Proletariat
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The proletariat (from Latin [proletarius] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), a citizen of the lowest class) is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is proletarian. Originally it was identified as those people who had no wealth other than their children.
Usage in Marxist theory
In Marxist theory, the proletariat is the class of a capitalist society that does not have ownership of the means of production and whose only means of subsistence is to sell their labour power[1] for a wage or salary. Proletarians are wage-workers, while some refer to those who receive salaries as the salariat. For Marx, however, wage labour may involve getting a salary rather than a wage per se. Marxism sees the proletariat and bourgeoisie (capitalist class) as occupying conflicting positions, since workers automatically wish their wages to be as high as possible, while owners and their proxies wish for wages (costs) to be as low as possible.
In Marxist theory, the borders between the proletariat and some layers of the petite bourgeoisie, who rely primarily but not exclusively on self-employment at an income no different from an ordinary wage or below it; and the lumpen proletariat, who are not in legal employment; are not necessarily well defined. Intermediate positions are possible, where some wage-labor for an employer combines with self-employment. While class belonging is often hard to determine in the case of each individual person, from the standpoint of society as a whole, taken in its movement (i.e. history), the class divisions are incontestable; the easiest proof of their existence is the class struggle - strikes, for instance. While an employee may be subjectively unsure of his class belonging, when his workmates come out on strike he is objectively forced to follow one class (his workmates, i.e. the proletariat) over the other (management, i.e. the bourgeoisie). Marx makes a clear distinction between proletariat as salaried workers, which he sees a progressive class, and Lumpenproletariat, "rag-proletariat", the poorest and outcasts of the society, such as beggars, tricksters, entertainers, buskers, criminals and prostitutes, which he considers a retrograde class.[2][3] Socialist parties have often struggled over the question of whether they should seek to organize and represent all the lower classes, or just the wage-earning proletariat.
According to Marxism, capitalism is a system based on the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. This exploitation takes place as follows: the workers, who own no means of production of their own, must use the means of production that are property of others in order to produce, and, consequently, earn their living. Instead of hiring those means of production, they themselves get hired by capitalists and work for them, producing goods or services. These goods or services become the property of the capitalist, who sells them at the market.
One part of the wealth produced is used to pay the workers' wages (variable costs), another part to renew the means of production (constant costs) while the third part, surplus value is split between the capitalist's private takings (profit), and the money used to pay rents, taxes, interests, etc. Surplus value is the difference between the wealth that the proletariat produces through its work, and the wealth it consumes in order to survive and to provide labour to the capitalist companies.[4] A part of the surplus value is used to renew or increase the means of production, either in quantity or quality (i.e., it is turned into capital), and is called capitalised surplus value[5]. Other part is used for the consumption of capitalists.
The commodities that proletarians produce and capitalists sell, are valued for the amount of labour embodied in them. The same goes for the workers' labour power itself: it is valued, not for the amount of wealth it produces, but for the amount of labour necessary to produce and reproduce it. Thus the capitalists earn wealth from the labour of their employees, not as a function of their personal contribution to the productive process, which may even be null, but as a function of the juridical relation of property to the means of production. Marxists argue that new wealth is created through labour applied to natural resources.[6]
Therefore, if someone gains wealth through the monopoly of means of production, then those who work to produce that wealth do not receive the full wealth created by their labour, nor do they have a say in the use of the wealth appropriated by the proprietors of means of production. Thus, Marxists argue that capitalists make a profit by exploiting the proletariat.
Marx argued that it was the goal of the proletariat to displace the capitalist system with the dictatorship of the proletariat, abolishing the social relationships underpinning the class system and then developing into a communist society in which "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."[7].
Usage in Roman Law
The proletarii according to the Constitution of the Roman Republic were men without property. The proletarii were also called capite censi because they were "persons registered not as to their property which was below the lowest census for military service, but simply as to their existence as living individuals, pimarily as heads (caput) of a family."[8]
The Comitia Centuriata was an ancient people's assembly composed of centuriae (nominally, groups of about 100 men) who were classified according to the value of each one's property. It met on the Campus Martius. Latter Roman historians understood it as a means of designating military duties demanded and voting rights granted according to wealth; yet this assembly was already obsolete in the late Republic (509-44 B.C.) and ill-understood. A favored reconstruction of the Comitia Centuriata has 18 centuries of calvary, and 170 centuries of infantry divided into five classes by wealth, plus 5 centuries of support personnel. The top class assembled with full arms and armor; the next two classes brought arms and armor, but less and lesser; the fourth class only spears; the fifth slings. In voting the top class and calvary were enough to decide an issue; the voting started at the top, so that an issue might be decided before the lower classes voted.[9] The membership of these five classes were called adsidui. Excluded were the proletarii, those who did not qualify for any of these five classes because "they had not even the minimum property required for the lowest class. Their sole possession was their children, proles; hence the name. The proletarii were the poorest stratum of the population."[10] One of the five support centuries possibly was composed of proletarii (who were usually free of military service, except in the case of emergencies).[11]
The number of Roman family farmers became significantly reduced perhaps due to overreaching or corruption by the Senate oligarchy following the Second Punic War (218-201). As a result there were not enough people whose property qualified them to perform the citizen's military duty to Rome.[12] The Roman general Gaius Marius (157-86), a plebian originally sprung from poor rural roots, in 107 first introduced the widespread use of proletarii in the Roman Army, which action was known as the Marian reforms.[13]
Karl Marx, the son of a lawyer, himself studied Roman Law at the University of Berlin.[14]
Other usage
Arnold J. Toynbee uses the term "internal" and "external proletariat" in his work "A Study of History" to describe the groups within and external to the frontiers of the state, who during the time of troubles, the World Empire and the decay of a civilization, are progressively disenfranchised, and come to have little loyalty to the survival of that civilization.
See also
Notes
- ^ http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm
- ^ Lumpen proletariat -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia
- ^ Marx, Karl. The Communist Manifesto, part I, Bourgeois and Proletarians. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
- ^ Marx, Karl. The Capital, volume 1, chapter 6. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm
- ^ Luxemburg, Rosa. The Accumulation of Capital. Chapter 6, Enlarged Reproduction. http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/ch06.htm
- ^ Marx, Karl. Critique of the Gotha Programme, I. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch01.htm
- ^ Marx, Karl. The Communist Manifesto, part II, Proletarians and Communists http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm
- ^ Adolf Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society 1953) at 380; 657.
- ^ Andrew Lintott, The Constitution of the Roman Republic (Oxford University 1999) at 55-61.
- ^ Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law (1953) at 657; 351.
- ^ Lintott, The Constitution of the Roman Republic (1999) at 58.
- ^ Cf., Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome (1854-1856; 1862-1866; reprint: The Free Press 1957) at III: 48-55 (Bk.III, ch.XI toward end).
- ^ H. H. Scullard, Gracchi to Nero. A History of Rome from 133BC to AD68 (London: Methuen 1959, 4th ed. 1976) at 51-52.
- ^ Cf., Sidney Hook, Marx and the Marxists (Princeton: Van Nostrand 1955) at 13.
References
- Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, Vol. 2; The Politics of Social Classes. Monthly Review Press.
External links
- Communism.org - collage of topics from a proletarian perspective by "Ben Seattle"
- "Workerism". Antagonism. Archived from the original on 2006-02-14. A critique of "workerism" with a Marxian definition of proletariat.
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