Saw some marxist-brained dipshit calling ICE officers "lumpenproletariat." ...Cops. Literal employed wage workers enshrined by the state. That's so stupid. Shut the fuck up. I hope a homeless person shanks you. I hope a sex worker robs you. - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

rechelon.bsky.social • 16 days ago

Saw some marxist-brained dipshit calling ICE officers "lumpenproletariat." ...Cops. Literal employed wage workers enshrined by the state.

That's so stupid. Shut the fuck up. I hope a homeless person shanks you. I hope a sex worker robs you.

Comments

longdefiant.bsky.social•16 days ago

In Marxist theory, the Lumpenproletariat is the underclass devoid of class consciousness. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels coined the word in the 1840s and used it to refer to the unthinking lower strata of society exploited by reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces... (Wikipedia)

longdefiant.bsky.social•16 days ago

I agree it's stretching the definition a bit. Certainly cops aren't devoid of class consciousness.

They are certainly used/exploited for reactionary and counter-revolutionary purposes, though.

Probably could use a better word... Brown shirts?

rechelon.bsky.social•16 days ago

Marx was leaning on a class hostility to the destitute and criminal that anarchists do not share. We should not be "proles first."

"Used exploited for reactionary purposes" is not a good analysis of "lumpen" in any distinct sense.

durruticalm.bsky.social•15 days ago

That almost sounds like Lyndon Johnson's line about getting white proles to fall in line with bourgeois whites picking their pockets as long as they have a racialized enemy to look down on...

rechelon.bsky.social•16 days ago

What's happening here is that marxism appeals to middle and upper classes and tries to stretch "worker/prole" as wide as possible in order to give them buy-in, but they retain their class hostility towards the lowest in society (homeless, sex workers, etc). Thus they treat lumpen like an apex slur.

daphnelawless.com•16 days ago

I wonder how that classical Marxist position would change in an era where sex work is being decriminalised and sex workers are increasingly forming unions

rechelon.bsky.social•16 days ago

But if I must choose a single class to side with in some crude class-first analysis I will always side with the lowest in society. I was homeless as a child. I was spat on by "workers." Anarchism is not about ruthlessly "rallying the largest class base" but about siding with the most oppressed.

longdefiant.bsky.social•16 days ago

Enlightening, thank you.

I always look at the "lumpen" as an opportunity rather than projecting hostility.

It's wasteful to cut people out of the long revolution.

owningyourokayness.bsky.social•9 days ago

Tankies must have reported this skeet because it's been labeled Rude by moderation

jaypee.bsky.social•16 days ago

I'm a Marxist*

*have never read marx, or even a cliff's notes summary of marx, not even that cartoon by Rius

beecherbibles56.bsky.social•16 days ago

Marxist theory is dumb and not to be taken seriously but there is a valid argument that to be an actual worker you have to work, and law enforcement officers don’t tend to actually work but chronically engage in work avoidance for a requisite number of weekly hours to collect their pay.

beecherbibles56.bsky.social•16 days ago

It makes sense to call police lumenproles because they are a verisimilitude of wage laborers rather than an example of them. But again, none of it matters because Marxism is a useless framework from which to analyze the world.

durruticalm.bsky.social•15 days ago

depends what agency they are in

rechelon.bsky.social•16 days ago

I mean that sort of definitional play would have huge consequences in that classic autonomist work-avoidance by workers ("...that's why I take a shit on company time") would transform them into lumpen, but so too would be white collar office workers?

beecherbibles56.bsky.social•16 days ago

Maybe, but I return to my other point - Marxism is silly, so I don’t worry too much about what implications different sorts of outlook have for it.

durruticalm.bsky.social•15 days ago

Cops are class traitors and their unions do not represent a struggle for any kind of social good

tektology-enjoyer.bsky.social•16 days ago

Thought Sam Bowles' notion of "guard labor" was an interesting angle on cops' (and cop-adjacents') class character https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/15/one-nation-under-guard/

tektology-enjoyer.bsky.social•16 days ago

I think I get what the person you're quoting might mean tho? Cuz iirc the defining moment for the Lumpen-as-such was them making up a lot of Louis Napoleon's hastily-recruited Mobile Guard. So it's not just people in precarious/illegal work, the prototype is "mafioso breaking citrus grove strike"

blackavar-inle.bsky.social•16 days ago

Lemme look something up real quick

[one wikipedia article later]

...Okay yeah that's... that's the literal opposite of a criminalized social underclass