I'm talking about conventional perspectives on the lumpenproletariat; early marxists clearly ran in different circles than I do.
A contemporary definition from the Communist Party of Texas:
Generally unemployable people who make no positive contribution to an economy. Sometimes described as the bottom layer of a capitalist society. May include criminal and mentally unstable people. Some activists consider them "most radical" because they are "most exploited," but they are un-organizable and more likely to act as paid agents than to have any progressive role in class struggle.
I can just feel the classism dripping out.
The wikipedia article about the phrase basically illustrates the idea of the lumpenproletariat as having been used as a punching bag by Marx, to create a foil to the proletariat in order to glorify the latter's revolutionary potential. From The Communist Manifesto:
The lumpenproletariat is passive decaying matter of the lowest layers of the old society, is here and there thrust into the [progressive] movement by a proletarian revolution; [however,] in accordance with its whole way of life, it is more likely to sell out to reactionary intrigues.
Anyway, I find this whole line of thinking precisely as deplorable as Marx, and Engels, and those who followed found the lumpenproletariat. Apparently Mao saw more revolutionary potential in the lumpenproletariat, believing they were at least educable.
It seems like the Black Panther Party looked toward the lumpenproletariat with some humanity, and they saw revolutionary potential in "the brother who's pimping, the brother who's hustling, the unemployed, the downtrodden, the brother who's robbing banks, who's not politically conscious," as Bobby Seale, in-part, defined the lumpenproletariat.
This feels much more honest and humane than the classical definitions, which I guess a lot of the major communist orgs in the u.s. still run with.
Finally, I'll just copy and paste the very short 'criticism' section from the wiki article as some food for thought:
Ernesto Laclau argued that Marx's dismissal of the lumpenproletariat showed the limitations of his theory of economic determinism and argued that the group and "its possible integration into the politics of populism as an 'absolute outside' that threatens the coherence of ideological identifications." Mark Cowling argues that the "concept is being used for its political impact rather than because it provides good explanations" and that its political impact is "pernicious" and an "obstacle to clear analysis." Laura Pulido argues that there is a diversity in the lumpen population, especially in terms of consciousness.
Anyway, just one of those 'holy shit' moments. Usually I vibe hard with classical marxism, but they can't all be hits. Wondering other peoples' takes.
But don't go telling me that my lumpen comrades are economically predestined to not be revolutionary socialists, because that analysis would run in direct contradiction to material realities ;)
It seems to me that the lumpen and the worker will always be in conflict due to the fact that the lumpen makes a living off of fucking over the worker, be it as a mugger or a pimp or a gang member. I live in a Latin American city with a very high crime rate and can vouch for the fact that people here tend to really not like criminals. I think people should instead think of the lumpen as people to be reformed and reintroduced into society.
And this is basically where Mao, and as another commenter pointed out Bakunin, broke with initial marxism on the lumpen. Mao thought they were reformable, and Bakunin thought they had inherent revolutionary potential.
It’s important to remember tho that lumpen aren’t just criminals; they’re also just the unemployed, and vagrants. The Roma have been oppressed at times with the reason being they’re useless lumpen who just live nomadically and don’t work. It’s placing to the side a lot of potential comrades, imo, especially with the historic inclusion of the mentally ill in the lumpen category
I don't believe the unemployed are lumpen, though. Not even by Marx's terminology. Marx said that capitalist society creates and keeps 'an army of the unemployed' so that the worker would not ask for better wages, as that unemployed person would take up work for less, simplified of course. That 'unemployed mass' is certainly not the lumpen. Well, it's a tricky term after all. Maybe the modern lumpen would attain to gangs, like the Mexican cartels? They surely are like a sort-of burgeoisie acting outside burgeois law, as Marx outlined.
I consider the lumpen to be basically mini-capitalists who exploit others around them on an individual level but that isn't to say they are also not exploited either by more powerful lumpen or by the bourgeois state.
I mean, Marx never clearly defined the term, and used it exclusively negatively. It’s partly why I lean towards the interpretation that it was just an amorphous stand-in for ‘bad proles’ to explain why not all proles were Proletariat, and to provide a literary foil to hold up against the proletariat, which he was embarking on the historically unprecedented task of glorifying. (and rightfully so; we love our proles, don’t we folks? We have the most beautiful proles!)
Like, he would use it against the cartels, and I would agree. He would use it against mentally ill pockpockets, and I would say ‘you probably wouldn’t hold this belief if you were writing instead 150 years later’ hahaha
Like, lumpen includes entertainers and buskers ahaha
Yeah, of course. Marx was thinking in rather economical terms.
I agree with this tho. It maybe be necessary to make a distinction inside the lumpen for modern conditions, such as it should be necessary to make a distinction inside the proletariat for modern conditions (lower class, middle class), stuff like petit burgeois. If we think of the lumpen as the pimps, the gangs, the mugger specifically the one who kills, they're basically anti-revolutionary classes, not inherently (you can have "gangs" like the Zapatistas, for example), but they tend to work in the capitalist framework, have no class consciousness, and have no desire to achieve class consciousness. Again, this is as a class, as a person you can try and turn everyone into a revolutionary. After all, the reason we have no revolution is because the great masses of the proletariat are not revolutionary, even though they are (and here we follow Marx) the revolutionary class by excellence. But if we follow Mao, the peasantry is the revolutionary class in China. For Lenin, it is the peasantry allied with the proletariat. We need to start re-thinking these labels, grasping class more intently when we study sociologically, making room for individuals, but overall just organise.