this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2025
86 points (100.0% liked)
askchapo
23192 readers
66 users here now
Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.
Rules:
-
Posts must ask a question.
-
If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.
-
Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.
-
Try !feedback@hexbear.net if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Socialist movements in the past century have made a point of including the lumpens as continuous with the rest of the proletariat. The line between the two is very blurry and not very instructive.
Any worker could easily and suddenly become unemployed, or homeless, or disabled, or imprisoned; even being removed from the surplus army of labor wouldn't change their position in capitalist reality. Also, the informal and domestic economies are not fully covered by the prole/lumpen dichotomy.
Especially in the present era of neocolonialism and lower-than-ever transparency, I find it useful to categorize by credit and debt, passive income and passive expenses. There are lifetime net creditors, and lifetime net debtors. Because of the compounding structure of the economy, there will always be many times more net debtors than net creditors.