Comments on: Who are the lumpenproletariat?

By: shag

shag — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:20:22 +0000

Who was the woman who said something like, “The only thing worse about being caught up in circuits of capitali is not being so caught up?”

just as an aside: I first read the title of the post and thought it was “Who ATE the lumpenproletariat”

Joan Robinson was her name.

By: steff

steff — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 02:11:05 +0000

And who are the lumpenintelligentsia…

By: jim

jim — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:53:33 +0000

aren’t they spivs?

By: Nate

Nate — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 15:29:02 +0000

Geo and Abbie.

By: voyou

voyou — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 06:23:24 +0000

I’m generally suspicious of claims that slumdwellers are part of the lumpenproletariat – once upon a time, people recently arrived in cities from the countryside might have been “thrown off by the lowest layers of old society,” not yet integrated into capitalism, but I’m not sure that’s true any longer. The informal sector seems like an integral part of the capitalist system.

However, the idea of people denied a class consciousness by certainly particular techniques of government does seem like a really interesting way of defining the lumpenproletariat, potentially much more politically useful than traditional left definitions. I haven’t read the Davis book, but I probably should.

By: Naadir Jeewa

Naadir Jeewa — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 08:41:32 +0000

Mark Davis suggests that the slum dwellers across the planet represent exactly the “lumpenproletariat,” denied a class consciousness through their exploitation and the bureaucratisation of neoliberal doctrine and NGOs.