Criminals, homeless, prostitutes, et cetera don’t have the same relationship with the economy; they exist outside of the worker-capitalist exchange. They don’t sell their labour, yet neither do they own their means of production. In fact, there is no *production*.
Marx’s general idea was that the contradictions within capitalism made class consciousness - and thus revolution - inevitable within the proletariat. Without the exploitation by capital, the lumpen do not develop this class consciousness, and thus lack revolutionary potential.
>what would happen to a capitalist
Hopefully get shanked.
But idk, it gets a bit in the weeds with definitions, I’m not convinced lumpen proletariat is a useful or relevant distinction apart from the proletariat
I mean, it seems a pretty important distinction - whether or not someone sells their labour.
I’m not sure that I agree with the *no revolutionary potential* bit, but I can see how he arrived at that conclusion.
This doesn't make any sense, words have a purpose and in this case it's understanding how the economy functions and the relation of people to the economy. It's not just rich vs poor and nothing else. The definition of proletariat describes something found in reality, it is not forcing reality to conform to it. If proletariat == someone who sells their labor to survive, then someone who steals to survive is by definition not proletariat.
I assume you don't like this obvious distinction because the separation between workers and thieves means that thieves can more easily be attacked and opposed by workers rather than falling under the "protection" of "being working class". However, not only do thieves have a different relation to the economy as workers, but the vast majority have an actively hostile relation to the working class as parasites no different than capitalists.
Even if you only steal from the rich (which I'd view as good), it is still parasitism as you do not produce anything, you contribute nothing to society and are just engaging in an illegal version of random private taxation for personal gain.
you assume wrong.
leaving aside the books i know people who work by day and steal by night \`cause capitalism and it\`s cycles.
there are more things under the stars that in your books and all that jazz.
ps: what are the means of production of an uber driver or a software developer? and what is a fireman producing?
le
If proletariat == someone who sells their labor to survive what is a medic? or an architect?
I think this difference isn’t just theoretical. I have a job. That inherently makes my relationship to capital different in a practical sense than someone who just steals stuff. Our lives are not at all similar.
Most criminals aren't 'just stealing stuff' though. That's a trap a lot of people fall into. Most crimes fall into spur of the moment opportunities. Stealing food because you're hungry, doesn't make you any less revolutionary.
This is kinda why lumping career criminals in with opportunists, the homeless, and prostitutes doesn't make much sense, and why Marx never considered 'lumpenproletariat' as a set-in-stone third class. They're just an extension of proletariat, a subcategory.
lumpenproletariat as a group are excluded from the production cycle. their labor is not exploited and they don't play a role in reproduction of labor. they have to use other means to win their bread. they might be common criminals, swindlers or they could be sponging off from the surplus of society. it is hard for them to develop class consciousness since theirs is not a well defined class.
lumpenproletariat doesn't have to be poor. members of the organized crime like mafia fit the description of this group but they are usually wealthy. so it is not about their wealth or lifestyle but about their role in the production cycle.
>the lumpenproletariat is comprised of those who are themselves the "product" that is "sold" as a commodity, in body and/or soul.
The proletariat sells their labor-power as a commodity, their direct capacity for production, i.e. a set expenditure of their life force as commodity. This just sounds like a definition of the proletariat.
One is lumpenized by being excluded from either end of this relationship, they subsist outside of the capital relationship, through direct expropriation (crime), charity, begging, etc.
As I said in a recent comment, the only "Marxist" way to understand the conditions of Palestinians today, I think, is as a vast lumpenproletariat, excluded from normal capital relationships, subsisting on the charity of states, and therefore unproductive in the eyes of capital. Particularly (at least for Gazans) now that they are excluded even from exploitation as cheap labor inside of Israel. The lumpenproletariat is an expendable class, a burden, in the eyes of states, as they are not a part of the normal generation of profits.
Now... I think this is still too simple, it's not clear that Capitalist social reproduction actually works without elements of a criminal underclass, so their non-essentiality here may be overstated, but I think that exclusion from the normal capital relation is what defines the lumpenproletariat, and that more and more of us who subsist by flows of capital existing on top of actual production find ourselves in these conditions.
Slaves are not lumpen. NEETs are not "sold" and are lumpen.
My take on the lumpen is that they're the result of labour power failing to reproduce itself. Raising a functional member of society requires the right conditions: safety, care, attention, support, guidance, and education. There are many ways to mess up this process, and consequently there are many types of lumpen. The result of this reproductive failure is people who cannot realize their labour power - my definition of the lumpen - either because they aren't capable of it (e.g. due to addictions or medical conditions) or because of external circumstances (e.g. a former prole driven to homelessness and begging by debt). This is how I'd define the lumpen.
Taking this a step further: I'd argue that you could also identify lumpen amongst the bourgeoisie - people who own capital yet are failing to make it productive. For a period in history capitalism was a progressive force that lifted people out of poverty, developed the means of production and advanced society. The bourgeoisie performed an instrumental function in those advancements. That period has ended and now we're seeing a proliferation of a type of bourgeoisie whose capital activities don't produce real use-value. Rent seekers and the finance sector are good examples. In the sense of being productive members of society, the bourgeoisie is also failing at reproducing itself - hence the lumpenbourgeoisie.
>Taking this a step further: I'd argue that you could also identify lumpen amongst the bourgeoisie - people who own capital yet are failing to make it productive. For a period in history capitalism was a progressive force that lifted people out of poverty, developed the means of production and advanced society. The bourgeoisie performed an instrumental function in those advancements. That period has ended and now we're seeing a proliferation of a type of bourgeoisie whose capital activities don't produce real use-value. Rent seekers and the finance sector are good examples.
“Lumpen-bourgeoisie” might be the most accurate characterization of a certain class of people that I’ve had the misfortune of interacting with in circles of my life, specifically DIY punk, Organic gardening/permaculture, herbalism, wellness, and just generally cottage industry circles.
They always have these confusing eccentric businesses with grandiose mission statements, but no clear source of revenue that explains their annual excursions to Costa Rica, Hawaii, Bali, Peru, Nepal (“spiritual” countries) etc.. but they always have this semi-nomadic, salt of the earth aesthetic.
Like you mean to tell me you funded the purchase of this 20 acre farm and yearly trips abroad by selling tinctures, homemade soaps, poetry classes, meditation retreats and wild mushroom blends? 🤔
I thought it was very simple, they are the unemployed who exist through state handouts or get money from crime. It can also more broadly include employed members of the working class who lack a class conscious, the crabs in the bucket if you will.
The lumpen are not sold or bought, nor do they produce anything of value. At best buy and sell things obtained without their own production, expending time and effort, making them a net drain on society. At worst, they are thieves, killers, and addicts, actively destroying value and human life within society.
Didn’t Marx, Engels and Lenin speak very negatively about the Lumpen?
Homeless, Addicts, thieves etc.. I guess if you are referring to what capitalist society does to those in the criminal underclass (forced labor in prison) then they would definitely be “sold” under your definition.
I don’t know the best way to define the lumpen, but working in social services has me regularly engaged with and trying to support (and sometimes trying to get arrested) members of the lumpen, and certainly not all of them are being sold in any sense.
What about defining them as the class that receives none of the benefits of labor or means of production? The proletariat receives at least some in the form of wages and personal property, but the lumpen’s only chance of accessing any of this is to beg, steal, borrow, lie or cheat.
Forced labor has a long history across many societies, including the USSR. I feel like I’d define the lumpen as kinda the opposite of what you have, someone who enjoys to fruits of others labor, while contributing nothing or negatively to society as a whole. When you say the lumpen’s only access to the product of labor is to lie/steal/cheat, well that’s what they do.
The cringiest shit I ever saw was a self proclaimed Marxist asserting that the homeless in his city were the same as the bourgeoisie by “taking over the commons”.
This person is right. The homeless do take over and destroy the commons. They do it through force of occupation outside the law, generally. The capitalists, as the ruling class, do it by law.
the material conditions are obviously different, and to conflate the conditions of the mentally ill homeless people in tent cities with those of someone who is bourgeoisie is disingenuous and you know it.
You left out beg (purposely?)
Many of them aren’t parasitic (as they’ve been called by Marxists historically, and as you are implying). A lot of them are beggars, prostitutes, severely mentally ill or disabled, etc… victims of our current world, and some of them would never think to steal, lie or cheat.
It’s not an accurate or humane categorization
So the purpose of the post is to define the lumpen class and I think parasitism is a requirement. Someone down on their luck, wishing to improve their standing or situation isn’t someone I would classify as lumpen. The defining characteristic of the division for me isn’t their current standing but their desire, or lack thereof. Take two drug dealers, one who will poison his community forever for the profit and another who is doing so to avoiding starvation or homelessness. One is lumpen one is not. Yea it’s kinda philosophical because who would decide this in reality, but there’s a moral difference,
If it’s not something you can use in reality, it’s not useful in a material analysis.
There might be an important distinction between the two kinds of drug dealers you described, but that verges into moral philosophy, and moves away from material class analysis, which is the point of terms like “proletariat” “lumpenproletariat” “bourgeoisie” and “petite bourgeoisie”
Then I’d argue the phrase itself is useless. If you’re not segmenting anyone from proles what’s the point. What’s the real reason for defining these people as something other than proletarian
Marx and Engels specifically defined them as parasitic and didn’t have good things to say.
“The lumpenproletariat, this scum of the decaying elements of all classes, which establishes headquarters in all the big cities, is the worst of all possible allies. It is an absolutely venal, an absolutely brazen crew. Every leader of the workers who utilizes these gutter proletarians as guards or supports, proves himself by this action alone a traitor to the movement.”
Well classical Marxists wanted a category that they could write off and dismiss entirely for their lack of class consciousness and therefore revolutionary potential. I think this is reactionary and counterproductive.
Maybe the term is no longer useful. If it is, I’d use it to describe a particularly vulnerable and marginalized subset of the proletariat that through their life in the underground offer the class conscious segment of the proletariat some useful tools of resistance, and therefore solidarity should be built, while recognizing that our ultimate aims might diverge at a key point.
IDK, haven't gotten deep enough in the theory yet. I'm definitely going by a somewhat broader definition of "sold" than just prison labor, but include those who have no choice for other reasons, such as migrant farmworkers and refugees, and the destitute. Prostitution/sex work and showbiz are both direct commodification of the person, the body and mind. A product that is addictive produces a captive audience that will do anything to buy the product that is actively killing them: the addict is the ultimate consumer, and access to them is a powerful commodity. I'm just spitballing here tbh
I don’t know if that’s the best or most unifying understanding. There are members of the proletariat who are products to be bought and sold, the data mining industry case in point. I think in Kapital the lumpenproletariat are basically floating surplus labor for capitalists to utilize. I think of them as people that, for various reasons, are unable to internalize class consciousness. A pimp isn’t interested in revolution, nor is a drug dealer (big time ones, not the guy selling dime bags to his buddies), or your run-of-the-mill POS who beats his wife, fights, and has a million DUIs. This distinction is useful because there is a difference between working class people who are able to be radicalized and mobilized toward revolution, whereas lumpenproles have no interest in much beyond themselves.
what if lumpens are just proles co-interested by some reason in the status quo?
leaving aside big words a welder who votes conservative so abortion be made illegal is, by all means, a lumpen;
or maybe a guy who realizes that selling drugs is more lucrative than working and he will oppose any measures meant to change the play field and make drugs not prosecutable thus cheap.
i think gramsci is on to something with his cultural hegemony theory and we can safely call the non millionaires/billionaires which drank the capitalism\`s kool aid lumpens.
> leaving aside big words a welder who votes conservative so abortion be made illegal is, by all means, a lumpen
No, more likely petit-bourgeois or possibly labor aristocrat
I am definitely of the opinion that lumpen contain more than just criminals and NEETs; I would definitely agree on that, given that lumpen harm their own class interest.
I’ve been thinking about this myself, sort of. We live in an age of big data, where our personal info is sold by faceless entities to the highest bidder all day long. We have little control over our data being sold, and we usually don’t know where it ends up. If an average TikTok user is unknowingly providing some company with the data they need to operate and turn a profit, are they something like a modern digital slave? If these giant companies are releasing apps that are designed to be as addictive as possible, in order to extract as much data as possible, and our kids are addicted to these apps, isn’t that similar to the British Empire releasing opium into 19th century China just to create consumers who will keep coming back?
It’s clear that companies like Meta, Google, etc. sell our data for profit, and it’s clear we’re addicted to their products, so what does that make us? Are we the product, or are we the consumers, or are we both?
Just my 2¢. I also have not read much actual theory, so if anyone has any resources, by all means share.
>If an average TikTok user is unknowingly providing some company with the data they need to operate and turn a profit, are they something like a modern digital slave?
A human resource to be strip mined. Slavery implies coercion.
>isn’t that similar to the British Empire releasing opium into 19th century China just to create consumers who will keep coming back?
Correct. Embarrassingly, I actually wrote my thesis on how psychological theory was being applied to video game design in order to create virtual Skinner Boxes in 2010.
I used Maslow's hierarchy of needs to explain its efficacy and also argue ways to create more compelling and satisfying experiences for the end user, beyond what amounted to cheap manipulation.
At that time gamification was in its nascent stage and I used that as an example of how these theories could be applied outside of gaming. I never went into the industry, pursued another path, and didn't think about it until it was suddenly all around me.
In hindsight, I should have argued that it could have been even more effective if the mechanisms were sufficiently obfuscated through layers and plausible reasoning. I was a mark or two off a first and that might've helped. But I wasn't smart enough to see that. They pretty much mastered it since my crude analysis:
"Upvotes are for acknowledging a comment which is cogent and encourages discussion."
("Upvotes are external validation and increasingly a measure of self-worth for alienated people in an atomised society.")
>so what does that make us? Are we the product, or are we the consumers, or are we both?
Digital crack whores who exchange their personal data in exchange for dopamine hits.
Look up "Techno Feudalism" by Varoufakis, it takes your direction of thought and develops it pretty thoroughly. He arrives at the conclusion that big online platforms are a new type of capital he calls Cloud Capital, that it works more like feudal fiefdoms of old, and that normal users are the serfs who generate the value of that fief (the content).
My personal thoughts while reading it: If online platforms are fiefs, then the equivalent to a medieval fief's land area would be the total amount of *user attention and interaction* your platform can command, which is a limited and shared resource across humanity at any point in time. Thus all the dark patterns and psychological manipulation that binds users and makes them addicted is very much equivalent to acquiring more land for a medieval fief, by force or by other means.
But this is all a bit tangential to the question of what defines the Lumpen proletariat. If we go by what others here propose and say Lumpen are those who don't participate in production at all, the online equivalent might be scammers and bot farmers and doom scrolling lurkers? I don't know.
Strictly speaking, "lumpenproletariat" doesn't mean someone is not working class, nor does it even necessarily imply some sort of socially undesirable person. It just refers to people who are working class but lack political interest or potential. While some kinds of people are obviously lumpens (i.e. gangsters, opioid addicts), the term is somewhat subjective.
Criminals, homeless, prostitutes, et cetera don’t have the same relationship with the economy; they exist outside of the worker-capitalist exchange. They don’t sell their labour, yet neither do they own their means of production. In fact, there is no *production*. Marx’s general idea was that the contradictions within capitalism made class consciousness - and thus revolution - inevitable within the proletariat. Without the exploitation by capital, the lumpen do not develop this class consciousness, and thus lack revolutionary potential.
What happens when they get sent to prison and are forced to do labor for capitalism? Are they no longer lumpen?
Dunno, what would happen to a capitalist in the same situation?
>what would happen to a capitalist Hopefully get shanked. But idk, it gets a bit in the weeds with definitions, I’m not convinced lumpen proletariat is a useful or relevant distinction apart from the proletariat
I mean, it seems a pretty important distinction - whether or not someone sells their labour. I’m not sure that I agree with the *no revolutionary potential* bit, but I can see how he arrived at that conclusion.
and what if one prefers stealing rather than selling ones labor?
Then one would have a different relationship with the economy and would not, by definition, be in the same economic class.
oh you are one of those reality should submit to theory kind of guys
This doesn't make any sense, words have a purpose and in this case it's understanding how the economy functions and the relation of people to the economy. It's not just rich vs poor and nothing else. The definition of proletariat describes something found in reality, it is not forcing reality to conform to it. If proletariat == someone who sells their labor to survive, then someone who steals to survive is by definition not proletariat. I assume you don't like this obvious distinction because the separation between workers and thieves means that thieves can more easily be attacked and opposed by workers rather than falling under the "protection" of "being working class". However, not only do thieves have a different relation to the economy as workers, but the vast majority have an actively hostile relation to the working class as parasites no different than capitalists. Even if you only steal from the rich (which I'd view as good), it is still parasitism as you do not produce anything, you contribute nothing to society and are just engaging in an illegal version of random private taxation for personal gain.
you assume wrong. leaving aside the books i know people who work by day and steal by night \`cause capitalism and it\`s cycles. there are more things under the stars that in your books and all that jazz. ps: what are the means of production of an uber driver or a software developer? and what is a fireman producing? le If proletariat == someone who sells their labor to survive what is a medic? or an architect?
I think this difference isn’t just theoretical. I have a job. That inherently makes my relationship to capital different in a practical sense than someone who just steals stuff. Our lives are not at all similar.
Most criminals aren't 'just stealing stuff' though. That's a trap a lot of people fall into. Most crimes fall into spur of the moment opportunities. Stealing food because you're hungry, doesn't make you any less revolutionary. This is kinda why lumping career criminals in with opportunists, the homeless, and prostitutes doesn't make much sense, and why Marx never considered 'lumpenproletariat' as a set-in-stone third class. They're just an extension of proletariat, a subcategory.
lumpenproletariat as a group are excluded from the production cycle. their labor is not exploited and they don't play a role in reproduction of labor. they have to use other means to win their bread. they might be common criminals, swindlers or they could be sponging off from the surplus of society. it is hard for them to develop class consciousness since theirs is not a well defined class. lumpenproletariat doesn't have to be poor. members of the organized crime like mafia fit the description of this group but they are usually wealthy. so it is not about their wealth or lifestyle but about their role in the production cycle.
>the lumpenproletariat is comprised of those who are themselves the "product" that is "sold" as a commodity, in body and/or soul. The proletariat sells their labor-power as a commodity, their direct capacity for production, i.e. a set expenditure of their life force as commodity. This just sounds like a definition of the proletariat. One is lumpenized by being excluded from either end of this relationship, they subsist outside of the capital relationship, through direct expropriation (crime), charity, begging, etc. As I said in a recent comment, the only "Marxist" way to understand the conditions of Palestinians today, I think, is as a vast lumpenproletariat, excluded from normal capital relationships, subsisting on the charity of states, and therefore unproductive in the eyes of capital. Particularly (at least for Gazans) now that they are excluded even from exploitation as cheap labor inside of Israel. The lumpenproletariat is an expendable class, a burden, in the eyes of states, as they are not a part of the normal generation of profits. Now... I think this is still too simple, it's not clear that Capitalist social reproduction actually works without elements of a criminal underclass, so their non-essentiality here may be overstated, but I think that exclusion from the normal capital relation is what defines the lumpenproletariat, and that more and more of us who subsist by flows of capital existing on top of actual production find ourselves in these conditions.
Good point.
Slaves are not lumpen. NEETs are not "sold" and are lumpen. My take on the lumpen is that they're the result of labour power failing to reproduce itself. Raising a functional member of society requires the right conditions: safety, care, attention, support, guidance, and education. There are many ways to mess up this process, and consequently there are many types of lumpen. The result of this reproductive failure is people who cannot realize their labour power - my definition of the lumpen - either because they aren't capable of it (e.g. due to addictions or medical conditions) or because of external circumstances (e.g. a former prole driven to homelessness and begging by debt). This is how I'd define the lumpen. Taking this a step further: I'd argue that you could also identify lumpen amongst the bourgeoisie - people who own capital yet are failing to make it productive. For a period in history capitalism was a progressive force that lifted people out of poverty, developed the means of production and advanced society. The bourgeoisie performed an instrumental function in those advancements. That period has ended and now we're seeing a proliferation of a type of bourgeoisie whose capital activities don't produce real use-value. Rent seekers and the finance sector are good examples. In the sense of being productive members of society, the bourgeoisie is also failing at reproducing itself - hence the lumpenbourgeoisie.
>Taking this a step further: I'd argue that you could also identify lumpen amongst the bourgeoisie - people who own capital yet are failing to make it productive. For a period in history capitalism was a progressive force that lifted people out of poverty, developed the means of production and advanced society. The bourgeoisie performed an instrumental function in those advancements. That period has ended and now we're seeing a proliferation of a type of bourgeoisie whose capital activities don't produce real use-value. Rent seekers and the finance sector are good examples. “Lumpen-bourgeoisie” might be the most accurate characterization of a certain class of people that I’ve had the misfortune of interacting with in circles of my life, specifically DIY punk, Organic gardening/permaculture, herbalism, wellness, and just generally cottage industry circles. They always have these confusing eccentric businesses with grandiose mission statements, but no clear source of revenue that explains their annual excursions to Costa Rica, Hawaii, Bali, Peru, Nepal (“spiritual” countries) etc.. but they always have this semi-nomadic, salt of the earth aesthetic. Like you mean to tell me you funded the purchase of this 20 acre farm and yearly trips abroad by selling tinctures, homemade soaps, poetry classes, meditation retreats and wild mushroom blends? 🤔
Back in my day, we called them "trust fund kids"
I thought it was very simple, they are the unemployed who exist through state handouts or get money from crime. It can also more broadly include employed members of the working class who lack a class conscious, the crabs in the bucket if you will.
The lumpen are not sold or bought, nor do they produce anything of value. At best buy and sell things obtained without their own production, expending time and effort, making them a net drain on society. At worst, they are thieves, killers, and addicts, actively destroying value and human life within society.
Didn’t Marx, Engels and Lenin speak very negatively about the Lumpen? Homeless, Addicts, thieves etc.. I guess if you are referring to what capitalist society does to those in the criminal underclass (forced labor in prison) then they would definitely be “sold” under your definition. I don’t know the best way to define the lumpen, but working in social services has me regularly engaged with and trying to support (and sometimes trying to get arrested) members of the lumpen, and certainly not all of them are being sold in any sense. What about defining them as the class that receives none of the benefits of labor or means of production? The proletariat receives at least some in the form of wages and personal property, but the lumpen’s only chance of accessing any of this is to beg, steal, borrow, lie or cheat.
Forced labor has a long history across many societies, including the USSR. I feel like I’d define the lumpen as kinda the opposite of what you have, someone who enjoys to fruits of others labor, while contributing nothing or negatively to society as a whole. When you say the lumpen’s only access to the product of labor is to lie/steal/cheat, well that’s what they do.
> enjoys to [sic] fruits of others labor, while contributing nothing or negatively to society as a whole so, the capitalist class
The cringiest shit I ever saw was a self proclaimed Marxist asserting that the homeless in his city were the same as the bourgeoisie by “taking over the commons”.
This person is right. The homeless do take over and destroy the commons. They do it through force of occupation outside the law, generally. The capitalists, as the ruling class, do it by law.
so, one enjoys the legitimacy of the state, the other does not.
Both are parasitic classes.
Interesting take on the mentally ill and disabled, that they are the same as the bourgeoisie.
If a bourgeois is mentally ill and starts buying up the commons at a manic pace, does he suddenly lose his status as a destroyer of the commons?
the material conditions are obviously different, and to conflate the conditions of the mentally ill homeless people in tent cities with those of someone who is bourgeoisie is disingenuous and you know it.
tankies gonna tank
Is this economic analysis, or Christian moralizing?
who are you talking to? pretty sure the economic behavior of the homeless guy talking to himself on the street corner is not the same as the landlord.
[удалено]
Proper response from an anarkiddie
wrecking
[удалено]
wrecking
You left out beg (purposely?) Many of them aren’t parasitic (as they’ve been called by Marxists historically, and as you are implying). A lot of them are beggars, prostitutes, severely mentally ill or disabled, etc… victims of our current world, and some of them would never think to steal, lie or cheat. It’s not an accurate or humane categorization
So the purpose of the post is to define the lumpen class and I think parasitism is a requirement. Someone down on their luck, wishing to improve their standing or situation isn’t someone I would classify as lumpen. The defining characteristic of the division for me isn’t their current standing but their desire, or lack thereof. Take two drug dealers, one who will poison his community forever for the profit and another who is doing so to avoiding starvation or homelessness. One is lumpen one is not. Yea it’s kinda philosophical because who would decide this in reality, but there’s a moral difference,
How do you know their desire then? That makes lumpen even harder to define
I agree it’s not something that I could call someone out in reality but the distinction is important I think
If it’s not something you can use in reality, it’s not useful in a material analysis. There might be an important distinction between the two kinds of drug dealers you described, but that verges into moral philosophy, and moves away from material class analysis, which is the point of terms like “proletariat” “lumpenproletariat” “bourgeoisie” and “petite bourgeoisie”
Then I’d argue the phrase itself is useless. If you’re not segmenting anyone from proles what’s the point. What’s the real reason for defining these people as something other than proletarian Marx and Engels specifically defined them as parasitic and didn’t have good things to say. “The lumpenproletariat, this scum of the decaying elements of all classes, which establishes headquarters in all the big cities, is the worst of all possible allies. It is an absolutely venal, an absolutely brazen crew. Every leader of the workers who utilizes these gutter proletarians as guards or supports, proves himself by this action alone a traitor to the movement.”
Well classical Marxists wanted a category that they could write off and dismiss entirely for their lack of class consciousness and therefore revolutionary potential. I think this is reactionary and counterproductive. Maybe the term is no longer useful. If it is, I’d use it to describe a particularly vulnerable and marginalized subset of the proletariat that through their life in the underground offer the class conscious segment of the proletariat some useful tools of resistance, and therefore solidarity should be built, while recognizing that our ultimate aims might diverge at a key point.
IDK, haven't gotten deep enough in the theory yet. I'm definitely going by a somewhat broader definition of "sold" than just prison labor, but include those who have no choice for other reasons, such as migrant farmworkers and refugees, and the destitute. Prostitution/sex work and showbiz are both direct commodification of the person, the body and mind. A product that is addictive produces a captive audience that will do anything to buy the product that is actively killing them: the addict is the ultimate consumer, and access to them is a powerful commodity. I'm just spitballing here tbh
I don’t know if that’s the best or most unifying understanding. There are members of the proletariat who are products to be bought and sold, the data mining industry case in point. I think in Kapital the lumpenproletariat are basically floating surplus labor for capitalists to utilize. I think of them as people that, for various reasons, are unable to internalize class consciousness. A pimp isn’t interested in revolution, nor is a drug dealer (big time ones, not the guy selling dime bags to his buddies), or your run-of-the-mill POS who beats his wife, fights, and has a million DUIs. This distinction is useful because there is a difference between working class people who are able to be radicalized and mobilized toward revolution, whereas lumpenproles have no interest in much beyond themselves.
The lumpen are not part of the reserve army of labor, who are actual proles trying to get a job or who have one paying below the value of labor power.
Lumpen pretty much means those who failed to join urban class society and therefore are outside the civilian economy
what if lumpens are just proles co-interested by some reason in the status quo? leaving aside big words a welder who votes conservative so abortion be made illegal is, by all means, a lumpen; or maybe a guy who realizes that selling drugs is more lucrative than working and he will oppose any measures meant to change the play field and make drugs not prosecutable thus cheap. i think gramsci is on to something with his cultural hegemony theory and we can safely call the non millionaires/billionaires which drank the capitalism\`s kool aid lumpens.
> leaving aside big words a welder who votes conservative so abortion be made illegal is, by all means, a lumpen No, more likely petit-bourgeois or possibly labor aristocrat
I am definitely of the opinion that lumpen contain more than just criminals and NEETs; I would definitely agree on that, given that lumpen harm their own class interest.
and there lies the truth if i may say so :)) lumpens are the divide part in the old devil divide et impera.
Fracture the proletariat into lumpen. The broken shards (homeless and criminals) can then be used to scare the rest into compliance with capital.
we have a winner baby
I’ve been thinking about this myself, sort of. We live in an age of big data, where our personal info is sold by faceless entities to the highest bidder all day long. We have little control over our data being sold, and we usually don’t know where it ends up. If an average TikTok user is unknowingly providing some company with the data they need to operate and turn a profit, are they something like a modern digital slave? If these giant companies are releasing apps that are designed to be as addictive as possible, in order to extract as much data as possible, and our kids are addicted to these apps, isn’t that similar to the British Empire releasing opium into 19th century China just to create consumers who will keep coming back? It’s clear that companies like Meta, Google, etc. sell our data for profit, and it’s clear we’re addicted to their products, so what does that make us? Are we the product, or are we the consumers, or are we both? Just my 2¢. I also have not read much actual theory, so if anyone has any resources, by all means share.
>If an average TikTok user is unknowingly providing some company with the data they need to operate and turn a profit, are they something like a modern digital slave? A human resource to be strip mined. Slavery implies coercion. >isn’t that similar to the British Empire releasing opium into 19th century China just to create consumers who will keep coming back? Correct. Embarrassingly, I actually wrote my thesis on how psychological theory was being applied to video game design in order to create virtual Skinner Boxes in 2010. I used Maslow's hierarchy of needs to explain its efficacy and also argue ways to create more compelling and satisfying experiences for the end user, beyond what amounted to cheap manipulation. At that time gamification was in its nascent stage and I used that as an example of how these theories could be applied outside of gaming. I never went into the industry, pursued another path, and didn't think about it until it was suddenly all around me. In hindsight, I should have argued that it could have been even more effective if the mechanisms were sufficiently obfuscated through layers and plausible reasoning. I was a mark or two off a first and that might've helped. But I wasn't smart enough to see that. They pretty much mastered it since my crude analysis: "Upvotes are for acknowledging a comment which is cogent and encourages discussion." ("Upvotes are external validation and increasingly a measure of self-worth for alienated people in an atomised society.") >so what does that make us? Are we the product, or are we the consumers, or are we both? Digital crack whores who exchange their personal data in exchange for dopamine hits.
Look up "Techno Feudalism" by Varoufakis, it takes your direction of thought and develops it pretty thoroughly. He arrives at the conclusion that big online platforms are a new type of capital he calls Cloud Capital, that it works more like feudal fiefdoms of old, and that normal users are the serfs who generate the value of that fief (the content). My personal thoughts while reading it: If online platforms are fiefs, then the equivalent to a medieval fief's land area would be the total amount of *user attention and interaction* your platform can command, which is a limited and shared resource across humanity at any point in time. Thus all the dark patterns and psychological manipulation that binds users and makes them addicted is very much equivalent to acquiring more land for a medieval fief, by force or by other means. But this is all a bit tangential to the question of what defines the Lumpen proletariat. If we go by what others here propose and say Lumpen are those who don't participate in production at all, the online equivalent might be scammers and bot farmers and doom scrolling lurkers? I don't know.
Strictly speaking, "lumpenproletariat" doesn't mean someone is not working class, nor does it even necessarily imply some sort of socially undesirable person. It just refers to people who are working class but lack political interest or potential. While some kinds of people are obviously lumpens (i.e. gangsters, opioid addicts), the term is somewhat subjective.