do.


After that you can take the time to realize that we ARE the most exploited class of people at least in the united states because the Prison Industrial War Complex is founded upon us.

Well, your Prisonal Industrial War Complex is an American phenomenon, that does not exist anywhere else. But it still doesn't make the American lumpenproletariat the "most exploited" class in the US, unless you can reasonably argue that it produces more surplus value per capita than the economy at large. And that I very much doubt.

Besides, the "most exploited" class is not necessarily the "most revolutionary" class; those things are completely different.


Imagine seeing people you love enthralled in the suffering of this life of abject poverty and its decorations, and knowing that there is a system based upon their very situation.

So what? What difference does it make? Unless you can actually understand such exploitation for what it is, and organise to put an end to it, you end with liberal complaining about the poor people.


They make little neighborhoods with few rescources for the lumpen proliteriat to live in, and count away at the clock untill they begin the life long journey of going to jail, not getting a regular job, having to do illegal shit to make money, going to jail longer, losing touch with the way the world works, coming out, going in.....getting discourages, being high

You can't be a revolutionary class if by definition you lose touch with the way the world works.


And more regular lumpen proliterians ( not just activists and black panther followers) are starting to recognize the cycle in a class conscious perspective.

Yes? And what would be a "lumpen proletarian class perspective"?

Either their perspective is the perspective of the proletariat (we are those who have nothing, and we must sell ourselves into wage slavery in order to survive, and only breaking down the whole system can free us), or it is not a revolutionary perspective. A purely "lumpen proletarian" perspective, relying on their particular condition, cannot be anything higher than a liberal push to end the overexploitation in jails, and return the bulk of the lumpen to the condition of "normal" proletariat.

But if it is the perspective of the proletariat, it doesn't possibly make the lumpen proletariat the most revolutionary class, as it has to adopt the perspective of another class to attain a revolutionary consciousness. At most, it could make them the most conscious fraction, or layer, of the proletariat. This, in the United States, considering the miserable state of the left, could even be true - but it is only a symptom of the extreme weakness of the working class.


But in your ignorance you mock my point, because wherever you are in america or the wrest of the world you are not educated about the entails of the lumpen proliteriats daily life.

It is not mockery at all. There is in fact a tendency among the liberal left to equate "suffering" with "deserving", and "deserving" with revolutionary potential. Which is, of course, the core of ultra-liberal Christianism: the working class is the modern "collective Christ" and is going to save the whole of mankind by expiating its sins in a secularised version of Apocalypse (or conversely, a sacred version of revolution).


It doesnt matter if I did or I did not meet or know any "real" lumpen proliterians.

Then don't bring "reality" into the discussion.

You tried to liminarly disqualify any criticism of your position, by demanding "quote no motherfuckers": which is to say, you demanded "real-life" knowledge of the lumpen-proletariat. And if you are in your right to ask that from others, how are others wrong to ask it from you?


I dont feel like I owe you that explanation, because if I have a point, I have a point.

And people who "quote motherfuckers" have a point when they have a point, don't they?


Asking me if I have ever been at the wrong point of their weapons sounds very borugeois and hysterical.

Why? It is a common experience of the working class. In fact, being mugged is much more common among workers than among the bourgeoisie or the middle class.


Not only I believe do you have a disdain for hte lumpen proliteriat and see them as a class of lazy drug addicts and bums, you are subcontiously afraid of them, so you will never come deal with them politically, and I thnk that is a problem, because in the united states, this is what is stopping communism from being upheld by the people.

If I was irrationally afraid of them, subconsciously or not, I would not have worked in jail.

There are many reasons why the people isn't upholding communism in America, but lack of idealisation of the lumpenproletariat is not one of them.


Im not here to insult or argue with you, I just think as communists we should adress this point in detail, so please stop approaching my points in the pompus ass way you have been dealing with them, comrade.

Then stop making pompous ass demands on others' position.


Becasue in this economic time we are living in, it is very easy for any proliterian to become a lumpen proliteriat, and the sight of the lumpen proliteriats life is the real depiction of the reguard the capitalist has for any of our lives.

Certainly. There is no rigid boundary between the proletariat and the lumpen proletariat, and I in fact don't even believe it is a separate class. But this only brings back the bottom question: the proletariat is the revolutionary class, and it is only the proletarian perspective that is revolutionary. You can be a petty bourgeois and a revolutionary, a peasant and a revolutionary, even a finance aristocrat and a revolutionary - but only if you are able to view the world with the eyes of the proletariat. The same applies to the lumpen proletariat.


Most people dont become whores and drug addicts themselves.

Liberalism is so wonderful in its contradictions... on one hand, drugs are a personal choice (and personal choices are sacred); on the other hand, there is a totally impersonal mechanism that transforms otherwise decent people into drug addicts.

This can only lead to statism. We have to "save" those poor people from becoming drug addicts (or whores), because, of themselves, they cannot help but become unwilling victims of "the system". (How are they revolutionary, if they can't help being victims?)

The conundrum can only be saved by organisation, and organisation is the proletarian perspective. In the case of the lumpen proletariat, besides, such organisation must counter, for starters, their own conditions of life. Which is another way to say, they must struggle to get back into the proletariat at large, to lose their distinctive characteristics.

Why would you ask me that? Does it matter? Most people on here are middle class or better, so they learned about the proliteriat through literature, and I find that quality very respectable.

Then please allow me to quote motherfuckers.


It kind of disturbs me that you keep asking me that because what if I told you yes? What if I told you I had more real knowlege about the lumpen proliteriat then you could believe? I wouldnt, and I hope the conversation doesnt come up here, because you have already painted the lumpen proliteriat with your words as drug addicts, dirty ass derilects, theives, prostitues and low life people as if they didnt have their own stories to tell or lives to survive in, like their not real people, like their not someone's son or daugther- and thats how you see them.

You have to chose, Raisa. If the lumpen proletariat is going to be a revolutionary class, it has to start by affirming the dignity of its own condition. If whores, thieves, and drug addicts cannot take pride of themselves, I don't see how they are going to be revolutionary. If being a whore, a thief, or a drug addict, is something to be ashamed of, but not something about they can do something by themselves - if they do depend on public or private charity, after all - then the impulse for their transformation comes exclusively from outside, and they are not a revolutionary class, but a class to be revolutionised by others.

We, the working class, are not the passive victims of a "system": we are a struggling class. We say, "we build the world, we shall know how to govern it". In that, we simultaneously take pride in our condition and reject it as mostly unjust. Can the lumpen proletariat do it better?


Their hardworking joes, they dont want to hear your communist mambo jumbo, its negative and dreary, they jsut want to provide for their families.

And it is like it has to be. It is the problem of the conscious elements of the class to relate their daily experience to class struggle, not the problem of the class at large to become inspired by an idealist craze and decide that taking power is more important than feeding their children.


Proliterians who have been lumpen proliterians on the other hand, they can probably complete your sentances because they KNOW what this shit here is really about. Its about DEATH and MONEY.

Then why isn't the lumpen proletariat heading the struggle against capitalism?

No; when the working class as a whole is not fighting, any other classes will be silent as well.


They are usually the ones who hear you or agree with you when you talk about your views to them.

Sorry, I don't believe that. Nor do I think that "agreeing" to my views is significant, unless such "agreement" is reflected on a political praxis and organisation. After all, they may also agree with you if you and them are wrong in the same way.


And they are no different now that they have a job.

Listen, you are getting confuse.

There is no fixed border between the proletariat and the lumpen proletariat. People go from one condition to other quite often. But a guy who has decided to work for his living is a proletarian, no matter what his previous history was. Evidently the experience of crossing class boundaries, or even class fraction borders, is relevant and enriches the proletarian world view. But just like the petty bourgeois who loses his shop and comes into the proletariat needs to put his previous petty-bourgeois knowledge at the service of his new class, so does the former lumpen proletarian. If on the contrary, they are willing to give their particularities a bigger weight than our common class condition (ie, by asserting that the lumpen proletariat is the most revolutionary class, or that the working class must be led by intellectuals), we are on the wrong track.


Before marx defined the proliteriat as the one who sells his labor for money by the hour, the ROMANS invented the word as "the person who produces babies for the rich"

Nope, that wasn't the meaning of the word. It meant "those who produce nothing, besides children".


What do YOU think on terms of these different proliterians?

That they are not different proletarians at all, and that, if they consider themselves different, then they are not of much help in our struggle.

Luís Henrique

[Hit The North]

In my chapter article (and yes, since we're talking about separate classes here, the article must be mentioned), I didn't list ALL welfare dependents as lumpenproles. There are the honest ones trying to get back into the wage-labour system (as "Class #2," proles, coordinators, or petit-bourgeois), but then there are the "welfare cheats" who live off welfare and have NO intention of returning to the workforce.

The latter are part of a separate class that includes beggars and gangsters. (my emphasis)

Firstly comrade, it makes no sense to say that two individuals can be designated separate class positions on the basis that one likes being on the dole and the other wants to get off it! Social class is not determined by the disposition of individuals - their fidelity to the Protestant work ethic or otherwise.

Secondly, you are pedaling bourgeois conceits that there exists, on the one hand, the honest, deserving poor and, on the other, the idle, undeserving poor.

Isn't it time we moved beyond this absurd, nineteenth century prejudice?

This is often the problem when Marxists begin to talk about the lumpen proletariat and mistake it for the ranks of long-term unemployed workers which have become a structural feature of late capitalism.

Luis' definition is much the better one because it allows us to clearly distinguish between the unemployed and the drug dealer, pimp or huckster.

[STI]

If absolutely anything prevents the lumpenproletariat from being *the* revolutionary class, it's their numbers and their proximity to key sites of production.

It's these two factors that give the working class its power to bring down capitalism... but it doesn't exclude the lumpens as *a* revolutionary class. They know just how dirty capitalism can be in its underbelly, they know just how far cops will go to protect capital. I've seen lumpens (panhandlers, more specifically) organize protests, reclaim public space, and distribute revolutionary literature.

That said, the extreme desperation that a lot of lumpens face makes them open for manipulation by extreme reactionaries, as has been pointed out. So they present themselves as a kind of "wildcard". I see a few factors mitigating where they end up politically...

One is the amount of foresight an individual lumpen has. The degree to which s/he recognizes that things will be shitty for as long as class society exists is important. Also, it matters how much a person is willing to listen to them versus just talk at them. An existing revolutionary lumpens' organization also helps, especially one that's empowering.

So, in sum, lumpens have revolutionary potential, but are not guaranteed for one direction or another... and as such deserve our efforts and attention.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Firstly comrade, it makes no sense to say that two individuals can be designated separate class positions on the basis that one likes being on the dole and the other wants to get off it! Social class is not determined by the disposition of individuals - their fidelity to the Protestant work ethic or otherwise.

Backpedalling to materialism: those who want to get off welfare are typically ones who work part-time or temps before transitioning back to full-time. Believe me: I myself was in this position.

The ones who are "welfare cheats" can be found among those non-disabled folks who are out of the workforce for an extended time for non-seasonal reasons (so seasonal fishers, for example, are either proles or petit-bourgeois).


Secondly, you are pedaling bourgeois conceits that there exists, on the one hand, the honest, deserving poor and, on the other, the idle, undeserving poor.

Thank you for correcting me!

Thankfully, however, in the chapter text there's no mention of the word "honest." :) I should have been more judicious in my choice of words in this thread. :(


This is often the problem when Marxists begin to talk about the lumpen proletariat and mistake it for the ranks of long-term unemployed workers which have become a structural feature of late capitalism.

That's why I mentioned seasonal workers. In Canada, there are seasonal fishers off the Atlantic Coast, and Newfoundland is still recovering from the federal blunders that sent a lot of them to the poorhouse or out West.


Luis' definition is much the better one because it allows us to clearly distinguish between the unemployed and the drug dealer, pimp or huckster.

Hopscotch gave the best definition in my thread, actually (alas, my final edit isn't complete enough to mention his remarks). :p

[Q]

I was in a debate on the internet with some comrades who suggested to me when they straight up told me that they believe that the lumpen proliteriat is not a revolutionary class.
I actually believe that the lumpen proliteriat is the most revolutionary class of all because they have been excluded from the whole class system and opressed in a way that pushes them to the very bottom.
Some one please say it in my face and explain to me why you think the lumpen proliteriat is not a revolutionary class.
And dont quote motherfuckers at me either, I want to hear it in real talk, explained in real life examples on why the most excluded and abused class in Imperialist america is not revolutionary if not the most revolutionary because, if you think that their not it is probably why we arent getting anywhere.


I also think we need to thnk of a better word then lumpen proliteriat, thats an insulting sounding word to describe the royalty we really are, that invokes predjudice towards us. Lumpen.WHo the fuck wants to describe themselves as that? It deters us from class contiousness alomst.
I wouldn't say lumpenproletarians aren't able of revolutionary conclusions, but as a class they're excluded from the elementary contradiction between capital and labour that divides society and of which they're indeed a result. Also, their struggle to survive is even bigger than with the normal working class, which has an impact on the mode of thought. And while the normal proletariat also has this struggle for survival, there is a key difference: work. Due to their nature as a dispersed social group, they're not able to make a fist and unite as a collective.

[Zurdito]

Great replies Luis Henrique.

Raisa never ansewered the question about whether lumpenproleterians have ever united to defend their rights. That says it all: he can't, because they don't.

And like has been said: unemployed workers are not lumpenproletarians.

Lumpens rob from workers raisa, if you think terrorising, attacking and stealing from working class people is revolutionary then you're not far off from a fascist yourself.

[chegitz guevara]

The reason why the working class is the most revolutionary class is because they are the class that is most exploited on the one hand (lumpens, not working, are not exploited) and because they are the ones with their hands on the means of production. They can shut down society merely by refusing to work. The lumpens cannot do this.

From Marxists.org


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 (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/a.htm#fascism) 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 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch03d.htm) 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 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#053) (where it is translated as “dangerous classes”) and in Class Struggles in France (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/index.htm), and elsewhere.

[Democritus]

chegitz, I get what you are getting at. However, I also think many of the longer points made here are excellent. On one hand those most able to recognize the system for what it is are completely neutered from any power. On the other, those working are trying to maintain the illusion as best they can. I believe the people who have been lumpens and are now working class again, AND the people who are floating that line, or have dropped to that line because they have become completely disillusioned with what present life offers; these are the people that can fuel the revolution now in a peaceful way (as possible).

demo-

[Hit The North]

Lumpens rob from workers raisa, if you think terrorising, attacking and stealing from working class people is revolutionary then you're not far off from a fascist yourself.

Well, unless we are employing the term lumpen to just mean 'criminal', let's not be too judgmental about people who exist on the margins of class society. Let's not make them sound like the lurid maniacs of Reefer Madness and Daily Mail editorials.

Being a workers is shit for most of us. If being a worker was great, then there'd be no need for a revolution. Therefore, any independent-minded, critically-thinking young member of the proletariat, would jump at the chance of an alternative to wage slavery.

My own employment record is pretty uneven. I was in rebellion to wage slavery. Still am. All that time it sucks out of your life!

[Cencus]

I'm a lumpen, at age 37 I've worked for less than 5 years of my life, haven't worked for over 3. At present the state gives me £100 per week, pays my rent, presriciptions, etc , in fact I'm actually better of on benefits than I was working for minimum wage.

I don't steal from workers, niether do my friends in similar positions, some of us steal, but from large corporations, some have sold drugs but never smack or crack. There are utter ****s in the underclass but they are not the norm, most just want to get on with their lives just like every other class.

Many have found ways to avoid the bullshit that is wage slavery many through laziness but a good number for political reasons. Political awareness/class concousness is alive and well in the underclass.

Since lumpens are at the bottom of the heap they are usually the first ones to be scapegoated by our governments and that breeds a degree of political awareness that I personally have not seen within the proletarians I have worked with. In fact the working class folks I have worked with are generally the most ignorant, self serving, racist, reactionary people I have ever met. Ok I was working with people doing pretty shitty low paid jobs, but was the reality I saw.

[chegitz guevara]

I think it's important to recognize that Marxism is concerned largely with exploitation, not oppression. That isn't to say we as socialists aren't concerned with oppression, but our critique of capitalism is based on the workings of the capitalist system, how it maintains and reproduces itself. Oppression is certainly a necessary aspect of that, but oppression is not, in it self, an essential part of capitalism. Theoretically, capitalism could exist without oppression (not in reality, as real human beings resist). Capitalism cannot exist without exploitation, without extracting surplus value from those who create all value.

For most of human history, it is not when the oppression is severest that people revolt. It is when that oppression begins to lift. Like a cork on a champagne bottle, a slight lessening of oppression, unless carefully and properly handled, leads to revolt as the pressure from below explodes. It is not the most oppressed classes who revolt, but those who feel they deserve better.

The lumpen proletariat certain can be a revolutionary class. As a tiny fraction of society, however, they do not have the social mass necessary to make a revolution. Neither do they have their hands on the means of production. They don't have the capacity to shut down production. At one time, when the centers of production were located in the cities, they had the means to shut down production via rioting, but as most production these days is carried out in the suburbs and rural areas, that power no longer exists.

The lumpen class has been revolutionary in the past, when following the lead of other revolutionary forces. The unemployed movement in the 1930s is a classic example of this. The lumpen class, however, is also easily swayed by the promises of fascism. Nazi German was in many respects, a lumpen "revolution." Marx, in his Class Struggles in France and The 18th Brumaire of Bonaparte shows the role the lumpen proletariat played in crushing the French Revolution of 1848 and creating the dictatorship of Napoleon III.

[nvm]

Marx on the lumpen proletariat:
The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Since my post and that of Comrade Zeitgeist_91 were deleted, I'd like to recap what was said. I asked if, based on my specific definition of "lumpenproletariat" (apart from the "lumpenbourgeoisie" and the "lumpen" in terms of separate underclasses), if they had the potential to be revolutionary. This re-definition includes prostitutes and low-level gangsters, but excludes lumpen elements like for-life beggars and lumpenbourgeois elements like hucksters and pimps.

Comrade Zeitgeist_91 responded in the affirmative.

[Unicorn]

I don't think prostitutes are necessarily lumpenproletarian. I think that would be a patriarchal characterization. They are actually superexploited workers.

[shorelinetrance]

I don't think prostitutes are necessarily lumpenproletarian. I think that would be a patriarchal characterization. They are actually superexploited workers.

some are independent business women. :lol: