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confused about the concept of the lumpenproletariat (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 9 months ago by salarua@sopuli.xyz to c/socialism@lemmy.ml

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Marx and Engels mention a class "below" the proletariat called the lumpenproletariat, which i understand as meaning a class that has no class consciousness, and is therefore susceptible to the influence of the bourgeoisie. but i don't see the difference between that and the proletariat proper. don't the proletariat receive propaganda to suppress their own class consciousness, and don't they have to be woken up? i don't get why the lumpenproletariat supposedly can't be woken up in the same way. besides, some examples of the lumpenproletariat given are people in organized crime, sex workers, and the unemployed. i find it hypocritical to condemn a class of people based on what they do to survive in a capitalist society (or in the case of the unemployed, the fact that the bourgeoisie won't give them a job). but more than anything, i'm just thoroughly confused by this concept. i feel like i'm missing something major.

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[–] JoBo@feddit.uk 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

It's not a moral condemnation.

Marx thought revolution was an inevitability in advanced industrialised societies because the workforce was concentrated in factories which could not function without them, and where they were able to organise because they had the numbers to organise. He thought that the inevitable crises of capitalism would lead to a takeover by the proletariat because they were in a position to take over. The lumpenproletariat consists of those individuals who, like the peasantry, were too isolated and atomised to be part of this revolutionary force.

Turns out, crises of capitalism lead to fascism because they happen when labour is at its weakest (when capitalists have bled the population so dry they have to blow up bubbles in the stock market to parasitise each other instead). And so-called 'Marxist' revolutions have only happened in agrarian societies, with a bit of Lenin or Mao tacked on to bridge the gap.

Marx is useful but treating his words like a theology is a mistake.

[–] Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Marx' flaws caused him to hit some really fat Ls in certain aspects of his theory and this is absolutely one of them. He seems to near-consistently run into the need to unnecessarily tier stuff as being 'better' and 'worse' for reasons that are pretty much hipfires. It's the main reason I don't recommend capital as an introduction; as not only is it near-unreadable, but it's also deeply flawed in ways you won't notice if you're new. Like you don't tell your friend to start an RPG series at the first game where it's at its worst, you get them into the good one and let them come to it later once they're invested. That way they'll have tools to deal with the jank and the patience to actually stick around. Marx does have some amazing insight and learning it will practically give you future-sight, but it's insanely rough around the edges and you have to know what parts are god and what parts are god-awful in order to walk away with a complete picture.