Proletariat

Proletariat, the labouring class in a society. In ancient Rome the proletariat was the lowest class of labourers and wage-earners, who had no wealth and no property. In 19th- and 20th-century Marxism the term was used to describe the manual labourers in a capitalist society whose only material “asset” was their time and physical stamina. “Alienated”, by poverty and lack of opportunity, from the means and fruits of production and wealth creation in the capitalist system, the proletariat was both necessary for successful capitalism and exploited by it. In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels described the coalescence and mobilization of the proletariat as the crucial stage in the “class struggle” which would see bourgeois capitalism giving way to a society based on communism. With the collapse of Communist ideology and forms of government in all but a few states, the expression is dropping out of usage, other than in academic circles. The expression is sometimes heard as a term of abuse, to suggest lack of education and ability, and uncontrolled procreation. In China, however, with some tens of millions of “floating workers” roaming around in search of employment, something of the Marxist usage, and the foreboding which accompanied it, may still prove to be apt.