Lumpenproletariat

The credit, or perhaps blame, for coining the term Lumpenproletariat is generally attributed to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It’s a compound term, a rather neat linguistic fusion, comprising the German word Lumpen, which is most commonly translated as "ragged" or "in rags," and prolétariat, a French import that had, by then, become a standard Marxist descriptor for the class of wage earners—the backbone of the capitalist system.

There’s been some academic quibbling over the precise etymological root of Lumpen. Hal Draper, for instance, suggested that the root might actually be lump ("knave"), rather than lumpen in its "ragged" sense. This isn't just semantic hair-splitting; a "knave" implies a certain moral character, a deliberate untrustworthiness, whereas "ragged" merely speaks to outward appearance or poverty. Bussard, ever the diligent scholar, observed that the meaning of lump underwent a rather telling evolution, shifting from simply describing a person dressed in rags in the 17th century to connoting knavery and moral degeneracy by the 19th century. This linguistic drift itself reflects a societal judgment, transforming poverty from a state of being into a moral failing, a convenient narrative for those who prefer to maintain the status quo.

Definition

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language provides a definition that is both concise and damning: it describes the Lumpenproletariat as "the lowest stratum of the proletariat. Used originally in Marxist theory to describe those members of the proletariat, especially criminals, vagrants, and the unemployed, who lacked awareness of their collective interest as an oppressed class." The critical element here, as always, is that perceived absence of "awareness," that inconvenient lack of class consciousness that renders them politically inert, or worse, counter-revolutionary.

In contemporary usage, the term has broadened somewhat, though its core negative connotations persist. It is now commonly understood to encompass the chronically unemployed, the homeless, and what are often termed career criminals. These are individuals who exist outside the formal structures of labor and social participation, often by circumstance, sometimes by choice, but always at the margins.

When translated into English, Marx and Engels’ original German often saw lumpenproletariat rendered as "social scum," "dangerous classes," "ragamuffin," or "ragged-proletariat." These are hardly terms of endearment, are they? Scholars and theorists, including those within the Soviet nomenclature, frequently described this group as "declassed" (or déclassé), emphasizing their detachment from traditional class structures. The contemporary term "underclass" is often considered a direct synonym, carrying much of the same baggage and social stigma.

Indeed, scholars consistently highlight the distinctly negative connotations embedded within the term. Economist Richard McGahey, writing for the New York Times in 1982, pointed out that lumpenproletariat is but one of a "long line of labels that stigmatize poor people for their poverty by focusing exclusively on individual characteristics." He rightly grouped it with other charming descriptors such as "underclass," "undeserving poor," and "culture of poverty," all of which serve to pathologize poverty rather than examine its systemic roots. Another common, if less academic, synonym is "riff-raff," which perfectly captures the dismissive contempt often associated with the concept. In common English parlance, "lumpen" can even be used informally and disapprovingly to describe individuals who are "not clever or well educated, and who are not interested in changing or improving their situation." It’s a label that, regardless of its precise etymology, has always been designed to keep people in their place, or rather, out of it.

Usage by Marx and Engels

According to the historian Robert Bussard, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels held a rather unflattering view of the Lumpenproletariat. They perceived this group as an inherently "parasitical" entity, largely comprising the remnants of older, now obsolete, stages of societal development. Their analysis suggested that this segment of society was fundamentally incapable of playing a progressive role in history. Why? Because, in their estimation, the Lumpenproletariat acted solely out of a "socially ignorant self-interest," making them easily susceptible to bribery and manipulation by reactionary forces. This inherent malleability, they believed, rendered them a dangerous tool to be deployed against the "true proletariat" in its noble efforts to dismantle bourgeois society. Without a clear class-consciousness, a moral compass for the revolution, the Lumpenproletariat could not, by definition, contribute positively. Instead, it would merely exploit society for its own immediate gains, and in turn, be exploited as a convenient instrument of destruction and counter-revolution.

Despite the pervasive negativity, their extensive works notably lack a "consistent and clearly reasoned definition" of the term. This ambiguity, some might argue, was a feature, not a bug. They deployed the term across various publications, for "diverse purposes and on several levels of meaning," which allowed for a certain rhetorical flexibility. Hal Draper posited that the concept's intellectual lineage could be traced back to Young Hegelian thought, and perhaps even to G.W.F. Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right. Bussard, however, offered a more expansive view, suggesting that the idea was a "hybrid of new social attitudes which crystallised in France, England and Germany, as well as an extension of more traditional, pre-nineteenth-century views of the lower classes." Essentially, it was a convenient label to bundle together all the societal undesirables and dismiss them.

Bussard noted that Marx and Engels frequently used the term as a "kind of sociological profanity," a derogatory label to contrast with the idealized, "working and thinking" proletariat. Michael Denning astutely observed that by explicitly identifying the Lumpenproletariat, Marx was effectively "combating the established view that the entire working class was a dangerous and immoral element." He drew a clear, if somewhat arbitrary, line to "defend the moral character" of the industrial proletariat from the perceived vices of the underclass. It’s a classic move: define an 'other' to elevate your chosen group.

The genesis of this concept, a graduate student argued, was deeply intertwined with the intense intellectual struggle between 1789 and 1848 to precisely define the concept of the proletariat itself. This argument suggests that the term proletariat originated in the 509 BCE–27 BCE Republic of Rome, specifically coined by Cicero (106 BCE–43 BCE). In this ancient context, proletariat was a synchronic term, essentially meaning the same as 'working class' during the earlier 753 BCE–509 BCE Kingdom of Rome. This ahistorical, synchronic understanding of proletariat persisted into 18th-century France, notably embraced and elaborated upon by Montesquieu (1689–1755) in his 1748 work The Spirit of Laws, and by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) in his 1762 work The Social Contract.

This non-historical view of the proletariat held sway until the seismic shift of the 1789–1799 French Revolution. It was then that journalist Gracchus Babeuf (1760–1797) employed the term in a 1794 pamphlet, but with a crucial difference: he used it as a historical, diachronic continuity. This implied that in the context of class struggle, 'proletariat' no longer meant the same as 'working class', thus initiating a fierce debate over the diachrony and synchrony of the term.

Initially, the early sociologist Auguste Comte (1798–1857) endorsed the Cicero–Montesquieu–Rousseau view of the proletariat in 1820. However, by 1824, his mentor, Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825), abandoned Comte's perspective, reluctantly agreeing with Babeuf only two years before his death. This shift was attributed to Saint-Simon's growing frustration with his inability to garner support for his vision of France among influential natives. Engels joined this intellectual fray in 1842, with Marx following in 1844, both aligning with Babeuf and Saint-Simon. They declared the proletariat a diachronic concept, assigning it a significantly optimistic role in humanity's future.

Yet, this initial optimism of the duo regarding the proletariat proved short-lived. Between 1844 and 1845, their writings expressed growing frustrations, leading them to realize the need for a complementary diachronic term. This new term would serve as a "theoretical space filler," acting as a polar opposite to their idealized vision of the proletariat. Thus, during late-night discussions over wine in Brussels, Belgium, the multi-lingual pair concocted the Germanic word Lumpenproletariat. For them, it primarily conveyed "mass" or "size," reflecting their observation that the Lumpenproletariat seemed to vastly outnumber the proletariat everywhere they looked. Given their mastery of over ten languages, Engels, in a later comment to Marx's daughter after Marx's 1883 death, recalled the "rascally duo" sharing laughs during the writing of The German Ideology (1845–1846), imagining the future bewilderment of readers, especially the censors who perpetually trailed them, unable to decipher their linguistic creation.

The notion of the Lumpenproletariat describing a "mass" wasn't entirely novel in the 19th century. As far back as the 17th century, England's first Poet Laureate, John Dryden (1631–1700), penned the lines: "How dull and how insensible a beast is man, ... philosophers and poets vainly strove, in every age the lumpish mass to move." The deliberate ambiguity embedded within their new term, coupled with the conspicuous absence of a comprehensive definition across its 88 uses between 1845 and 1890, ensured that any diligent censor would face considerable difficulty in decoding this fresh literary invention. Since their concept of the Lumpenproletariat was intended as a direct antithesis to the proletariat, the duo conveniently borrowed Adam Smith's (1723–1790) distinction between productive and unproductive labor, articulated in his 1776 masterpiece, The Wealth of Nations. They thus decreed that the proletariat emerged from predominantly productive labor, while the Lumpenproletariat was largely a byproduct of unproductive labor. A neat, if somewhat arbitrary, division to justify their theoretical construct.

Before the monumental 50-volume Marx-Engels: Collected Works saw the light of day, Hal Draper (1914–1990) meticulously cataloged 75 instances of lumpenproletariat across 40 distinct documents, presenting his findings in three separate publications. The aforementioned graduate student, empowered by the complete 50-volume collection, identified 88 uses within 50 documents. This student further discerned three distinct periods in the duo’s application of the term between 1845 and 1890. While the 1845–1847 period and the later 1855–1890 period featured objective uses, the intervening 1848–1854 period was characterized by a more subjective application of the term. Notably, 56 of the total 88 uses occurred during this middle, arguably more idiosyncratic, period. Consequently, the student judiciously advised future users of the term to avoid deriving their definitions from this potentially misleading subjective phase. A wise caution, given the inherent malleability of political language.

In early writings

The very first collaborative venture by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to introduce the term Lumpenproletariat was The German Ideology, penned between 1845 and 1846. In this work, they employed the term to characterize the plebs (plebeians) of ancient Rome, describing them as existing in an ambiguous state, halfway between freemen and slaves, never quite ascending beyond a "proletarian rabble [lumpenproletariat]." They also applied it to Max Stirner's "self-professed radical constituency of the Lumpen or ragamuffin," a clear sign of their disdain for Stirner's individualistic anarchism.

Marx’s first solo publication to feature the term was an article in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in November 1848. Here, he unambiguously depicted the Lumpenproletariat as a "tool of reaction" during the widespread revolutions of 1848, identifying them as a "significant counterrevolutionary force throughout Europe." It seems their perceived lack of class consciousness made them dangerously pliable to any power structure that offered a quick coin or a modicum of stability. Engels, in his The Peasant War in Germany (1850), offered a more generalized, almost anthropological, observation, noting that the Lumpenproletariat is a "phenomenon that occurs in a more or less developed form in all the so far known phases of society." A perennial fixture of human society, then, not just a capitalist byproduct. How tiresome.

Perhaps the most famous, or infamous, mention comes from The Communist Manifesto (1848). In English editions, lumpenproletariat is often translated with such charming phrases as the "dangerous class" and "social scum." Marx and Engels, with characteristic bluntness, articulated their view:

The lumpenproletariat is passive decaying matter of the lowest layers of the old society, is here and there thrust into the [progressive] movement by a proletarian revolution; [however,] in accordance with its whole way of life, it is more likely to sell out to reactionary intrigues.

This statement encapsulates their core conviction: while the Lumpenproletariat might be briefly swept up in revolutionary fervor, their fundamental character, their very "way of life," predisposes them to betrayal, to siding with whatever power offers immediate, albeit fleeting, advantage. A rather pessimistic assessment of human agency, wouldn't you say?

In writings on France

The French political landscape of the mid-19th century provided Marx with ample, and apparently depressing, material to refine his concept of the Lumpenproletariat. Following the brutal suppression of the June 1848 events in Paris, Engels, in his analysis, pointedly remarked on the gardes mobiles, a militia instrumental in crushing the workers' uprising. He declared, with evident disdain, that "The organized lumpenproletariat had given battle to the working proletariat. It had, as was to be expected, put itself at the disposal of the bourgeoisie." It's almost as if he was disappointed, but not surprised, by their predictable opportunism.

Thoburn observes that Marx's most detailed, and perhaps most venomous, descriptions of the Lumpenproletariat appear in his incisive analyses of the revolutionary turmoil in France between 1848 and 1852. These include The Class Struggles in France, 1848–1850 (1850) and The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852). In The Class Struggles, Marx even extends the label upward, describing the finance aristocracy of Louis Philippe I and his July Monarchy (1830–1848) as inherently lumpenproletarian: "In the way it acquires wealth and enjoys it the financial aristocracy is nothing but the lumpenproletariat reborn at the pinnacle of bourgeois society." This was a cutting indictment, distinguishing the finance aristocracy from the industrial bourgeoisie by highlighting that the former amassed wealth "not by production, but by pocketing the already available wealth of others." A rather elegant way of saying they were glorified parasites, just with better tailoring.

Here, Marx somewhat deviates from his earlier, more rigid classifications. He suggests that the Lumpenproletariat is, in fact, a component within the broader proletariat, albeit a problematic one. He asserted that the gardes mobiles were specifically established "to set one segment of the proletariat against the other," a cynical but likely accurate assessment of state strategy. He elaborated:

They belonged for the most part to the lumpenproletariat, which forms a mass clearly distinguished from the industrial proletariat in all large cities, a recruiting ground for thieves and criminals of all kinds, living on the refuse of society, people without a fixed line of work.

This paints a vivid, if unflattering, picture of a segment of society existing in a state of perpetual precarity, a ready-made force for disruption or suppression, depending on who wielded them.

In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, Marx famously identified Napoleon III as the "Chief of the Lumpenproletariat," a claim he reiterated multiple times. He argued that Napoleon III secured his supporters through "gifts and loans," noting that "these were the limits of the financial science of the lumpenproletariat, both the low and the exalted. Never had a President speculated more stupidly on the stupidity of the masses." For Marx, the Lumpenproletariat epitomized corruption, reaction, and a complete absence of genuine class-consciousness. He provided a rather colorful, almost literary, catalog of their ranks in The Eighteenth Brumaire:

Alongside ruined roués with questionable means of support and of dubious origin, degenerate and adventurous scions of the bourgeoisie, there were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged convicts, runaway galley slaves, swindlers, charlatans, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, procurers, brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, rag-pickers, knife-grinders, tinkers, beggars; in short, the entirely undefined, disintegrating mass, thrown hither and yon, which the French call la bohème.

It’s a comprehensive list of societal outcasts, a testament to Marx’s observational skills, even if his conclusions were rather judgmental. The inclusion of "literati" here is particularly biting, suggesting that even intellectuals could fall into this amorphous, unreliable mass if they lacked the proper revolutionary rigor.

Capital

In his magnum opus, Capital: Critique of Political Economy (1867), Marx shifts his focus somewhat. Here, he contends that legislation actively transformed soldiers and peasants "en masse into beggars, robbers, vagabonds, partly from inclination, in most cases from stress of circumstances." This marks a notable departure from his earlier emphasis on the inherent viciousness and degeneracy of the Lumpenproletariat seen in his French writings. Instead, he begins to frame the Lumpenproletariat as an integral, if unfortunate, part of what he termed the "industrial reserve army."

This "industrial reserve army" was a theoretical construct, a pool of surplus labor that capitalists could exploit as economic conditions dictated, to drive down wages and suppress worker demands. Thus, "vagabonds, criminals, prostitutes" and other members of the Lumpenproletariat were recast as an essential, if undesirable, element within the "surplus population" inherent in a capitalist system. They were not merely moral failures, but a functional, if lamentable, byproduct of capitalist accumulation. This perspective offers a more systemic, less moralistic, explanation for their existence, portraying them as victims of structural forces rather than simply agents of their own depravity. It suggests a more profound, and perhaps more unsettling, truth about the underlying mechanics of capital.

Left-wing views

Social Democratic Party of Germany

The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) was quick to weaponize the term Lumpenproletariat in its political rhetoric. They deployed it with particular zeal to define the acceptable boundaries of their "desirable" working class, effectively excluding the "non-respectable poor" from their ranks. By the early 20th century, the German Marxist tradition had solidified this stance, viewing any workers who operated outside the purview of the SPD and/or established labor unions as members of the Lumpenproletariat. It was a convenient way to delegitimize dissent or independent action within the broader working class.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, instances of social unrest, rioting, and violence were frequently attributed by the SPD and its official newspaper, Vorwärts, to the nefarious influence of the Lumpenproletariat, often with the added conspiratorial twist of collusion with the secret police. Historian Richard J. Evans argued that, in doing so, the SPD ironically "lost touch with the militancy of the classes which it claimed to represent, a militancy which found expression in frequent outbursts of spontaneous collective protest, both political and industrial, at moments of high social and political tension." They were so busy condemning the "riff-raff" that they failed to recognize the genuine grievances that fueled broader unrest.

For many German socialists during the imperial period, the Lumpenproletariat—particularly prostitutes and pimps, those most visibly outside the bounds of "respectable" labor—represented not merely a "political-moral problem," but also an "objective, biological danger to the health of society." Karl Kautsky, a prominent theoretician, asserted in 1890 that it was the Lumpenproletariat, rather than the "militant industrial proletariat," who primarily suffered from afflictions like alcoholism. This illustrates a disturbing tendency to pathologize the poor and link social deviance with biological or moral inferiority. August Bebel, a pre-World War I leader of the SPD, further connected antisemitic proletarians to the Lumpenproletariat, arguing that their failure to develop proper class consciousness led them to adopt racial, rather than social, explanations for economic inequality. A convenient deflection, if ever there was one.

Bolsheviks and the Soviet Union

Vladimir Lenin, ever the pragmatist, was deeply suspicious of the Lumpenproletariat. He branded any socialist attempts to recruit elements from this group as outright "opportunism." In 1925, Nikolai Bukharin, another prominent Bolshevik, offered a rather vivid characterization of the Lumpenproletariat, describing them as exhibiting "shiftlessness, lack of discipline, hatred of the old, but impotence to construct anything new, an individualistic declassed 'personality' whose actions are based only on foolish caprices." It seems their individualistic tendencies were anathema to the collective discipline demanded by the Bolshevik project.

In a 1932 article titled "How Mussolini Triumphed," Leon Trotsky further elaborated on the dangers posed by the Lumpenproletariat. He described them as "declassed and demoralized," representing the "countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy." He argued that capitalism, in its cynical wisdom, actively utilized these desperate individuals through the insidious mechanism of fascism. This suggests that the Lumpenproletariat, far from being merely passive, could be molded into a destructive force for authoritarian regimes.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, a definitive text written from the Marxist-Leninist perspective, provided its official definition of the Lumpenproletariat:

a declassed strata in an antagonistic society (including vagrants, beggars, and criminal elements) [which] has become particularly widespread under capitalism. It is recruited from various classes and is incapable of organized political struggle. It constitutes, along with the petit bourgeois strata, the social basis of anarchism. The bourgeoisie makes use of the lumpen proletariat as strikebreakers, as participants in fascist pogrom bands, and in other ways. The lumpen proletariat disappears with the abolition of the capitalist system.

This definition is telling, isn't it? It neatly categorizes the Lumpenproletariat as inherently unstable, politically unreliable, and a tool of the enemy, while also conveniently predicting their disappearance under a socialist system—a utopian vision that, like many, failed to materialize neatly.

Interestingly, the term itself was rarely applied to describe any segment of Soviet society. Hemmerle argues that this was because, in the wake of the Russian Revolution of 1917, "millions of people passed through economic conditions that bore a resemblance to the traditional meaning of lumpenproletariat." To use the term internally would be to acknowledge a deep-seated social problem that undermined the idealized narrative of socialist construction. Instead, it was more commonly deployed to label labor movements in capitalist countries that dared to deviate from the pro-Soviet line. Soviet authorities and scholars preferred other euphemisms for their own internal 'undesirables', most notably "déclassé elements" (деклассированные элементы, deklassirovannye elementy). They viewed these individuals, much like Marx did, as "social degenerates, isolated from the forces of production and incapable of having a working-class consciousness." Svetlana Stephenson notes that the Soviet state, "for all its ideology of assistance, cooperation and social responsibility, was ready to descend on them with all its might." The "humanitarian" veneer of the state quickly vanished when confronted with those deemed unproductive or ideologically impure.

China

Mao Zedong, ever the astute observer of social dynamics, offered a more nuanced, and frankly, more pragmatic perspective on the Lumpenproletariat within China. In 1939, he attributed the existence of the Lumpenproletariat (Chinese: 游民无产者, pinyin: yóumín wúchǎnzhě) to China's "colonial and semi-colonial status," arguing that these external pressures had forced a vast number of people in both urban and rural areas into illegitimate occupations and activities. This reframed their existence as a consequence of systemic oppression rather than inherent moral failing.

Even earlier, in 1928, Mao had asserted that "the only way" to integrate these "wayward proletarians" into the revolutionary project was through intensive "thought reform," a process designed "to effect qualitative changes in these elements." He recognized the dual nature of the Lumpenproletariat: they were simultaneously "victimized members of the laboring masses and untrustworthy elements with 'parasitic inclinations'." This inherent contradiction made them prone to "waver between revolution and counterrevolution." A rather inconvenient truth for any revolutionary movement.

Crucially, Mao believed that elements of the Lumpenproletariat, such as members of triads—the organized crime syndicates—"can become revolutionary given proper leadership." This was a significant departure from the orthodox Marxist dismissal. It implied that ideological purity wasn't a prerequisite for revolutionary participation, but could be cultivated through discipline and guidance. Following the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War and the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC), Luo Ruiqing, the then-Minister of Public Security, categorized the Lumpenproletariat (which included sex workers, vagrant gangs, and theft rings) as significant political problems that directly threatened China's internal security. Consequently, these groups were interned in government-run reeducation centers. By 1953, approximately 500,000 individuals had been placed in 920 such centers. Historian Aminda Smith notes that the existence of these "lumpenproletariat reformatories" was crucial to early-PRC rhetoric, as it "validated claims about the devastating effects of the old society and the transformative power of socialist 'truth'." A grim testament to the power of a state to define and 'reform' its undesirables.

Views on its revolutionary potential

By the early 1970s, a growing number of radicals began to question, and ultimately deviate from, the rigid orthodox Marxist viewpoint that the Lumpenproletariat inherently lacked any significant revolutionary potential. Herbert Marcuse, an influential American philosopher and sociologist associated with the Frankfurt School, articulated a particularly provocative stance. He contended that the traditional working class in the United States, having been effectively "bought up by the consumer society," had largely "lost all class consciousness." In this vacuum, Marcuse placed his hopes for genuine revolution on the Lumpenproletariat—the societal outcasts—who, he believed, could be galvanized into action under the leadership of intellectuals. A rather elitist, if desperate, shift in revolutionary strategy.

Marcuse, alongside the profound Afro-Caribbean philosopher Frantz Fanon and other radical intellectuals, boldly proposed that elements of the Lumpenproletariat could, in fact, emerge as leading forces in a revolutionary movement. Michael Denning credits Fanon with effectively resurrecting the term, which had largely faded from mainstream left-wing discourse, in his monumental work, The Wretched of the Earth (1961). Fanon redefined the Lumpenproletariat in the context of colonial societies, specifically identifying it with the peasantry in the Third World who were largely excluded from industrial production. These individuals, he argued, were often untouched by the dominant colonial ideology and were therefore "ready, capable and willing to revolt against the colonial status quo for liberation." He famously described them as "one of the most spontaneous and the most radically revolutionary forces of a colonized people."

However, Fanon was not entirely uncritical of the Lumpenproletariat. He acknowledged their inherent unpredictability, stemming from "their ignorance and incomprehension," which made them susceptible to manipulation. He recognized that colonial forces could, and often did, exploit them as hired soldiers, turning their desperation into a tool of oppression.

Fanon's controversial re-evaluation of the term sparked considerable debate and scholarly inquiry, including critical analyses by figures like Pierre Bourdieu and Charles van Onselen. The African revolutionary Amílcar Cabral, for instance, remained skeptical about the Lumpenproletariat's utility in anti-colonial liberation movements. His African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde strategically recruited déclassé groups, but deliberately avoided the Lumpenproletariat itself, noting that the latter often actively supported the Portuguese colonial police. In the absence of a developed proletariat in Guinea and Cape Verde, the déclassé elements, rather than the true lumpen, played a dynamic role in the anti-colonial struggle. This highlights a practical distinction: those merely displaced from class structures might still be organized, whereas the truly lumpen were seen as too atomized or compromised. Historian Martin Meredith further illustrated this point by documenting how Ethiopian ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam cynically utilized "the lumpen-proletariat of the slums" to facilitate his brutal Red Terror.

Black Panther Party

Laura Pulido argues that, historically, the Lumpenproletariat in the United States has been disproportionately composed of African Americans. This grim reality, she contends, is a direct consequence of the nation's racially constituted social structure, starkly evidenced by the persistently high rates of unemployment and incarceration among African Americans. A rather inconvenient truth for those who prefer to ignore systemic inequalities.

The Black Panther Party, arguably the most prominent revolutionary socialist organization in post-war America, quite openly "thought of much of their following as lumpenproletarian." They consciously embraced and adapted Fanon's controversial viewpoint regarding the revolutionary potential of this marginalized group. Pulido emphasizes that this deliberate focus on the Lumpenproletariat was a defining hallmark of the Black Panthers' unique approach.

Co-founders Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton recognized the African-American Lumpenproletariat not just as victims, but as a potentially formidable, organized threat if the party failed to mobilize them effectively. Seale's definition of the Lumpenproletariat was inclusive, encompassing "the brother who's pimping, the brother who's hustling, the unemployed, the downtrodden, the brother who's robbing banks, who's not politically conscious." Newton, in turn, affectionately referred to them as "street brothers," seeing them as fundamentally alienated from the oppressive system in the US, and actively sought to recruit them into the party's ranks.

However, this strategy was not without its significant controversies and inherent challenges. Critics such as Chris Booker and Errol Henderson argued that many of the internal problems faced by the Black Panthers—including "a lack of discipline, a tendency toward violence, the importation of street culture, including crime, and the use of weapons"—were direct consequences of the disproportionately high membership of Lumpenproletariat elements within their ranks. It seems that even revolutionary fervor can struggle against deeply ingrained social behaviors.

Young Lords Party

Mirroring the strategic vision of the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords Party also embraced the revolutionary potential of the lumpen. They established a dedicated "Lumpen Organization" within their broader structure, with the explicit aim of enlisting individuals categorized as the Lumpenproletariat (or simply "lumpen") into their struggle for liberation. They defined the lumpen as "the class in our nation which for years and years have not been able to find jobs, and are forced to be drug addicts, prostitutes, etc." in the face of the oppressive capitalist system they sought to dismantle.

Crucially, the Young Lords Party directly challenged traditional Marxist criticisms regarding the lumpen's supposed lack of productivity and organizational capacity. They asserted a radical principle: "it's a law of revolution that the most oppressed group takes the leadership position" (p. 42). This bold declaration positioned the lumpen as the immediate and central focus of the party's organizing efforts, believing they held the key to liberating all oppressed peoples. It was a powerful, if idealistic, inversion of classical Marxist dogma, placing the most marginalized at the vanguard.

Criticism

The concept of the Lumpenproletariat, while influential, has not escaped sharp criticism. Ernesto Laclau, a prominent post-Marxist theorist, argued that Marx's rather dismissive treatment of the Lumpenproletariat exposed a fundamental limitation in his theory of economic determinism. Laclau contended that this group, with its inherent unpredictability, functioned as an "absolute outside" that constantly threatened the internal coherence and neat categories of ideological identifications, particularly in the context of populist politics. It was a wild card that defied easy categorization.

Mark Cowling, another astute critic, suggests that the "concept is being used for its political impact rather than because it provides good explanations." He argues that its political utility is, in fact, "pernicious" and serves as an "obstacle to clear analysis." When a term is more about rhetorical dismissal than rigorous understanding, its analytical value inevitably diminishes. Laura Pulido further complicates the picture by highlighting the considerable diversity within the lumpen population, particularly in terms of their individual and collective consciousness. To paint them all with a single, broad brushstroke of "lack of consciousness" is to ignore the complex realities of their existence.

Anarchist criticism

Unsurprisingly, classical anarchists, with their inherent distrust of rigid hierarchies and categorical dismissals, often took a diametrically opposed view to Marx. Post-anarchist Saul Newman noted in 2010 that classical anarchists vigorously argued that the Lumpenproletariat should, in fact, be designated as a revolutionary class. This was a direct challenge to the Marxist orthodoxy.

According to Tom Brass, the individualist anarchist Max Stirner went so far as to "celebrated the lumpenproletariat as authentic rebels," seeing in their defiance of societal norms a genuine spirit of liberation. This is a stark contrast to Marx's portrayal. Perhaps the most famous, or notorious, anarchist to champion the lumpen was Mikhail Bakunin, whom Engels himself, with a touch of exasperated contempt, dubbed "the lumpen prince." Bakunin, in a powerful inversion of Marxist thought, wrote that it was only in the Lumpenproletariat, "and not in the bourgeois strata of workers, are there crystallised the entire intelligence and power of the coming Social Revolution."

Thoburn points out that for Bakunin, the Lumpenproletariat represented a "kind of actually existing anarchism," a living embodiment of resistance to state and capital. Ann Robertson further elaborates that Bakunin believed in "a natural essence [inherent] in humanity which can be suppressed but never entirely extinguished." Consequently, those most distant from the oppressive state apparatus—the scattered peasants, the Lumpenproletariat who simply refused to obey laws—were, in his view, "accordingly natural leaders." Bakunin's passionate declaration captures this sentiment:

that eternal 'meat', [...] that great rabble of the people (underdogs, 'dregs of society') ordinarily designated by Marx and Engels in the picturesque and contemptuous phrase lumpenproletariat. I have in mind the 'riffraff', that 'rabble' almost unpolluted by bourgeois civilization, which carries in its inner being and in its aspirations [...] all the seeds of the socialism of the future...

This is a profoundly romanticized view, perhaps, but it certainly offers a refreshing counterpoint to the Marxist dismissal. It elevates the very qualities Marx found contemptible into virtues of revolutionary potential.

Other uses

The term Lumpenproletariat, with its inherent pejorative connotations, has found broader application beyond strict Marxist analysis, often deployed to stigmatize and dehumanize marginalized groups. Robert Ritter, who spearheaded Nazi Germany's chilling efforts to track the genealogies of the Romani people, dismissed them as a "highly inferior Lumpenproletariat." His rationale was that they were "parasites who lacked ambition and many of them had become habitual criminals," a justification that conveniently aligned with the Nazi regime's genocidal ideology.

Similarly, in post-World War II communist-ruled Eastern and Central Europe, the Romani people were frequently viewed through the lens of the Lumpenproletariat. This categorization then served as a pretext for aggressive policies of forced assimilation, ostensibly aimed at integrating them into the socialist productive workforce, but in reality, erasing their distinct cultural identity.

In the realm of cultural studies, Ken Gelder observed that subcultures are frequently "positioned outside of class, closer in kind to Marx's lumpenproletariat, lacking social consciousness, self-absorbed or self-interested, at a distance from organised or sanctioned forms of labour, and so on." This highlights how the term continues to be used to dismiss groups that don't conform to conventional societal or economic structures, regardless of their actual class position.

Ukrainian historian Volodymyr Kravchenko, for instance, used the term to describe the titushky, pro–Viktor Yanukovych provocateurs who were active during the Euromaidan protests of 2013–14, referring to them as "lumpen elements." This application suggests a continued use of the term to denote disorganized, often violent, and politically unreliable individuals exploited by established powers.

Sociologist Mark Traugott further engaged with the concept, utilizing it across three distinct publications. His detailed study, based on official records, examined the composition of both the proletariat and the Lumpenproletariat in Paris, France, during the June 1848 confrontation. What he found was rather illuminating: no essential difference between the two contending groups, and no significant difference between either group and the general population of Paris. Traugott's findings indicated that both the proletariat and the Lumpenproletariat accurately represented the broader demographic makeup of the city.

This discovery led Traugott to confirm that both the proletariat and the Lumpenproletariat were indeed historical classes existing within the broader, non-historical "working class." This then prompted him to speculate that if the creators of the concept identified two historical classes within the ahistorical working class—one with class consciousness and the other with "obedience consciousness"—then perhaps there might be more than just two. He hypothesized that the non-historical working class could also encompass a third historical class, the religiousproletariat, bound by a religious consciousness; a fourth class, the rightsproletariat, driven by a human rights consciousness; and a fifth historical class, the ecoproletariat, motivated by an environmental consciousness. A rather expansive, and perhaps more accurate, view of the diverse motivations that drive human action beyond mere economic determinism.

In American political discourse

The term Lumpenproletariat, or its contemporary synonyms, has frequently surfaced in American political discourse, particularly when discussing issues of poverty and social stratification. A 1979 report by the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education issued a stark warning: the US was at risk of creating "a permanent underclass, a self‐perpetuating culture of poverty, a substantial 'lumpen proletariat.'" This foreshadowed decades of debate about the persistence of poverty.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, a prominent civil rights advocate, echoed these concerns in 1985, articulating a chilling prognosis: "An American version of a lumpenproletariat (the so-called underclass), without work and without hope, existing at the margins of society, could bring down the great cities, sap resources and strength from the entire society and, lacking the usual means to survive, prey upon those who possess them." This fear of a desperate, marginalized population turning to crime and social disorder has been a recurring motif in American policy discussions.

According to political scientist Marie Gottschalk, the aggressive "tough-on-crime" policies disproportionately targeting African Americans have been fueled by a cynical political manipulation of public fears. This narrative posits a lumpen underclass threatening the majority, with African Americans perceived as having resorted to crime due to their economic marginalization in the wake of deindustrialization. It’s a convenient narrative that shifts blame from systemic economic shifts to individual moral failings.

Mark Cowling drew a compelling parallel, arguing for a considerable similarity in both definition and function between Marx's Lumpenproletariat and the contemporary theory of the "underclass" as advanced by Charles Murray, an influential American conservative political scientist. While Murray and Richard Herrnstein deliberately avoided using the term in their controversial 1994 book, The Bell Curve, Malcolm Browne noted in a New York Times review that the authors implicitly argued that the United States was fragmenting "between an isolated caste of ruling meritocrats on one hand and a vast, powerless Lumpenproletariat on the other. Society, the authors predict, will have little use for this underclass in a world dominated by sophisticated machines and the bright human beings who tend them." A rather bleak, and perhaps self-fulfilling, prophecy.

More recently, several commentators and researchers have analyzed Donald Trump's political base through the lens of a modern American Lumpenproletariat. The term "Trumpen Proletariat" was coined by Jonah Goldberg in 2015 to describe Trump's "biggest fans," whom he believed "are not to be relied upon in the conservative cause," much in the same way the original Lumpenproletariat was deemed unreliable for a socialist revolution. Daniel Henninger also employed the term in The Wall Street Journal. Francis Levy drew a direct comparison between Hillary Clinton's infamous "basket of deplorables" phrase, used to characterize some Trump supporters during the 2016 presidential election campaign, and Marx's own rhetoric regarding the Lumpenproletariat. This suggests that the impulse to dismiss and demonize a politically inconvenient segment of the population is a bipartisan, and perhaps timeless, human tendency. In 2020, Ryan Lizza introduced "Biden Proletariat" to describe a new underclass of campaign workers and supporters—"veterans of the Biden campaign"—who found themselves cast aside during post-election White House staffing, thus, he argued, perpetuating a tradition in Democratic politics of abandoning loyal political workers in favor of well-connected political elites. The more things change, the more the political machine finds new ways to create its own disposable classes.

Usage in India

The concept of the Lumpenproletariat has also found resonance in analyses of social and political dynamics in India. Ranjit Gupta, the Inspector General of the West Bengal Police, asserted in 1973 that the Maoist Naxalite rebels in India were composed of "some intellectuals and lumpen proletariat." He claimed their primary target was policemen, believing that "if the police force could be torn apart, so could society." This highlights the perceived disruptive potential of such groups when coupled with ideological leadership.

Political scientist Atul Kohli, in his 2001 book, observed a disturbing trend: "a variety of lumpen groups, especially unemployed youth in northern India, have joined right-wing proto-fascist movements in recent years," specifically mentioning the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). This aligns with the original Marxist warning about the Lumpenproletariat's susceptibility to reactionary forces. In the 2010s, the rise of cow vigilantism in India has been linked by commentators like Pavan Varma to "lumpen Hindu fanaticism" and by Bhalchandra Mungekar to "lumpen and self-appointed gau rakshaks." These instances illustrate how a marginalized, often unemployed, segment of society can be mobilized by extremist ideologies, transforming their desperation into a tool for social control and violence.

Genocides and crimes against humanity

It’s a grim truth that, throughout history, when the powerful wish to commit unspeakable atrocities while maintaining a semblance of 'clean hands' for the broader public, they often turn to paramilitary groups. These groups, in turn, frequently recruit from the ranks of criminals and elements of the Lumpenproletariat. These individuals, often already accustomed to violence and brutality, are enticed by the prospect of enjoying opportunities for looting and a fleeting sense of power. The Lumpenproletariat has, quite disturbingly, been identified as being more prone to adhering to doctrines that advocate for ethnic cleansing and to organizing themselves into brutal militias. Their desperation and lack of social ties can make them terrifyingly effective instruments of destruction.

During the horrific Armenian genocide, for instance, prisoners were deliberately pardoned and released from jails to serve in irregular bands, or çetes. These criminals and other elements of the Lumpenproletariat were offered the promise of gaining respectability, wealth, and social standing through their active participation in the genocide. It’s a cynical bargain that exchanges human lives for personal gain and societal acceptance.

In the brutal theater of World War II, the German Waffen-SS Dirlewanger Brigade stands as a chilling example. This unit deliberately recruited poachers and criminals, initially to guard the ghetto in Lublin, and later to wage the brutal Bandenbekämpfung (bandit-fighting) operations on the Eastern Front. Their pre-existing criminality was not a hindrance, but a perverse qualification for the barbarity required.

During the Rwandan genocide, particularly in Kigali, the infamous Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi militias, which largely recruited from the poorer segments of the population, began to draw in a "lumpenproletariat of street boys." For these desperate individuals, the genocide, in its unspeakable horror, offered a perverse opportunity for agency, resources, and a sense of belonging.

The various Serbian militias that operated during the Bosnian War, such as the Serb Volunteer Guard and the White Eagles, were also extensively described as recruiting from the Lumpenproletariat. Estimates suggest that as much as eighty percent of the Bosnian Serb paramilitary troops were, in fact, criminals. Disturbingly, Croat and Bosnian units also followed suit, drawing criminals into their ranks. The lines between state-sanctioned violence and organized criminality blurred into oblivion.

In Darfur, some of the Janjaweed militia were recruited directly from prisons or were bandits who formally joined governmental forces. Marc Lavergne, author of Le Soudan contemporain, aptly described them as a "rural lumpenproletariat." These examples underscore a consistent, horrifying pattern: the marginalized and criminalized elements of society are often the most readily available, and most ruthlessly effective, tools for regimes seeking to commit mass violence.

Sociological research

Political leanings

The political inclinations of the Lumpenproletariat have been a subject of ongoing sociological inquiry, often confirming Marx's initial, rather cynical, assessment. Ernesto Ragionieri, an Italian Marxist historian, presented compelling evidence in his 1953 book, Un comune socialista, which supported the notion that the Lumpenproletariat fundamentally acts as a conservative force. His research, based on a study of Sesto Fiorentino, revealed that approximately 450–500 members of the working class had aligned themselves with the liberal-conservative party. This party, dominated by landowners, industrialists, and professionals, offered a tangible, immediate benefit: recommendations that could secure employment at Richard-Ginori, the largest local employer, which notoriously refused to hire socialists. This illustrates a pragmatic, self-interested calculus: immediate survival often trumps ideological solidarity, a truth that Marx observed with weary resignation.

Violence

In 1966, sociologist David Matza identified disorder and violence as two of the most salient characteristics of the "disreputable poor," a category closely aligned with the Lumpenproletariat. This observation points to the behavioral manifestations of extreme marginalization. Later, in his 1977 book Class, State, and Crime, Marxist historian Richard Quinney specifically defined "lumpen crimes" (or "predatory crimes") as those committed purely for personal profit. This differentiates them from crimes motivated by political consciousness or revolutionary intent, further reinforcing the idea of the lumpen's self-serving nature.

A 1986 study by sociologist David Brownfield further explored this connection. He defined the "lumpen-proletariat" (or the "disreputable poor") by their chronic unemployment and reliance on welfare benefits. His research concluded that "while no significant effects of class can be found using a neo-Marxist conception of class, gradational measures of class (occupation and education)... Measures of disreputable poverty—unemployment and welfare status [recipiency]—are relatively strong correlates of violent behavior." He elaborated on these findings:

The frustrations and the anger associated with unemployment and being on welfare are compounded by the lack of such fundamental necessities as food, clothing, and shelter among some of the disreputable poor. It would seem self-evident that such an environment of absolute deprivation may be the breeding grounds for discontent and violence.

This offers a more empathetic, yet still stark, explanation for the observed violence, attributing it to the crushing pressures of absolute deprivation rather than inherent moral failing. It suggests that violence isn't a choice, but a desperate byproduct of systemic failure.

Derivations

The evocative, if often pejorative, nature of "Lumpenproletariat" has inspired a lineage of similar terms, each designed to categorize and often dismiss specific groups by analogy.

Lumpenintelligentsia: This term emerged, particularly in Britain, to depreciatively describe "a section of the intelligentsia regarded as making no useful contribution to society, or as lacking taste, culture, etc. Also more generally: the intelligentsia collectively, regarded as worthless or powerless." It’s a delightful way to dismiss intellectuals one finds inconvenient or unproductive, echoing the original contempt for the unproductive poor.
Lumpenbourgeoisie: This term first appeared among German Socialist writers in the 1920s, partly as an attempt to comprehend the rise of Hitler and National Socialism. It was later re-popularized and significantly developed by sociologist Andre Gunder Frank in his influential works on dependency theory. In Frank's framework, the lumpenbourgeoisie refers to a class within developing, "peripheral" nations that is complicit in maintaining a detrimental flow of resources from their own impoverished states to a "core" of wealthy, developed nations. They are, in essence, the local collaborators in global exploitation.
Lumpen militariat: Coined by Ali Mazrui in 1973, this term describes a newly emerging "class of semi-organized, rugged, and semi-literate soldiery which has begun to claim a share of power and influence in what would otherwise have become a heavily privileged meritocracy of the educated" in post-colonial Africa. It captures the rise of military strongmen and factions who, often lacking formal education or traditional legitimacy, assert power through force, reflecting the chaotic and often brutal realities of post-colonial state-building.

These derivations demonstrate the enduring, if often problematic, utility of the "lumpen" prefix to denote a marginalized, often disreputable, and politically unreliable segment of any given social class. It seems the human compulsion to label and dismiss those who don’t fit neatly into prescribed categories is a persistent one.