Post by Onyango Oloo on May 21, 2015 12:14:34 GMT 3
EXCERPT:
There were days when the working class could easily be identified. It was a fairly straight forward affair. Its male members wore cloth caps, went to football (soccer) matches on Saturdays and in Britain during the latter half of the 20th century at least, tended to vote Labour, Its female members worked in continuous production operations – often textile related or light engineering assembly work and were less frequently organised in trade unions than their male counterparts. Women often staffed the junior grades of offices and worked in shops. Or they stayed at home to cook, wash clothes and look after children. All a bit stereotypical but you get my drift.
This was the industrial proletariat, identified and named as such by Karl Marx. The name proletariat he borrowed from ancient Rome where the proletariat formed the lowest form of Roman citizenship. The main wealth producers, the slaves, were beyond official registration. Marx also gave us the term lumpenproletariat, a social stratum for which he didn’t much care. The term, in his day and even more recently, referred to those excluded from industrially productive processes.
“The dangerous class, the social scum, that passively rotting mass . . .” was how he referenced the lumpenprolitariat in The Communist Manifesto. In The German Ideology he was more specific and included, “discharged soldiers,” “discharged jailbirds,” “gamblers,” “maquereaux” [pimps], “brothel keepers,” “porters,” among others. Marx was making a point of course, especially with the phrase the “dangerous class.” Capitalist society has its disconnected and alienated social groupings that do not stand with the ranks of those engaged in class struggle. Indeed these people are easy prey for manipulation by those who wishing to vilify others directly struggling for more and better paid jobs, improved housing, and accessible health care.
NOW CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW:
www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/21/lumpens-and-compradors/
There were days when the working class could easily be identified. It was a fairly straight forward affair. Its male members wore cloth caps, went to football (soccer) matches on Saturdays and in Britain during the latter half of the 20th century at least, tended to vote Labour, Its female members worked in continuous production operations – often textile related or light engineering assembly work and were less frequently organised in trade unions than their male counterparts. Women often staffed the junior grades of offices and worked in shops. Or they stayed at home to cook, wash clothes and look after children. All a bit stereotypical but you get my drift.
This was the industrial proletariat, identified and named as such by Karl Marx. The name proletariat he borrowed from ancient Rome where the proletariat formed the lowest form of Roman citizenship. The main wealth producers, the slaves, were beyond official registration. Marx also gave us the term lumpenproletariat, a social stratum for which he didn’t much care. The term, in his day and even more recently, referred to those excluded from industrially productive processes.
“The dangerous class, the social scum, that passively rotting mass . . .” was how he referenced the lumpenprolitariat in The Communist Manifesto. In The German Ideology he was more specific and included, “discharged soldiers,” “discharged jailbirds,” “gamblers,” “maquereaux” [pimps], “brothel keepers,” “porters,” among others. Marx was making a point of course, especially with the phrase the “dangerous class.” Capitalist society has its disconnected and alienated social groupings that do not stand with the ranks of those engaged in class struggle. Indeed these people are easy prey for manipulation by those who wishing to vilify others directly struggling for more and better paid jobs, improved housing, and accessible health care.
NOW CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW:
www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/21/lumpens-and-compradors/
