>
> Capitalism is not the cause of lumpen and associated factors like poverty or
> "rural idiocy" (as the Old Man would say it) - but an insufficient cause of
> its elimination. It is the various factors that can summarily be dubbed as
> the idiocy of the pre-modern life that create it. Capitalism eliminated
> some of it for some people, but left many other behind. Socialism will
> presumably do better, but some will still be left behind even under
> socialism. That is fact of life - nothing is perfect.
>
> To summarize:
> Pre capitalism - the prevailing condition is that of the lumpen and "rural
> idiocy" which only a few aristocrats can escape.
As CB and I have repeatedly pointed out, this is a gross misrepresentation of human cultural history. The conditions that Woj calls "lumpen" do not exist in many nonindustrial, noncapitalist societies; excoriating these societies for their "rural idiocy" is base ethnocentrism and/or ignorance of the cultural and historical record. The "lumpen" are a product of social relations in our society, full stop.
Miles