The
proletariat is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a
society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power. A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philosophy considers the
proletariat to be exploited under capitalism, forced to accept meager wages in return for operating the means of production, which belong to the class of
business owners, the
bourgeoisie. Marx argued that this
oppression gives the
proletariat common economic and political interests that transcend national boundaries, impelling them to unite and take over power from the capitalist class, and eventually to create a
communist society free from class distinctions.
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Marx used the term
proletariat in his socio-political theory (Marxism) to describe a progressive
working class untainted by
private property and capable of
revolutionary action to topple capitalism and abolish
social classes, leading
society to ever higher levels of prosperity and
justice. Marx defined the
proletariat as the social class having no significant ownership of the means of production and whose only means of subsistence is to sell their labor power for a wage or salary.
Lumpenproletariat refers to the underclass devoid of class
consciousness. It may be used in an informal disapproving manner to describe people who are not clever or well educated, and who are not interested in changing or improving their situation.
Class War, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in
society consequent to socio-economic competition among the
social classes or between rich and poor. The forms of class
conflict include direct violence such as
wars for resources and cheap labor, assassinations, indirect violence such as deaths from
poverty and starvation, illness and unsafe working conditions, and economic coercion. In the political and economic philosophies of
Karl Marx and
Mikhail Bakunin, class struggle is a central tenet and a practical means for effecting
radical social and political changes for the social majority. The anarchist Mikhail
… Read more Bakunin said that the class struggles of the
working class, the peasantry, and the working poor were central to realizing a social
revolution to depose and replace the ruling class, and the creation of libertarian
socialism. In political
science, socialists and Marxists use the term class
conflict to define a social class by its relationship to the means of production, such as factories, agricultural land, and industrial machinery. The social control of labor and of the production of goods and services, is a political contest between the
social classes. Marx's theory of history proposes that class
conflict is decisive in the history of economic systems organized by hierarchies of social class such as capitalism and feudalism. Marxists refer to its overt manifestations as
class war, a struggle whose resolution in favor of the
working class is viewed by them as inevitable under plutocratic capitalism.
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