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 ;)
Word. I have a lot of trouble understanding that there were societies with, say, really truly alien ways of political organization. Like in the Pacific Northwest there were societies were politics, war, and economics were all rooted in certain important people gathering up as much food, durable goods, and slaves as they could manage, then periodically giving it all away. And putting it that way is an extreme simplification of what Potlach society was and how it worked, how it tied in to religious and spiritual life, how it drove regional warfare, politics, and conflict, how it tied people together across generations.
Or, like, families? We've all got mothers and fathers, aunt's and uncles, right? Well, not really. A lot of societies decide who is and isn't family, and how important that is, in very different ways than Anglosphere societies. Someone we'd consider an aunt or an uncle might not be considered closely related to you, while in some societies your mom's brothers might be as important to you as your father would be. Other societies do things like age grades, which group all people of a certain age for cultural, ritual, spiritual, military, and social reasons, but I can't really explain it in any more detail than that because I flat out don't understand it's scope and significance. Or there are famously one or two cultures where the notion of a "father", as a social role, just doesn't exist. People in that culture generally live in an extended family based around the oldest woman in the family. They don't know who their biological father is unless a woman has a stable long term partner, and there "father" doesn't have any particularly important role in their life. Their family is made up of their mom, her mom, and all her sisters and brothers.
There's so, so much that we think of as "Normal" that just isn't. Human experience varies radically across cultures and societies. Personally, I believe that part of the reason that the world is crashing head-long in to Oblivion is that the variation of European society that got forcibly imprinted on global society is unusually maladaptive and destructive. I could keep going for a while but I'm running out of steam.
My point, though, is that humans are really weird and varied, and a lot of what we think of as normal and immutable is just our biases due to the culture we live in
Yup. Sometimes only the uncles on your father’s side are family, sometimes vice-versa. Sometimes only the children of your aunts on your mother’s side are cousins. Humanity is wildly, unimaginably complex.
There’s at least one society where children have mutiple fathers: all of the men the mother had sex with while pregnant. All these men are believed to have contributed their qualities to the child.
Canadians had to grapple with the complexity of Indigenous societies this past spring, when Indigenous people across the country shut down the ports and railways in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en.
Canadian law says that the traditional governance structures of Indigenous nations have sovereignty over their land, and that the Canadian government has to negotiate with them.
So Canadians learned that the Wet’suwet’en are actually a federation of like 7? Houses, each with their own unique Feast Hall system of governance, where chiefs are selected in community feasts and given chief names, and can be recalled if they break the laws... which stretch back thousands and thousands of years.
And the Wet’suwet’en are just one of the ~500 Indigenous nations in Canada, who have been governing themselves in their unique, incredible ways for ~15,000 years, and longer if you consider the history of where they were coming from as the glaciers receded.
My point is that humans are super fucking cool, and that my colonized mind can barely comprehend what I even am, as a human being.