this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
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Why do Marx and Lenin disregard the lumpenproletariat? (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 months ago by CupcakeOfSpice@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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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?

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[–] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 22 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I don't know the specifics about Lenin's take on the subject

But Marx was simply making observations about the dynamics taking place in British and western European slums in the middle of the 19th century

He wasn't making a universalist condemnation of lumpen segments throughout all time and space and he certainly wasn't talking about the global ghettos of the later 20th and early 21st centuries

The world Marx was exaimning was the world of Dickens, important observations at the time but not really relevant (in terms of this specific subject) 150 years later

The mechanisms that create, police and exploit slums have changed in significant ways since the time of Marx (hell they've changed multiple times) a decent Marxist examination of modern lumpen conditions can be found in Vijay Prashad's work on Indian communists and their struggles to organize the slums, it's a common thruline in all his lectures on Indian communism