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The Lumpenproletariat, alternatively called lumpenprole or lumpen, refers a marginalized and impoverished social group that includes people who may be unemployed, homeless, or engaged in informal and illegal activities. They do not have a clear role in the Capitalist mode of production and are often considered to be outside the traditional working class. The lumpenproletariat is (but not always) exploitable by reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces. The term was coined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Marx defined the lumpenproletariat as a dangerous class and "passively rotting mass" thrown off the lowest layers of the old society.[1] He and Vladimir Lenin dismissed the revolutionary potential of the lumpenproletariat. However, Mao believed that the lumpenproletariat could be revolutionary with the correct guidance.[2] Similarly, Malcolm X believed in the revolutionary potential of the "ghetto hustlers" and the black teenagers who emulated them, whom other black leaders overlooked at the time.[3]
A notable attempt at utilising the lumpenproletariat was with the Black Panther Party (BPP). In 1969 Eldridge Cleaver claimed that Huey P. Newton had transformed the black lumpenproletariat into the "vanguard of the proletariat".[4] However, in actuality the lumpen sections of the BPP were more a small section of the party associated with a lack of discipline and a criminal mindset that provided bourgeois media more opportunities to slander the BPP than they would otherwise have.[5]
Etymology[edit | edit source]
Lumpen was a prefix for "rag"; therefore Lumpenproletariat literally means "rag proletariat".
Instances[edit | edit source]
- Prostitutes
- Criminals (tramps, vagabonds, homeless persons)
Unemployed workers[edit | edit source]
Unemployed workers can turn into lumpenproletarians a result of being barred from employment by capitalists.
Unemployed workers typically consist of:
- Blacklisted workers
- Disabled persons
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ “The "dangerous class" [lumpenproletariat], the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.”
Karl Marx. Communist Manifesto: '1' (p. 15). [MIA] - ↑ Mao Zedong (1926). Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society. [MIA]
- ↑ “And because I had been a hustler, I knew better than all whites knew, and better than nearly all of the black ‘‘leaders’’ knew, that actually the most dangerous black man in America was the ghetto hustler.
Why do I say this? The hustler, out there in the ghetto jungles, has less respect for the white power structure than any other Negro in North America. The ghetto hustler is internally restrained by nothing. He has no religion, no concept of morality, no civic responsibility, no fear—nothing. To survive, he is out there constantly preying upon others, probing for any human weakness like a ferret. The ghetto hustler is forever frustrated, restless, and anxious for some ‘‘action.’’ Whatever he undertakes, he commits himself to it fully, absolutely.
What makes the ghetto hustler yet more dangerous is his ‘‘glamor’’ image to the school-dropout youth in the ghetto. These ghetto teen-agers see the hell caught by their parents struggling to get somewhere, or see that they have given up struggling in the prejudiced, intolerant white man’s world. The ghetto teen-agers make up their own minds they would rather be like the hustlers whom they see dressed ‘‘sharp’’ and flashing money and displaying no respect for anybody or anything. So the ghetto youth become attracted to the hustler worlds of dope, thievery, prostitution, and general crime and immorality.
It scared me the first time I really saw the danger of these ghetto teen-agers if they are ever sparked to violence. [...]
Why, those young, teen-age Negroes got upset, and started milling around and yelling, upsetting the older Negroes in the crowd. The first thing you know traffic was blocked in four directions by a crowd whose mood quickly grew so ugly that I really got apprehensive. [...]
I know one thing: it had taught me in a very few minutes to have a whole lot of respect for the human combustion that is packed among the hustlers and their young admirers who live in the ghettoes where the Northern white man has sealed-off the Negro—away from whites—for a hundred years.
The ‘‘long hot summer’’ of 1964 in Harlem, in Rochester, and in other cities, has given an idea of what could happen—and that’s all, only an idea. For all of those riots were kept contained within where the Negroes lived. You let any of these bitter, seething ghettoes all over America receive the night igniting incident, and become really inflamed, and explode, and burst out of their boundaries into where whites live!”
Malcolm X, Alex Haley (1965). The Autobiography of Malcolm X: '16. Out'. New York City: Grove Press. ISBN 9780345350688 - ↑ “Essentially, what Huey did was to provide the ideology and the methodology for organizing the Black Urban Lumpenproletariat. Armed with this ideological perspective and method, Huey transformed the Black lumpenproletariat from the forgotten people at the bottom of society into the vanguard of the proletariat.”
Eldridge Cleaver (1969). "On the Ideology of the Black Panther Party" (pp. 2-11). Oakland: Black Panther Party. - ↑ Sundiata Acoli (2008). "A Brief History of the Black Panther Party and Its Place In the Black Liberation Movement" Red Sails. Archived from the original on 2025-05-18.