proletariat

About proletariat

The proletariat is the socioeconomic class of wage laborers, members of a capitalist society whose most significant economic value is their labour power. A member of such a class is a proletarian or a worker. Marxist philosophy regards the proletariat under conditions of capitalism as an exploited class,⁠ deprived of the means of production and thereby forced to operate means of production held as private property by the capitalist class, receiving wages which represent less than the value their labour produced, the remainder appropriated by the bourgeoisie as profits.

Overview

The proletariat is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist philosophy regards the proletariat under conditions of capitalism as an exploited class - forced to accept meager wages in return for operating the means of production, which belong to the class of business owners, the bourgeoisie. Karl Marx (1818-1883) argued that this capitalist oppression gives the proletariat common economic and political interests that transcend national boundaries, impelling them to unite and to take over power from the capitalist class, and eventually to create a communist society free from class distinctions. Roman Republic and Empire The constituted a social class of Roman citizens who owned little or no property. The name presumably originated with the census, which Roman authorities conducted every five years to produce a register of citizens and their property, which determined their military duties and voting privileges. Those who owned 11,000 (coins) or fewer fell below the lowest category for military service, and their children— (offspring)were listed instead of property; hence the name (producer of offspring). Roman citizen-soldiers paid for their own horses and arms, and fought without payment for the commonwealth, but the only military contribution of a was his children, the future Roman citizens who could colonize conquered territories. Officially, propertyless citizens were called because they were "persons registered not as to their property...but simply as to their existence as living individuals, primarily as heads of a family."

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Notable quotes

“Class instinct is subjective and spontaneous. ... To arrive at proletarian class positions, the class instinct of proletarians only needs to be educated; the class instinct of the , and hence of intellectuals, has, on the contrary, to be revolutionized.”
— Louis Althusser, (1971), p. 2
“The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave.”
— James Connolly The Re-conquest of Ireland (1915), Chapter VI: Woman, p. 38,
“Bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day.”
— Friedrich Engels, (1847)
“Democracy would be wholly valueless to the proletariat if it were not immediately used as a means for putting through measures directed against private property and ensuring the livelihood of the proletariat.”
— Friedrich Engels, (1847)
“Most people have no alternative but to sell their ability to work for a wage and inevitably be paid less than the value they produce. This is the capital order, the backbone of our society that we do not criticize or even discuss. It is only through the lens of class that we can escape this trap and understand the functioning of our economic system and the policies implemented to govern it.”
— , Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention. (2026). p. 13
“The expenses of the royal household, wars, and lavish public building were financed by tolls and the profits of the king's foreign trade monopoly, by conscription of labour and heavy taxation. The results were impoverishment of the masses, alienation of land, and the development of a proletariat.”
— Eric Roll, Baron Roll of Ipsden, A History of Economic Thought (1939), Chapter I, The Beginnings, p. 25

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.