Ask Lemmygrad

The Lumpenproletariat refers to families who do not regularly perform proper work.

Something to keep in mind is that Marx lived in a time before employment contracts were standard for Proletarians. Back then "Employee" often referred to a certain type of professional class person who sympathized with Scholars and Small Burghers. These are the days where a dozen people would just gather around workplaces - factories, ports, etc. - in the morning hoping to be given work.

Being temporarily unemployed, especially if you're getting unemployment checks, doesn't make you Lumpenproletarian. Being a NEET living in your mom's basement doesn't make you one, because class is largely determined at the family unit level. And this may be controversial, but IMO it also doesn't include alienated individuals who subsist on government subsidies, such as American Indians or the disabled - they would probably be considered a new sort of class that did not really exist in large numbers in Marx's time and he did not really articulate beyond their classes of origin.

So what is a Lumpenproletarian? The defining trait is that they merely subsist, and do so off of odd jobs, crime and begging. They might live in subsidized or group housing, or on the street or in abandoned properties. In olden times they probably washed cars and polished shoes to get by, but today they might do doordash deliveries. And of course there have always been street performers and prostitutes who would be considered Lumpenproletarian.

Today it might be a prostitute who lives in a rundown tenement trading sex for rent; a petty drug dealer getting by selling drugs on the street; a homeless begger who sleeps in the park and eats out of dumpsters.

As someone who has been in this situation before in my life, this class of people are often in this class for a reason - they're mentally ill, drug addicted, unstable, fugitive; while on an individual level some of them can contribute to the Socialist cause (as Marx says), their revolutionary potential is hampered by their difficulty in organization, much as was the case with the Peasantry.

You are correct. I can't speak much for Mao's writings, but Marx and Engels consider them useless and even dangerous to the revolution, based on their own experiences at the time.

As the name suggests, they are proletarians. However, they lack any sort of class consciousness, and for various reasons, they argue that it would be extremely hard to reform them. Furthermore, they are very susceptible to becoming tools for reactionaries. Marx and Engels had observed this first and third hand in many occasions.

They've kept the term very vague, but they do define it somewhat sometimes

The lumpenproletariat is passive decaying matter of the lowest layers of the old society, is here and there thrust into the [progressive] movement by a proletarian revolution; [however,] in accordance with its whole way of life, it is more likely to sell out to reactionary intrigues.

The Communist Manifesto, Marx & Engels

Alongside ruined roués with questionable means of support and of dubious origin, degenerate and adventurous scions of the bourgeoisie, there were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged convicts, runaway galley slaves, swindlers, charlatans, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, procurers, brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, rag-pickers, knife-grinders, tinkers, beggars; in short, the entirely undefined, disintegrating mass, thrown hither and yon, which the French call la bohème.

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, Marx

So these are the main groups of lumpenproletariat, and why they can't be trusted:

1. The criminals: They are self-serving and greedy to the extreme, and their activities usually involve exploiting other proletarians through threats, violence or deception. If placed inside a movement, they would have no qualms about betraying it by acting as spies, informants or sabboteurs.

2. Prostitutes, drunkards, beggars, addicts: Poverty or addiction has turned these extremely desperate. Their desperation can be exploited and made to also turn into informants.

3. On-and-off workers: Meaning workers who work here and there at various jobs without having a steady salary. Very common thing in the 19th century, where people would gather at a particular street, and then bosses would come by, shout they need these many workers for this work and this pay, and then these people would rush to sign up. Extremely exploited, as they would outcompete each other over who will do the most work for the least pay. Due to their desperation, they are often utilized as strikebreakers.

4. Other people: Who for whatever reason will always be loyal to reactionary forces. In today's terms, that would mean for example an anti-gay Christian conservative in the US, who is dirt poor, but will always support someone like Lindsay Graham, because of his devotion to being anti-gay. If I recall correctly, Marx in a letter referred to retired German soldiers who are conditioned into protecting the upper classes at all costs.

Now, this is a controversial issue, and it's great that you stumbled upon it because, one has to understand that:

a) Marx and Engels lived 200 years ago. Some of their ideas conform more to that time period than to today.

b) You don't have to agree on everything with Marx, as long as you agree with the basics.

Mao, on the other hand, even if he did agree with Marx mostly, he believed it's possible to reform lumpenproletariat, or at least manipulate them, into serving the purposes of the revolution without betraying it.

The important bit:

As you yourself experienced, discussions on the lumpenproletariat usually devolve into arguments about whether or not one should empathize with the lumpenproletariat. This makes people tend to forget whether they should heed Marx's and Engels' warning. I believe 20th century history is rife with examples of why the Lumpenproletariat should not be trusted. Notably:

• All fascists had a base core of supporters from the lumpenproletariat, who became the most devoted foot soldiers for those regimes.

• During the cold war, the most anti-communist segment of the western populace was the lumpenproletariat. To the extend where criminal gangs openly colluded with government organizations like the CIA to destroy socialist movements (e.g. The Mafia collaborating with the CIA in Italy and the US).

• The lumpenproletariat was used extensively to infiltrate leftist parties and break them apart from within. They've also been used as the primary strikebreaking force.

MLs posit that the socialized mode of production under capitalism puts workers in a position where they can grab political power by organizing. The lumpen who exist outside of traditional employment as well as the law are a potential source of counterrevolution. For the imperialists, they are a natural ally/power base, a route to enter a territory. Just look at the zionists using gangs in Gaza to loot aid trucks. Or the americans allying with opium growers in Afghanistan. Or the british getting the Chinese addicted to opium. The first thing the FLN did was go after pimps and drug dealers.

I've skimmed, but I haven't seen this mentioned yet:

My understanding is that the lumpen aren't a revolutionary class because they're morally bad or whatever, but because they don't have power.

The proletariat are revolutionary because of their relationship to the means of production - if they want the machine of capital to stop, it stops.

gangsters, prostitutes etc. basically those who make money through crime and are not interested in communism.

All I know is as Engels and other Marxist authors predicted, scientific Marxist theory evolved over time according to the existing class conditions. And now the lumpen are recognized by the Marxists a significant group of oppressed people who should be proletarianized and taught about class-consciousness, in order to build a revolution.

I think considering the immiseration of people at the time and the utter lack of social mobility/class rigidity it would be a lot harder and far more difficult to convince people of "lumpen" character towards class consciousness even if they are educated. People made a significant living exploiting people especially in America if you take a look at the medicine industry at the time of Marx & Engel's writing. Engel describes the working class in England; putting myself in the shoes of a prole at that time, why would I not want to consider crime especially if it puts food on my table compared to a life of slaving away for pennies in a warehouse or mill somewhere where I'd be exposed to socialist thought? Further more, people had far different ideals on morality and criminal nature then. In general, the kind of life you lived and occupation you had very, very much so determined the circle around you. People weren't as alienated yet.

Things to think about in that regard, these are the first thoughts in my mind when I read the post.