[matilda] Critique of capitalism..

[worldwarfree at riseup.net]

So The Hacklab people cooked us all a very wicked meal.. You need to thank
Armchair Hippy Alan D i just helped in a reluctant style..

Here is a link to a Critique of capitalism from Karl Marx..

Marx argued that this alienation of human work (and resulting commodity
fetishism) is precisely the defining feature of capitalism. Prior to
capitalism, markets existed in Europe where producers and merchants bought
and sold commodities. According to Marx, a capitalist mode of production
developed in Europe when labor itself became a commodity — when peasants
became free to sell their own labor-power, and needed to do so because
they no longer possessed their own land or tools necessary to produce.
People sell their labor-power when they accept compensation in return for
whatever work they do in a given period of time (in other words, they are
not selling the product of their labor, but their capacity to work). In
return for selling their labor power they receive money, which allows them
to survive. Those who must sell their labor power to live are
"proletarians." The person who buys the labor power, generally someone who
does own the land and technology to produce, is a "capitalist" or
"bourgeois." (Marx considered this an objective description of capitalism,
distinct from any one of a variety of ideological claims of or about
capitalism). The proletarians inevitably outnumber the capitalists.

More http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx#Critique_of_capitalism

>From here we need to Talk about The Proletariat

In the Marxist theory, the proletariat is that class of society which does
not have ownership of the means of production. Proletarians are
wage-workers, while some refer to those who receive salaries as the
salariat. For Marx, however, wage labor may involve getting a salary
rather than a wage per se.

Marxism sees the proletariat and bourgeoisie (capitalist class) as
occupying conflicting positions, since (for example) factory workers
automatically wish 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 proletariat may also include (1) some elements of
the petty bourgeoisie, if they rely primarily but not exclusively on
self-employment at an income no different from an ordinary wage or below
it, and (2) the lumpenproletariat, who are not in legal employment.
Intermediate positions are possible,

Now we come onto The Bourgeoisie

Bourgeoisie (boo zhwa zee') is a French word. The early Anglicization
"burgess" is derived from the old French burgeis (Cf. Also middle English:
burgeis, burges, borges and old Dutch: burgher = the inhabitant of a
borough or burgh). In the French feudal order, "bourgeois" was formally a
legal category in society, defined by conditions such as length of
residence and source of income.

The French term in turn seems to have derived from the Italian borghesia
(from borgo = village), which in turn derives from the Greek pyrgos. A
borghese was a freeman dwelling in a burgh or township. The word evolved
to mean merchants and traders, and until the 19th century was mostly
synonymous with the middle class (persons in the broad socioeconomic
spectrum between nobility and serfs or proletarians). Then, as the power
and wealth of the nobility faded in the second half of the 19th century,
the bourgeoisie emerged as the new ruling class.

As the term is difficult for a native English speaker to spell or
pronounce, it is not used as often in politics in English speaking
countries as in other Western ones, and is not in common use in the United
States. From the late nineteenth century through the Great Depression, the
pronunciation "bushwah" was used in political satire portraying radical
leftists. Critic H. L. Mencken coined the portmanteau "booboisie" to label
middle America, which he viewed as conventional and unintellectual.

Then we reach The Lumpenproletariat

The lumpenproletariat (German Lumpenproletariat, "rabble-proletariat";
"raggedy proletariat") is a term originally defined by Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels in The German Ideology (1845), their famous second joint
work, and later expounded upon in future works by Marx. In Marx's The
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), the term refers to the
'refuse of all classes,' including 'swindlers, confidence tricksters,
brothel-keepers, rag-and-bone merchants, organ-grinders, beggars, and
other flotsam of society.'

In the Eighteenth Brumaire, the lumpenproletariat were a 'class fraction'
that constituted the political power base for Louis Bonaparte of France in
1848. In this sense, Marx argued that in the particular historical events
leading up to Louis Bonaparte's coup in late 1851, the proletariat and
bourgeoisie were productive and progressive, advancing the historical
process by developing society's labor-power and its capabilities, whereas
the 'lumpenproletariat' was unproductive and regressive.

According to Marx, the lumpenproletariat had no real motive for
participating in revolution, and might have in fact an interest in
preserving the current class structure, because members of the
lumpenproletariat often depended on the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy
for their day-to-day existence. In that sense, Marx saw the
lumpenproletariat as a counter-revolutionary force.

Marx's definition has influenced contemporary sociologists, who are
concerned with many of the marginalized elements of society characterized
by Marx under this label. Marxian and even some non-Marxist sociologists
now use the term to refer to those they see as the victims of modern
society, such as prostitutes, beggars, and homeless people, who exist
outside the wage-labor system, but depend on the formal economy for their
day-to-day existence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpenproletariat

So when people call me Lumpenproletariat as an attack a means of saying i
have no intelgance understanding of the words i use that i use them as a
term of abuse please think againe..

One is more than happy to have a interlectual debate on the issue of class
and the relavance to Matilda and why i feel there is a conection that we
need to look further than our own gheto..

http://pretentiousartist.com/

0742..