On the Misuse of "Lumpenproletariat"

There are people around here, most probably Holla Forums renegades, who use "lumpenprole" as a dog whistle to veil their racism.

The lumpenproletariat is the outcast, declassed segment of the working class that survive on informal, unstable and often legally dubious activity — prostitutes, drug dealers, petty criminals, street hawkers, squeegees, beggars, etc — and therefore is unlikely (according to Marx) to achieve political consciousness.

It is not a synonym for "blacks", "brown people" or "immigrants". Get that through your thick skull.

Let us not allow reactionaries to appropriate and redefine our language to their political benefit.

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Was Marx wrong about the lumpen? With increasing automation and UBI all that nonsense, we may soon have rather more lumpen than ever before. If they really are inherently non-revolutionary, we're pretty screwed.

Yeah, it's one of the most outdated aspects of Marx's thought IMO. As automation progresses and more and more people join the ranks of "surplus population", they will effectively become a disintegrated precariat sharing much with lumpenproles.

stop slut shaming you brocialist

I'm not saying these people are bad or unworthy of consideration. I'm just pointing out they're part of what's called the lumpenproletariat.

Obvious bait/joke, mate.

A classless society is one without a bourgeois OR a proletariat. A "lumpenprole" takeover could easily lead to communism imo.

When I think of lumpen I generally think of poor "white trash" rednecks that fell for the Fox News meme, not urban black people.

People should fucking read tbqh.

I saw a post on FBIbook praising Musk for supporting UBI. My inner communist wanted to spill the lefty-spahgetti all over the comments == reeeeing == about how it innures a populace into accepting the status quo as good for it's mere face value.

inb4 ">fedbook, normalfag lol"

The specification of who is a lumpen is not important unless it is in an honest attempt to explain why they are a lumpenprole.

A huge number of leftists are just authoritarian centrists who dislike the anti-degeneracy stance and religiosity of fascism. Other than that, they are basically the same reactionary thinkers whose irrational hatred of poor people, people of other tribes and drug users remains untouched even after realizing the truth about porky. The idea that the realization of class consciousness suddenly means that psychopaths are going to feel empathy for destitute people is nonsensical. People are racist, bigoted and homophobic because its in their interest to be that way socially, this hasn't changed especially on leftist boards where we exist within the narrative structure of pol and the liberal media. Its very easy for someone to LARP class consciousness when we post a thread about some fast food workers being fucked over and then for them to turn around and call drug dealers "spic lumpens who need to be deported". I happen to agree with the alt right that we shouldn't IMPORT anymore people from 3rd world countries but not because of lumpens but rather because these people don't seem to integrate ever and this causes linguistic and political confusion that's not conducive to social organization.

TLDR: LARPing NazBols, Tankies and Soc Dems hate poor people and ethnic minorities/criminal subcultures because they are reactionaries who dislike Fascism for whatever niche reason but like totalitarian/authority cultures of violence and fear

this lawd

I don't agree with policies aimed at flooding the labor market with cheap labor either… but quite honestly, the "integration" issue is bunk. Every historical wave of immigration was accompanied by the sentiment among the natives that they were being submerged by essentially incompatible populations. As soon as the French "national identity" formed in the late 20th century, Frenchmen started hating on immigrants be they Jews, Belgians, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, Poles, Armenians, the list goes on. Every time, these foreigners were aggressively accused of being inassimilable on a variety of grounds. Not only was it factually wrong, it also brought immense suffering to many people, most of whom poor workers.

50% of black youth are unemployed.

Niggers are majority lumpen. (Working-class blacks usually aren't the ones chimping out. It's mostly college students and lumpens.)

Spics are mostly scabs, not lumpens. There are some lumpen spics, but most of them are workers shipped in to replace native labor, usually unionized jobs.

Most other American immigrants are usually highly paid scabs who occupy managerial-professional jobs. They actually are more muh privileged than the native whites and blacks.


No one cares for your feelings. Also, the lumpens are lazzaroni and reactionaries. We, meanwhile, are the successors to the sans culottes.

It's very simple. The working class has different material conditions from lumpens, and thus have different interests. The lumpens have no class interests against the capitalists. (Or against workers.) Basically, the lumpens have no reason to overthrow capitalism so long as they get free shit. UBI means the downfall of revolution and the end of democracy as a possibility. The same thing happened to the Roman plebeian, who used to be a freeholding farmer before becoming a landless urban lumpen. (And thus the Roman Republic became the Empire)

Of course, this is too brief to fully explain the point, but basically the lumpens have no revolutionary potential or motivation to overthrow capitalism. The state can provide welfare and UBI without interfering with the interests of capitalists. Meanwhile, workers, due to being exploited, have an inherent interest in overthrowing capitalists.

Since capitalists are a minority and need some base of support to maintain their rule, they naturally turn to lumpens, importing loyal scabs, and using idpol to weaken the power of the working class majority. (And, it has worked magnificently for porky.)

That's not lumpen. Most rednecks usually work for a living, though there are the unemployed trailer park "white-trash" who fit the term lumpen. Lumpen just means the unemployed, criminials, and, in the loosest sense, precariat jobs.

French national identity really came in during the late 19th century, but began in the French Revolution.

There's a labor perspective to it. Native workers want to protect their own interests, which involves attacking foreign scabs and capitalists. In fact, minorities such as blacks/immigrants, before the communists embraced them, actually felt closer to their bosses than to their white/native coworkers. It was the unions that passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. (Even the radical ones such as the Knights of Labor.)

Of course, you all are the real LARPers here. :^)

Great post, gadsden flag guy.

t. totally not gadsden flag guy

Legitimately brilliant post. Somewhat reminds me of the split between normal proles, and proles that are bourg enforcers (security, soldiers, cops, intelligence, bureaucrats etc.)

[citation needed]

but are lumpens working class or middle class??????

No, it's far more complicated than that. Nationalism during the French Revolution was mostly confined to the literate bourgeoisie and most lower-class Frenchmen didn't even speak the same language. It took almost an additional century for the "national identity" to supersede local realities.

40% of white youth are unemployed. The 10% difference can be accounted for by a lack of job opportunities in black areas.
bls.gov/news.release/youth.nr0.htm
There's no reason to discriminate based on race. African Americans headed one of the most successful revolutionary parties in U.S. history.

"Unions historically endorsed discriminatory policies and that means my thinly-veiled racism is totally justified."


I'd like to see some evidence to back that claim. But even then, it wouldn't really be that surprising considering unions actively worked to fuck them up. If you single out blacks or immigrants and exclude them from networks of solidarity from the get go, how do you expect them to identify with the very people who support their being harassed by police and deported on a whim?

>>>/gulag/

Yeah, saying niggers are mostly lumpens and endorsing the discriminatory component of early organized labor have nothing to do with any sort of racist sentiment whatsoever and people who pretend otherwise are just COINTELPRO-funded liberal SJWs from Reddit. :^)