“Lumpenproletariat” is exactly the kind of idea an educated German theorist would come up with in the wreckage of the industrial revolution and it’s ridiculous to try to carry that notion forward to the age of cell phones and heavily armed maoist prostitutes and if anyone can’t understand that you should throw grass at them until they stop being dorks because they’re too far gone to touch it themselves.
Like ffs read even one anthro text about black market and grey market economies and stop treating The Man’s legal system like anything but a criminal organization.
I have no idea where you’re getting this from. Saying someone is a Lumpenprole isn’t a moral judgement, just an economic one. Someone who grows rice and the bandits that steal it have different relations to the means of production. They are not just proles who break the law.
it’s ridiculous to try to carry that notion forward to the age of cell phones and heavily armed maoist prostitutes
Engels was largely revolutionary but he was also bourgeoisie, that does not mean that the bourgeoisie as a class are revolutionary. Also, many ML theorists argue that Lumpenproles do have revolutionary potential while not denying they exist as a class.
the bourgeoisie are a revolutionary class, just a different revolution.
Lumpen drug runners aren’t gunna’ help us do communism, dude.
What, you’re just going to take a weekend class and learn how to make quiet running stealth submarines that can evade 21st century navies all by yourself? Better figure out how to get those drug runners on team, comrade. They hold vital technological knowledge and skills we badly need.
age of cell phones and heavily armed maoist prostitutes
I don’t really know that I’d agree we live in an age of Maoist prostitutes, much less heavily armed ones, or what cellphones have to do with the revolutionary potential of the lumpenproletariat
I don’t really know what I think about the concept of the lumpenproletariat, but I don’t think this is a very compelling critique of it either
Sex workers are woke and people with cellphones can access vast amounts of information, including revolutionary theory, that were not available to poor people in prior eras. That’s pretty much it. In so far as “lumpen” was a valid category it reflected those people’s relationship to information as much as it did their relation to capital. The notion of hopelessly ignorant trash and wastrels preying on the margins of society is not reflected in the technological and informational reality of the 21st century. We can actually reach and educate every single person on the planet with infinitely reproducible digital information now and that changes the math of revolution right down to it’s foundations.
I think the problem is that the LP is a meta class. Like how the working classes are not a monolithic bloc but include the proletariat, the peseantry, the artisans, the lowest strata of the PB etc, all with their own class relations.
The Lumpens are everyone from a beggar to someone who steals to live to the mafia to an opera singer or artist who relies on bourgeois donations rather than wages. Heck, there’s an argument to be made that someone who runs an NGO is a kind of “Lumpenbourgoise”
All of these have the sense that the existence of the strata is dependant on the stability of the capitalist system and instability hurts them, but they have wildly different revolutionary potential
Opera singers are lumpen?
It was, up to the mid 20th century common to label Actors of all types lumpen. Because their industry is reliant on the rich to exist due to the economic costs of the form. Only some of this is the traditional associations of acting with sex work.
Most Opera Singers are iterant contract workers, who work for organisations that themselves are entirely reliant on donations from the rich, and sometimes governments. The rest have a wealthy patron or are already independent financially.
There are very few of the mid century repertory companies left, mostly state funded low grade German houses. Opera Companies make negligible money from ticket sales. Not only is it not profitable, it cannot be made so.
If the capitalist system goes down and the new socialist government doesn’t pick up the slack then they lose not just their current jobs but the entire industry. They’ll be collectivised like in AES high art companies or cease to exist.
Is this a bit?
You don’t know what you’re talking about + there will be no prostitution under communism + lumpenprole isn’t an insult or moral indictment
there will be no prostitution under communism
Unless you have a fairly specific definition of prostitution, some people will always be willing to exchange goods or labour for sex regardless of economic or political system.
Prostitution isn’t the presence of negotiated sexual activity any more than capitalism is the presence of market activity. Exploitation is a defining characteristic of both.
Edit: Alexandra Kollantai already thoroughly explored this topic in 1921.
I feel like that falls under a fairly specific definition of prostitution.
this is why “sex work” leftists often lean on the “unpaid emotional and sexual labor in relationships” thing really hard
This presupposes private property and an inherent bourgeois philosophy being instilled in the people. Utter nonsense.
Omg under communism small business prostitutes will exchange sex for food vouchers!!
This presupposes private property
Personal property still exists under communism, as do scarce commodities. Barter is hardly bourgeois philosophy.
Commodities exist under communism? Holy wow!! Truly a fruit of epoch-making wisdom!!
You act like it’s blatantly obvious that commodities would exist under communism and mock the person who pointed it out to you, yet you vehemently deny that something else just as obvious as the existence of commodities will also still very much exist and have a place under communism, calling it utter nonsense and requiring “bourgeois philosophy” without any explanation. That something else involves sex, though. Hmm. Funny how work that involves sex always brings out a specific type with an angry and reactionary axe to grind.
At least u/porcupine can make a reasonable case by redefining prostitution as something other than and separate from sex work rather than denying the legitimacy and validity of sex work.
You act like it’s blatantly obvious that commodities would exist under communism and mock the person who pointed it out to you, yet you vehemently deny that something else just as obvious as the existence of commodities will also still very much exist and have a place under communism, calling it utter nonsense and requiring “bourgeois philosophy” without any explanation.
It’s blatantly obvious that commodities would not exist under communism, just as it’s obvious that private property, exchange property, would not (and with it the treatment of sex not as a private affair but a thing to be bought and sold, even in the realm of marriage).
That something else involves sex, though. Hmm. Funny how work that involves sex always brings out a specific type with an angry and reactionary axe to grind.
You highlight the work aspect of sex work as if I’m saying it’s not work, or to say that it‘s work only quantitatively different from manufacturing goods, delivering goods, etc. I’m not saying sex work is immoral or impure or condemning it based on moral judgement.
Someone may sleep with many members of society and be supported in their needs by the community through the immense wealth of the people under communism, but the support of their needs would not be predicated on their sleeping with members of the community. And their activity would necessarily not contribute to the welfare of the whole community but only persons selected.
At least u/porcupine can make a reasonable case by redefining prostitution as something other than and separate from sex work rather than denying the legitimacy and validity of sex work.
Replacing cash with goods doesn’t make prostitution not sex work or change the relations at play. People misunderstand communism, due to a misunderstanding of its relation to early communal society, as some sort of return to the end stage of historical communities where everyone lives in common low development and individual exchange happens under the table. There will be no room for individual exchange because the phase of individual ownership of items of exchange has passed, and in fact communism will free sexual relations from the restrictions of private property, and therefore of even de-facto prostitution such as the marriage based on financial dependence.
You highlight the work aspect of sex work as if I’m saying it’s not work, or to say that it‘s work only quantitatively different from manufacturing goods, delivering goods, etc. I’m not saying sex work is immoral or impure or condemning it based on moral judgement.
Ok, maybe I was wrong about what you were saying. Do you think sex work is work, then?
Someone may sleep with many members of society and be supported in their needs by the community through the immense wealth of the people under communism, but the support of their needs would not be predicated on their sleeping with members of the community.
Would the needs of any other members of that society be predicated on the work they do?
And their activity would necessarily not contribute to the welfare of the whole community but only persons selected.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Surely making sure the members of a community are able to lead happy and fulfilling lives is contributing to the welfare of the whole community. Human sexuality is undeniably an important aspect (for the majority of people) of a person’s over all sense of happiness and fulfillment. There being members of the community that help ensure everyone else in the community has that sense of fulfillment, members of the community who are explicitly willing and happy to provide it as a service (labor), is a positive, even necessary contribution to community wellbeing.
Replacing cash with goods doesn’t make prostitution not sex work or change the relations at play.
I never implied otherwise. I wasn’t the person who said “some people will always be willing to exchange goods or labour for sex regardless of economic or political system.” But they are correct, and you are not when you call that “bourgeois philosophy” and “utter nonsense.” Even in a system where that kind of tit-for-tat exchange is unnecessary, it is absurd to say that it will never happen.
People misunderstand communism, due to a misunderstanding of its relation to early communal society, as some sort of return to the end stage of historical communities where everyone lives in common low development and individual exchange happens under the table.
That may be, but that is not an error I’m making. As I briefly mentioned in a response to another comment, there will always be people who are unable or unwilling to form the kind of relationships usually required for sexual activity and thus sexual fulfillment. There will also always be people who choose to develop skills that help provide people with that kind of fulfillment sans any other form of relationship. You may say that such a thing is so different from the kind of purely transactional relationship we traditionally characterize as prostitution that it may as well not be called prostitution. Fine. But the same thing can be said for countless other forms of labor that people do under capitalism to survive, but that under communism would just be “something I enjoy doing,” that is still labor and provides a service to society. Like an actor who enjoys giving performances that provide other people with entertainment (as one of countless other possible examples).
redefining prostitution as something other than and separate from sex work
I’m “redefining” prostitution? What percentage of prostitutes across history do you believe fit into a definition that isn’t characterized by exploitation? Do you believe a statistically significant percentage of prostitutes are independently wealthy self-employed hobbyists? I would argue that’s redefining prostitution.
I’ve seen people in these spaces carry a bunch of weird moralizing stigma about the “sex” part of sex work rather than the “work” part into these conversations, and I promise that’s not where I’m coming from. As far as I’m concerned, sex between consenting adults is a morally neutral act, and people who engage in sex work under capitalism aren’t guilty of anything more than any other proletarian commodifying their labor to survive.
Under communism (a classless, stateless, moneyless society), the economic and class relations that force people to perform sexual labor as a means of subsistence won’t be present. People will still have sex, but nobody will be coerced into having sex in exchange for food, shelter, or medical care. When people choose to have sex, it will be between mutually consenting adults for its own sake. Prostitution won’t be an occupational category under communism because the purpose of labor under communism is about fulfilling social need. A society where jobs are assigned based on fulfilling social need isn’t going to be assigning people whose primary contribution to society will be having sex with strangers and not being able to say “no”, because coerced sex isn’t beneficial to society. I would say that a person living under communism who has their needs of subsistence met, works a socially productive job, and chooses to have sex with any and every consenting adult they want outside of that job isn’t definitionally a prostitute. Prostitution as a “job” is inseparable from economic and class relations that must be abolished in order for communism to come about.
What percentage of prostitutes across history do you believe fit into a definition that isn’t characterized by exploitation?
What percentage of plumbers across history do you believe fit into a definition that isn’t characterized by exploitation? Sex work is work. Period. Just like other work, it can be done because a person enjoys it, but under capitalism (or other modes of production that exploit workers) it will always involve exploitation. If you want to define prostitution as something that always involves exploitation, ok fine, but then you also have to separate that out from sex work, which absolutely does not inherently require exploitation and most certainly would still exist even if all economic coercion were eradicated (that is, under communism rather than capitalism).
Under communism (a classless, stateless, moneyless society), the economic and class relations that force people to perform sexual labor as a means of subsistence won’t be present.
(Emphasis above is mine). Under communism, the economic and class relations that force people to perform any labor as a means of subsistence won’t be present.
People will still have sex, but nobody will be coerced into having sex in exchange for food, shelter, or medical care.
No shit. There will still be plumbers too, but they won’t be coerced into it in exchange for food, shelter, or medical care. Almost all of your arguments so far can be applied exactly the same to any number of other forms of labor.
Prostitution won’t be an occupational category under communism because the purpose of labor under communism is about fulfilling social need.
So finally we get to some reasoning (flawed though it is) for why sex work would be different than any other work. You think that sex work doesn’t fulfill a social need. Sexual fulfillment is a social need. There will always be people who find it difficult to find partners due to all kinds of possible scenarios (including having no time to build a relationship due to dedicating all of it to other interests or necessary labor). And there will similarly always be people willing to provide that, people who have dedicated their time to become skilled at providing that. Refusing to recognize them as fulfilling a social need is simply being sex-negative and it’s always shocking to me that there are still leftists who don’t understand this.
Man, that’s going to make telling people I’m on a diet a whole lot more awkward.
Also I thought that the concept of lumpenproletariate was standard ML ideology. Again, I’m not disagreeing with you as I’ve spend no time looking into this.
I’m curious about this.
I’d first heard it in a Burkinabé context. I don’t remember coming across it in Marx or Lenin?
What’s the history of the concept? We need to get to the bottom of this. (I’m too busy to read right now, maybe in 12 hours.)
It was coined by Marx. See glossary on marxists.org.
There can be a reactionary usage of the word, but there is also theoretical utility in distinguishing proletarians with different relations of production. Based on the glossary here it sounds like Marx used the specific word lumpe satirically against Stirner, but idk the details of that.
It’s literally in the Manifesto.
I think if you asked 20 internet Marxists for their definition of “lumpenprole” you would probably get 20 different answers, ngl. Poorly defined term that has been used and misused in many ways historically, and tbh, a lot of people here have never actually come into contact with any parts of the “lumpenproletariat” and would probably feel well out of their comfort zone if they did.
Historically, Marxologists are world champions in saying that some section of society has no potential for revolutionary action before being proven decisively wrong by the course of history, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out that the “lumpenproletariat” is going to be essential to the coming world socialist revolution too.
Depends, there are piss poor people out there, especially in rural uneducated areas, that are drawn to fascism like moths to light and hate communism without having ever understood what the hell they’re talking about.
They usually can’t be reasoned with at all, they are proles but will never realize who are their allies and who will betray them as soon as they get in power. They will even actively work for fascists, if that isn’t lumpenproletariat I don’t know what else to describe them as.
There’s a big defining difference between them and the petty bourgeoisie who have actual material benefits from fascism.
They need to attain some sort of social means first, these are people so bad off they fully know the futility of their situation a lot of time, in such straits with 0 framework, and what little knowledge they have and cherish (because that’s the only knowledge they are allowed to attain, and they know this) paints their very own liberation as the worst thing possible but not apocalyptic, they’re going to hope it all burns down, even if it takes them. They’re opportunistic and will work for whoever gives them some means of survival or hope of that, fascists have been playing carrot and stick with lumpen for a while, even illusionary carrots they’ll sadly fall for. There is little left in the core and even an afterschool babysitting or meal program which would super appeal to them is hosed. In some super poor places gangs are the defacto police and are unofficial deputies of whatever official law enforcement there is.
Gotta do for above all else to appeal lumpen unless its strong fasc vibe words they were told all their lives to trust by their limited big bourgeois approved education (its better to feel better for 3s), it reminds me in some ways of the actual bourgeois mindset where one must say the prettiest words, give off the most aesthetic vibes and do little meaningful to appeal to, though they like token gesture, lost causes and the likes quite a lot. They’re also both opportunist factors to be regarded quite cautiously, a serious movement will work to proletarianize the lumpen since that will be some material improvement generally, while the bourgeois are taking large economic loss of interests, something more dangerous I’d say.
So you think it’s an invalid concept because of a moral judgement of the Bourgeois state’s legal system? Does not your invokation of the ‘black market’ belie your point? That the criminal has an objectively different relation to production than the proletariate?
Also you know what concept could only be thought up by some educated German theorist? That the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. What postmodern nonsense!
Beyond the particulars I think you need to go back to the very basics. What’s class? Proletariate? What makes the proletariate a revolutionary class? What’s meant by it having ‘radical chains’? Finally, what’s Marxism? Is it just a perscriptive lens?
Anemia of theory will be the death of us all…
hard agree, i’ve had people insist to me that criminalized peoples, who are usually minorities as any knowledgeable person knows (as capitalism uses bias in order to harm a group and allow for super exploitation), are lumpen and thus non-proles.
while we’re on the topic of class, i had some honest to god Kautskyites insist to me that peasants are both inherently reactionary and no longer exist. they insist they are ‘agrarian proles’ but also when wanting to be mean they’re peasants??? is there any veracity to this idea because I honestly don’t know how to deal with freaks that identify with the second internationale in the year of our lord 2024
I mean who cares if they’re non proles lol. Being one doesn’t make you a good person. Even the revolutionaries who believed in their potential differentiated them as they have different circumstances. It’s just a class distinction.
again agreed
i had some honest to god Kautskyites
DSA weirdos?
no actually, most of the DSA people ive met are trans stalinists/maoists
Stop trying to make me like the DSA.
its being couped by marxists atm
Why won’t you stop?
I think a lot of the people who are scoffing and telling me to read theory have some very formal (and 19th century and irrelevant) idea of what Lumpen means which isn’t related to how it’s actually used in 21st century discourse. Like imagine legitimately believing that just because someone has felony convictions for shoplifting or selling weed they can’t participate in revolutionary work? It’s ridiculous on it’s face. Or saying “homeless people are lumpen” when half of homeless people in the use have a wage labor job? It’s just silly. It’s an outdated, irrelevant concept that doesn’t apply to the 21st century paradigm of crime, labor, and class consciousness.
Oh yea i love this contradiction cuz its never really drawn upon in the common communist discourse but it represents something interesting to me.
So im not a scholar and have only done my best, but i am not sure ive found an instance where Marx actually calls prostitutes lumpen proletariat. Marx at one point refers to Stirner’s idealist conception of lumpen proletariat in the German Ideology but is clearly making fun of Stirner’s vibes based analysis of class. Marx even cites pimps in particular as lumpenproletariat but not prostitutes in the 18th Brumaire.
As lumpe means rag the lumpen is supposed to be on an aesthetic external and superficial analysis that section of the working class so undignified under the capitalist system that they are now the outcasts of society.
Marxist classes are definitionally useful for the sole reason that they play a definite and objective role in class struggle in a historical materialist framework. Classes can therefore be defined through the lens of dialectical materialism as a definite mass of people in society who share a means of life, psychological character, and collective interest. The lumpenproletariat therefore in what i can tell are the fraction of the working class so debased as to then possess a material interest distinct from the proletariat and can even come into conflict with the proletariat. Petty thieves, robbers, beggars, drug dealers, and pimps sustain themselves on economic exploitation of other classes, which can include the proletariat.
The class interest of the lumpen pretariat can only ever politically manifest itself in what is essentially gangs. During times of revolutionary crises, the lumpenproletariat heavily benefits from the crisis of legitimacy of the state and can then more freely extort the other classes which has historically been represented in gangs that are either paid off by the bourgeois against other classes or independently of the bourgeois extort other classes whether by exacting tolls and taxes or other means. You can see the exact same thing playing out in Haiti today as Marx noted in the 18th Brumaire. Simply put, you can not “unionize” the lumpenproletariat - as a lumpenproletariat union is essentially manifest in gangs which even on a superficial level clearly represent their political interests as a class.
So from this analysis we can see that there is no “inherent revolutionary character” of the lumpenproletariat, rather only a dialectical character represented in its identity and material interest distinct from other classes. Even Marx in his own words says that the lumpenproletariat are capable of the highest forms of heroism, and the most debauched forms of hedonism. Particularly what Mao and the BPP noted is that there is a possibility to in essence develop a mass base in the lumpenproletariat and to cause a revolutionary development by the proletarianization of the people in this mass base.
In any case i hope this provides some clarity, and i hope i can be corrected on points where i am mistaken!
Classes can therefore be defined through the lens of dialectical materialism as a definite mass of people in society who share a means of life, psychological character, and collective interest.
Kinda off topic but this made me realize why and how China has billionaires but doesn’t allow them to become a class. Was reading a paper on them the other day and I read something like that.
I think it’s more accurate to think of Chinese billionaires as a class, just not one allowed to control the state.
Also from a lot of their attitudes it seems like they are completely loyal to the Party. It’s pretty impressive honestly
I’m not disagreeing with you, but J Sakai wrote a book on the lumpenproletariate that I really want to read. Tbh, I don’t know enough to have an informed opinion either way.
Everyone’s always talking about the Lumpenproletariat, but what about the Lumpy Proletariat? What about those guys huh?
Theyre lumpy because they can’t afford to see a dermatologist and get the lumps checked out
wasn’t lumpenproletariat the purple cloud girl who talked funny from adventure time?
Idealistic bourgeois dissidents idealised the proletariat as entirely made of pure, gentle manly men and brave women. When confronted with the reality that capitalist misery + hetero patriarchy created alcoholic domestic abusers they dismissed them as not true proletariat,
hence the term lumpen.How can I begin to describe how unserious this is
Edit : Apparently I misunderstood or I had a bad source, turns out the term was actually coined by Marx and Engels. Idealisation of the proletariat is still a real thing but it’s not the origin of the lumpen term
Wasn’t it coined by Marx and Engels on the basis of differing relations of production? The differences in material conditions between working and non-working proletarians has theoretical significance.
The question of revolutionary potential is, I think, the main distinguishing feature between communism and so-called utopian socialism. Communism is a proletarian movement and sees the proletariat as the revolutionary class.
But does that mean that the proletariat is uniformly revolutionary?
Marx and Engels thought the struggle between workers and capitalists was the essential contradiction that would lead to revolution. Later Marxists like Mao and the Black Panthers thought non-working proletarians could be instrumental too. But the basic theoretical question I think is valid.
For feudal society, Marx identified the bourgeoisie as the revolutionary class, not because of its moral standing, but due to the specific contradictions that intensified between the old feudal rulers and a rising merchant/bourgeois class. The peasants were also exploited in feudal society, but that alone didn’t make them the class with most revolutionary potential.
Marx did refine this view over time. In 1882, a year before his death, he and Engels wrote this preface to the communist manifesto:
1882 preface to the Russian edition of the manifesto
The Communist Manifesto had, as its object, the proclamation of the inevitable impending dissolution of modern bourgeois property. But in Russia we find, face-to-face with the rapidly flowering capitalist swindle and bourgeois property, just beginning to develop, more than half the land owned in common by the peasants. Now the question is: can the Russian obshchina, though greatly undermined, yet a form of primeval common ownership of land, pass directly to the higher form of Communist common ownership? Or, on the contrary, must it first pass through the same process of dissolution such as constitutes the historical evolution of the West?
The only answer to that possible today is this: If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development.
Alright sorry I edited
You’re right, though. When people in 21st century discourse use the term lumpen they’re not using it in it’s formal definition and it’s 19th century context. They’re just being whorphobic jerks. 19th century labor relations don’t exist in many parts of the world now. Drug dealers are just normal folks. Most criminals aren’t really doing anything immoral or wrong. Sex workers are just normal ass self-employed service industry workers. Trying to dogmatically cling to this never especially useful or well founded notion of a lump class is silly. Whatever dangers might have once been posed by “lumpen”, those roles are now taken by cops, soldiers, and intelligence agencies that just flat out didn’t exist in the 19th century the way they do in the 21st. The capitalists don’t need to hire homeless beggars to beat up strikers with ax handles, they have well equipped cops and soldiers for that. Homeless people have wage labor jobs now.
I mean look how the “read theory” scoffers have to go back to Marx and Engels to discuss this. That’s 19th century stuff. They’re talking about the past, not modern material conditions where sex workers and disabled people are often organized and have strong class consciousness. And it’s silly ableist shit, too. Like 19th century cruel dismissal of disabled people as useless and socially worthless. We have computer and phones and shit. Disabled people can do many important jobs within a revolutionary movement. Dismissing them as a class because they can’t work on a 19th century factory floor, which is what the perpetuation of Lumpen as a concept does, is just… weird. Just bizarre.
