Lumpenproletariat

The lumpenproletariat is composed of proletarians who are made outcasts and criminals in capitalist society. Often reactionary, the Lumpenproletariat serve very little revolutionary potential. While not owning any capital, the Lumpenproletariat sustain themselves most commonly through the exploitation of others. Members of the Lumpenproletariat tend to be criminals, vagrants, and the chronically unemployed (different from the Reserve army of labor). Lumpenproletarians do not recognize their place in class society nor their collective class interests and thus serve as a "passively rotting mass". Although elements of them can be incorporated into the proletarian movement.

See also

• Social death