Dealing With the Renegades - Revisited

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Unemployment means that you exist in the system not outside. Got any figures then? The definition tell you this.

You already made this point. I agreed.

You only need to go the IMF website for a simple graph.

I am doing more detailed analyses here: http://laborsta.ilo.org

 

[butchersapron]

And you too it back with your 'but' a few posts ago. Keep up with yourself lad.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

And you too it back with your 'but' a few posts ago. Keep up with yourself lad.

I concurred with another poster who said the system can do with a certain amount of unemployed

 

[The39thStep]

There are many like me who already do - you need to watch the latest Reel news activist video on the Tottenham insurrection.
Plus we should be talking more about the execution of Duggan, why did op Trident (designed to decrease black on black crime) execute Duggan in a part of Tottenham that wasn't wired with CCTV? That's the bigger issue for me, you lot let the polis off the hook time and time again.

When is the seminar, which university this time?

 

[The Black Hand]

When is the seminar, which university this time?

The university of life my friend the one which doesn't try to build the party or grouplet, but stays consistent with working class rebellion and insurrection

 

[Joe Reilly]

Probably; we're not there yet.

For Marx, those who met the appropriate criteria, were instantly classified as 'lumpen'. Your lumpen seem to be in need of a greater gestation period. If 30 years is not long enough - when?

 

[Joe Reilly]

you completely underplay and overlook what parts were positive.

Ok we've had muggings, murders, and people burned out of their homes, small businesses destroyed, a boost for the greater police powers, longer sentences, the eviction of council tenants, and for the first time in decades, public figures, David Starkey, John Cleese and George Orwell's biographer expressing the sentiment that 'England isn't England anymore' which in a coded way is reintroducing the notion of repatriation, which even the BNP had given up on. Now, they are just some of the negatives.

So to balance it why don't you list the 'positive parts'.

 

[smokedout]

Ok we've had muggings, murders, and people burned out of their homes, small businesses destroyed, a boost for the greater police powers, longer sentences, the eviction of council tenants,

bit of perspective eh, people get mugged and murdered every day, i dont see why that would stop just because theres rioting. people burned out of their homes is not good, they need to riot better, but in an uprising of that scale you would expect some collateral damage, small businesses, well my hearts trying to bleed, and i suppose not great for community cohesion under current circumstances, but they gotta go one day - the rest you could use as an argument to not take part in any sort of protest/riot, hardly a radical position

and this

and for the first time in decades, public figures, David Starkey, John Cleese and George Orwell's biographer expressing the sentiment that 'England isn't England anymore' which in a coded way is reintroducing the notion of repatriation, which even the BNP had given up on.

is fucking bonkers

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

For Marx, those who met the appropriate criteria, were instantly classified as 'lumpen'. Your lumpen seem to be in need of a greater gestation period. If 30 years is not long enough - when?

Look, class descriptions from Marx need to be taken with a pinch of salt. The 'lumpen proletariat' was a rhetorical disparaging of some political stands in the 19th century. If one took every superficial description of class from Marx then he might end up with twelve or fifteen classes! Marx didn't divide the working class into two in such fashion; that's a myth. Although the disparaging of the 'lumpen-proletariat' was originally aimed at Napoleon [his support base], it [Marx's critique] could easily be applied to Hitler, word for word, and that is only a legitimate example of the use of the term "lumpen-proletariat".

If one treats the so-called lumpen as a 'class' - as an actual category of society, and in its original sense - its means of subsistence is crime and disreputable means. The unemployed, homeless, and those on benefits DO NOT count; the latter are proletarian.

 

[The39thStep]

Look, class descriptions from Marx need to be taken with a pinch of salt. The 'lumpen proletariat' was a rhetorical disparaging of some political stands in the 19th century. If one took every superficial description of class from Marx then he might end up with twelve or fifteen classes! Marx didn't divide the working class into two in such fashion; that's a myth. Although the disparaging of the 'lumpen-proletariat' was originally aimed at Napoleon, it could easily be applied to Hitler, word for word, and that is only a legitimate example of the use of the term "lumpen-proletariat".

If one treats the so-called lumpen as a 'class' - as an actual category of society, and in its original sense - its means of subsistence is crime and disreputable means. The unemployed, homeless, and those on benefits DO NOT count; the latter are proletarian.

Did anyone argue that those who were unemployed, homeless, and those on benefits were lumpen?

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Did anyone argue that those who were unemployed, homeless, and those on benefits were lumpen?

I think long term unemployed has been implicitly understood as such.

 

[butchersapron]

I concurred with another poster who said the system can do with a certain amount of unemployed

Bollocks did you you waffly chancer, you said:

The global system excludes an ever large number of people from any role in it. That is a secular trend as well. When we have shanty towns here no-one will scoff at what I'm saying - as some apparently are on this thread.

 

[The39thStep]

I think long term unemployed has been implicitly understood as such.

not the homeless though?

 

[The Black Hand]

Ibn Khaldoun said: ↑​

I concurred with another poster who said the system can do with a certain amount of unemployed ​

quote="butchersapron, post: 10499559"]Bollocks did you you waffly chancer, you said:[/quote]

"The global system excludes an ever large number of people from any role in it. That is a secular trend as well. When we have shanty towns here no-one will scoff at what I'm saying - as some apparently are on this thread."​

And there's nothing wrong with saying this, its certainly a tendency. (clue) It all depends on what you mean by 'exclusion'.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Bollocks did you you waffly chancer, you said:

So what? You're confused. I didn't refer to that post. That was the original one you picked at the 'excluded bit'. You took it to mean they're expelled from the system. Then I agreed when you said they're still part of the system in some sense. Even the hundreds of millions in shanty towns I suppose are 'in the system'. So I agreed. But then you claimed took back the agreement somewhere.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Ibn Khaldoun said: ↑​

I concurred with another poster who said the system can do with a certain amount of unemployed ​

Bollocks did you you waffly chancer, you said:

"The global system excludes an ever large number of people from any role in it. That is a secular trend as well. When we have shanty towns here no-one will scoff at what I'm saying - as some apparently are on this thread."​

And there's nothing wrong with saying this, its certainly a tendency. (clue) It all depends on what you mean by 'exclusion'.

It's semantics. He already made his argument, I don't know why he's still running with it.

 

[The Black Hand]

Ok we've had muggings, murders, and people burned out of their homes, small businesses destroyed, a boost for the greater police powers, longer sentences, the eviction of council tenants, and for the first time in decades, public figures, David Starkey, John Cleese and George Orwell's biographer expressing the sentiment that 'England isn't England anymore' which in a coded way is reintroducing the notion of repatriation, which even the BNP had given up on. Now, they are just some of the negatives.

So to balance it why don't you list the 'positive parts'.

Poor old Joe, desperately clinging to your old left way of seeing the world in black and white, simplistic analysis gets nobody anywhere, its just sooooo 20th century.

Again, you need to read what I write as you clearly have a problem with comprehension. I am refusing to list the positive parts cos I cannot be bothered with you lot who are happy with simple analysis.

I do stuff which is real world, politically that means a variant of Hegalian Marxism and more.

 

[smokedout]

big issue sellers
burglars
street homeless people
long term unemployed people
newly unemployed people
single unemployed mothers
working single mothers
children of single mothers
street drinkers
heroin addicts
EDL supporters
benefit cheats
shop lifters
rioters
squatters
travellers
gang members
criminal families
cannabis dealers
cannabis growers
binge drinkers
BNP supporters
tax dodgers
disabled people (on benefits)
disabled people (financially independent)
sex workers (street based)
sex workers (escorts/based in a property)
beggars
homeless people (in hostels/b&bs)
graf writers
vandals
fare dodgers
recreational drug users
recreational drug dealers
obese people
buskers

perhaps if you could put an 'x' next to the people we should consider lumpen and exclude from our class then that would help us understand

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

not the homeless though?

Okay, it does get taken to mean them, but not in this thread. I'll stick to unemployed - [they're] not "lumpen"!

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

So what? You're confused. I didn't refer to that post. That was the original one you picked at the 'excluded bit'. You took it to mean they're expelled from the system. Then I agreed when you said they're still part of the system in some sense. Even the hundreds of millions in shanty towns I suppose are 'in the system'. So I agreed. But then you claimed took back the agreement somewhere.

By the way I did an analysis of twenty countries. It's a crude analysis for now but it includes 2.8 billion people. I traced back the higher unemployment from 1980 to 2008. I'll do another one with better demography later and post up the info.

 

[cogg]

Poor old Joe, desperately clinging to your old left way of seeing the world in black and white, simplistic analysis gets nobody anywhere, its just sooooo 20th century.

It's quite bizarre that you of all people could accuse anyone else of being 'old left'. Your politics reek of the stale, old lefties of the past. As to to accusing people of being stuck in the 20th century, even if it was true (which it isn't), Joe would still be two centuries ahead of you.
By the way, if you're so keen on Hegelian Marxism, perhaps you should learn to spell it correctly.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

By the way I did an analysis of twenty countries. It's a crude analysis for now but it includes 2.8 billion people. I traced back the higher unemployment from 1980 to 2008. I'll do another one with better demography later and post up the info.

How does tracing the number of unemployed equate to demonstrating a growing or declining number of people excluded from the system? The concept of the reserve army of labour places them rather firmly (as a group) within the 'system' (the relationships that constitute capitalism). Even among those who could be described as outlaws, it isn't at all clear how they are actually outside the system. Their actions may well be increasing the level of exploitation experienced by those they extort, swindle or rob from. Likewise their aspirations and motivations may accord with and support, patterns of/attitudes towards consumption which the system positively thrives on.

As a police officer (by dint of their relationship with the state) places them self outside of the class which their status as a wage labourer should see them belonging to, can't someone who lives by means of robbery, extortion or deceit, be seen as outside and antagonistic to the working class? If we can agree that this is the case, then we can begin to look in more detail at the possible relationships between the recent rioters and looters and the working class. If not then we seem to be stuck in a simplistic and unhelpful 'saints or sinners' dichotomy.

Louis MacNeice

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

How does tracing the number of unemployed equate to demonstrating a growing or declining number of people excluded from the system? The concept of the reserve army of labour places them rather firmly (as a group) within the 'system' (the relationships that constitute capitalism). Even among those who could be described as outlaws, it isn't at all clear how they are actually outside the system. Their actions may well be increasing the level of exploitation experienced by those they extort, swindle or rob from. Likewise their aspirations and motivations may accord with and support, patterns of/attitudes towards consumption which the system positively thrives on.

We've already covered this! That's not what I was trying to get at.

As a police officer (by dint of their relationship with the state) places them self outside of the class which their status as a wage labourer should see them belonging to, can't someone who lives by means of robbery, extortion or deceit, be seen as outside and antagonistic to the working class?

The notion of 'lumpen proletariat' itself isn't outside the working-class, it's a description of certain elements. Some organized and 'professional' criminals are petit-bourgeois.

All I will say about the 'under-class' that are the subject of this thread is that their interests are the same as the rest of the working class.

 

[Joe Reilly]

big issue sellers
burglars
street homeless people
long term unemployed people
newly unemployed people
single unemployed mothers
working single mothers
children of single mothers
street drinkers
heroin addicts
EDL supporters
benefit cheats
shop lifters
rioters
squatters
travellers
gang members
criminal families
cannabis dealers
cannabis growers
binge drinkers
BNP supporters
tax dodgers
disabled people (on benefits)
disabled people (financially independent)
sex workers (street based)
sex workers (escorts/based in a property)
beggars
homeless people (in hostels/b&bs)
graf writers
vandals
fare dodgers
recreational drug users
recreational drug dealers
obese people
buskers

perhaps if you could put an 'x' next to the people we should consider lumpen and exclude from our class then that would help us understand

After all this, your either being disengenous or you don't have scooby.

 

[Pickman's model]

We've already covered this! That's not what I was trying to get at.

what are you trying to get at then?

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

what are you trying to get at then?

Divestment, disaffection and disempowerment.

 

[Pickman's model]

Divestment, disaffection and disempowerment.

as other people have pointed out, you're not getting at them very well

 

[smokedout]

After all this, your either being disengenous or you don't have scooby.

but you see, all the people on that list could be defined as underclass/lumpen by either the terms of the two pieces, some of the definitions given here, or have been in popular culture

so whilst it wasnt the most serious post in the world - these are the people (on the list) who will read it and think do they mean me, or will read it and have their prejudices against their favourite scapegoat confirmed

how does all this vagueness help the discourse, people in general arent vague, they dont spot political nuances, especially ones so well hidden - if you're not brave enough to admit who these new lumpen are (beyond teenage gangsters) then whats the point?

 

[love detective]

this discussion hasn't budged a bit in nearly 30 pages!

your welded to defining things by types of people (fat people, big issue sellers, children of single mothers) where the crux of the thing (for me anyway) is defining things by behaviour/activity and the impact of that behaviour/activity on working class communities and their ability to politically organise in a progressive manner

sure there's some cross over in that if someone is a full time Class A drug dealer then their label and behaviour/consequence of that behaviour will be one and the same and overlap completely - however when you move away from these obvious cases the important thing to focus on is not what someone is but what they do and what impact that 'doing' has on those around them

 

[smokedout]

but thats what i said ages ago

so why the need for lumpen

(even your class A dealer is more nuanced, which class a drugs, and how do they operate - also they are far from displaying a no work ethic, a lot of drug dealers work bloody hard)