> Another popular misconception is that "working class" includes
> every poor person regardless of his relation to work and production
> (i.e. workers as well as lumpen, homeless, criminals etc. Many
> populists and "activistists" (as Doug and Liza aptly labeled them)
> hold a noble-savage notion of class that relies almost exlcusively
> on cultural identities associated with low socio-economic status
> and exclude professionnals and middle class.
Social categories in social theory are of necessity fuzzy: they are bundles of political, analytical, emotional statements, and they are bundled differently according to who does the bundling. (This fact tends to drive empiricists up the wall.)
But some categories are fuzzier than others. (At least you can define who the homeless are, for instance, even though they are hard to count, and even though it's odd to make them a separate category from workers, as a number of homeless individuals except children work, and the unemployed and homeless -- even the chronically unemployed and homeless -- are still part of the working class, just as working-class housewives, working-class mentally ill, etc. are.) The fuzziest of all categories must be "lumpen."
What are lumpen? Who are they? How many lumpens exist in the USA in particular and the world in general? Are they growing in number? It seems impossible to answer such questions at all. About workers, capitalists, etc., you can attempt definitions and answers, based on your political perspective and social theory, however contradictory and unsatisfactory to others, but "lumpen" seems to defy any such attempts, and in truth, few have and would bother. I propose that the category be retired from use.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>