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Proletarianization
 
 
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Proletarianization is a concept in Marxism
Marxism

Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism holds at its core a Marxist analysis of Critique of capitalism and a theory of social change....
 and Marxist sociology
Sociology

Sociology is a branch of the social sciences that uses systematic methods of Empiricism and critical theory to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, sometimes with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare....
. It refers to the social process whereby people move from being either an employer, or self-employed, to being employed as wage labor by an employer. In Marxist theory, proletarianisation is the most important form of downward social mobility
Social mobility

Social mobility is the degree to which an individual's family or group's social status can change throughout the course of their life through a system of social hierarchy or Social stratification....
.

Marx, the process of proletarianization was the other side of capital accumulation
Capital accumulation

Most generally, the accumulation of capital refers simply to the gathering or amassment of objects of value; the increase in wealth; or the creation of wealth....
. The growth of capital meant the growth of the working class
Working class

Working class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe, depending on context and speaker, those employed in specific fields or types of work....
.






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Encyclopedia


Proletarianization is a concept in Marxism
Marxism

Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism holds at its core a Marxist analysis of Critique of capitalism and a theory of social change....
 and Marxist sociology
Sociology

Sociology is a branch of the social sciences that uses systematic methods of Empiricism and critical theory to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, sometimes with the goal of applying such knowledge to the pursuit of social welfare....
. It refers to the social process whereby people move from being either an employer, or self-employed, to being employed as wage labor by an employer. In Marxist theory, proletarianisation is the most important form of downward social mobility
Social mobility

Social mobility is the degree to which an individual's family or group's social status can change throughout the course of their life through a system of social hierarchy or Social stratification....
.

Marx's concept

For Marx, the process of proletarianization was the other side of capital accumulation
Capital accumulation

Most generally, the accumulation of capital refers simply to the gathering or amassment of objects of value; the increase in wealth; or the creation of wealth....
. The growth of capital meant the growth of the working class
Working class

Working class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe, depending on context and speaker, those employed in specific fields or types of work....
. The expansion of capitalist markets involved processes of primitive accumulation and privatisation, which transferred more and more assets into capitalist private property, and concentrated wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Therefore, an increasing mass of the population was reduced to dependence on wage labour for income, i.e. they had to sell their labour power
Labor power

Labour power is a crucial concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalism political economy. He regarded labour power as the most important of the productive forces....
 to an employer for a wage or salary because they lacked assets or other sources of income. The materially-based contradictions within capitalist society would foster revolution. Marx believed the proletariat would eventually overthrow the bourgeoisie as the 'last class in history'.

In modern capitalism

Many intellectual
Intellectual

An intellectual is a person who uses his or her intelligence and Critical thinking, either in their profession or for the benefit of personal pursuits....
s have described proletarianization in advanced capitalism
Advanced capitalism

Advanced capitalism is an expression used to refer to the features of those societies in which the capitalist model, has been integrated and developed deeply and extensively and for a prolonged period of time....
 as "the extension of the logic of factory labor to a large sector of services and intellectual professions." The classic historical study of proletarianization is E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class (1963), in which the author portrays the meanings, struggles and conditions of an emerging proletariat.

Geographically, the process of proletarianization is closely related to urbanization
Urbanization

Urbanization is the physical growth of rural or natural land into urban areas as a result of population im-migration to an existing urban area....
 because it frequently involves the migration of a rural population from the countryside to the cities and towns, in search of work and income.

See also

  • capital accumulation
    Capital accumulation

    Most generally, the accumulation of capital refers simply to the gathering or amassment of objects of value; the increase in wealth; or the creation of wealth....
  • Embourgeoisement thesis
    Embourgeoisement thesis

    Embourgeoisement is the process of migration of individuals into the bourgeoisie as a result of their own efforts or collective action, such as that taken by unions in the US and elsewhere in the 1930 thru 1960s that established middle class status for factory workers and others that would not have been considered middle class by their employ...
  • primitive accumulation
  • proletariat
    Proletariat

    The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is proletarian. Originally it was identified as those people who had no wealth other than their sons....
  • surplus labour
    Surplus labour

    Surplus labour is a concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It means labour performed in excess of the labour necessary to produce the means of livelihood of the worker ....
  • Workerism
    Workerism

    Workerism is a name given to different trends in left-wing political discourse, especially anarchism and Marxism. In one sense, it describes a political position concerning the political importance and centrality of the working class....
  • working class
    Working class

    Working class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe, depending on context and speaker, those employed in specific fields or types of work....


Further Reading

  • Karl Marx
    Karl Marx

    Karl Heinrich Marx was a Germanphilosophy, political economy, historian, sociologist, humanism, political theorist and revolutionary credited as the founder of communism....
    , Das Kapital
    Das Kapital

    is an extensive treatise on political economy written in German language by Karl Marx and edited in part by Friedrich Engels. The book is a critical analysis of capitalism....
    .
  • E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
  • Hal Draper
    Hal Draper

    Hal Draper was a Third Camp American socialist activist, Marxist and author, perhaps best known for his role in the Berkeley, California Free Speech Movement....
    , Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, Vol 2: The Politics of Social Classes. New York: Monthly Review Press.
  • Ernest Mandel
    Ernest Mandel

    Ernest Ezra Mandel, also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter etc. was a democratic Marxist theorist....
    , Workers under Neo-capitalism

External Links

  • neocapitalism