I have not read every document the two wrote regarding the subject, so I may be misunderstanding; but the ProleWiki makes it sound like Marx and Lenin–and therefore Marxist-Leninists would–disregard the revolutionary potential of the lumpenproletariat. It seems like sex workers and homeless folks and disabled people are all spat on by the bourgeoisie and would be glad to help take them down? I’m disabled and mostly unable to work (I do work a little, but not even enough to be part-time) and I consider myself an ML.
The wiki describes the lumpen as exploitable by reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces, but we’ve seen in the West that the proletariat as a whole is susceptible to these forces. See Zohran run one of the most radical campaigns we’ve seen in a while and then put on Zionist officials and advocate for changing the system from the inside. The working class is content to sit down and wait for someone else to make change for them. Most disabled people I know, on the other hand, are ready to tear the system down with their own hands. So are we supposed to just gloss over a group of people who’ve been pressure cooking this whole time? If so, why?
I need to read much, much more about the lumpen but the term feels so extremely reductive, especially given today’s conditions. Like I feel like there is a lot of potential within prison populations to build political consciousness, and other groups like sex workers and disabled folks, too. It’s already happening within these populations anyway.
Agreed. I am currently working to understand this as well because I need to bridge the gap of what is the lumpen today and what it was when Marx wrote his work.
The people we work with clearly aren’t exactly lumpen the way Marx framed it, but theu aren’t exactly proletarians either. They definitely are the reserve army of labor though. And often the most aware of the conditions, far more so than anyone with access to waged work.
The modern lumpen is also very much a source of surplus extraction, but it happens indirectlt via services etc. There’s a form of commodification going on there.
The welfare state was erected to suppress communism. The way this has worked is made concrete in the transformation of the reserve army of labor.
Yes, I apprexiate this analysis! I think that the lumpen in the US is probably more similar to Marx’s conception, but their conditions and they way that they operate have changed because the bourgeoisie decided to try to extract value from them
I was thinking this. Prison labor, the drug market… The underground economy directly benefits the bourgeoisie.
While not exactly the same, I was reading an article written by a black/trans/disabled sex worker, and they said that the only way they could organize around issues they cared about was BECAUSE of sex work and the time it afforded them. Having no time because we need to devote 3/4th of our lives to working, commuting, getting ready for work and sleeping probably plays a role in how weak the movement is here in the US, too.
The closest to lumpen I can see are the homeless, but even then there are a lot more that are employed than people think.
Another thing, too, is that while people may not have their labor to withhold, they can still contribute to the revolution by other means IMO. They can stand in solidarity at picket lines, for example. Some are much more willing to be militant, too. Like instead of the peasant class, the proletariat should be aligning with the lumpen here in the US