The lumpen are those who have been driven into long term unemployment, initially through no fault of their own, who then adjust to it financially and in other ways. Thereafter they make no contribution and have no intention of making any. It is a parasitic existence. They live off society. They do so brazenly. Which is historically one of the defining charachteristics of that class.
parasites now, this is getting more and more Daily Express by the moment.
Except it's not of course, not really because the prescriptions for what to do about it differ. At least I would hope so. For the Daily Express (not that I read it, you understand) cutting off benefits, evicting social tenants and strong, probably zero tolerance, policing are the answer. That's clear, simple and completely barking.
However I'm still not really sure just what the IWCA prescription amounts to. The original article made reference to driving rather vague wedges and the tantalising, but unexplained "political authority to exclude", which was subsequently fleshed out a bit with the story of the drug gang run off Blackbird Leys estate a few years back.
What I don't get is how that's supposed to translate to the vast majority of the working class lives I see, people who don't live on giant, out-of-town, estates, but in mixed up communities of prosperous and skint, living on benefits or working in myriad ways for who knows who, an almost random mix of social or private tenants and owner occupiers, living in the patchwork that is London in 2011.
Is Neighbourhood Watch with political teeth the model, with street committees and net curtain twitching? Probably not, so what is?
How does 'the working class' or 'the community', whatever those terms might mean, express themselves? And, given that what you call 'lumpen' are the sons and daughters of my neighbours, why do you think that exclusion and driving wedges is what would be wanted even if such expression were possible?
