Questions about Working class
Short answers, pulled from the story.
How did Karl Marx define the working class?
Karl Marx defined the working class, or proletariat, as those who sell their labour power for wages and do not own the means of production. He argued that working-class people create society's wealth by building bridges, crafting furniture, growing food, and nursing children, but have no ownership of land or factories. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Friedrich Engels described the working class as destined to displace the capitalist system and eventually establish a communist society.
What is the informal working class and who coined the term?
The informal working class is a sociological term coined by Mike Davis. It describes a class of over a billion predominantly young urban people who have no formal connection to the global economy and survive mainly in slums. Davis argued this class developed worldwide from the 1960s, especially in the southern hemisphere, and does not fit the theoretical frameworks of Marx, Max Weber, or modernization theory.
What is the lumpenproletariat in Marxist theory?
The lumpenproletariat, also called the rag-proletariat, is a sub-section of the proletariat identified by Marx. It encompasses the extremely poor and unemployed, such as day labourers and homeless people. Marx considered members of this group to be devoid of class consciousness.
How did the working class emerge historically in Europe?
In feudal Europe, a distinct working class did not exist in large numbers. Lawyers, craftsmen, and peasants were grouped together as a third estate, with their social position treated as fixed by natural law. The working class as a modern category emerged in the late 18th century under the influence of the Enlightenment, when E. P. Thompson argued in The Making of the English Working Class that pre-modern labouring groups transformed into a politically self-conscious working class.
What challenges do working-class students face in higher education?
Researcher Diane Reay has documented that working-class students face significant challenges when entering higher education, particularly at research-intensive universities. A key factor is that the university community is often perceived as a predominantly middle-class social space, which creates a sense of otherness due to class differences in social norms and knowledge of how to navigate academic institutions.
How do socialist and mainstream US definitions of working class differ?
In the United States, common definitions limit the working class to blue-collar and pink-collar workers, or those whose income is not high enough to place them in the middle class. Socialists define the working class much more broadly, to include all workers who depend on wage labour to subsist, which can encompass nearly all of the working population of industrialized economies.