[Political Interest]

I have had encounters with these sorts of people before. They can walk around you making strange noises and doing things to try and provoke a response. Often they are badly dressed. When you see them in hoods on the street at night you know to avoid them. Many of them are often violent.

Who are they and what class do they belong to? Surely they cannot be representative of the working classes.

[Decky]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumpenproletariat

Lumpenproletariat is a term that was originally coined by Karl Marx to describe the layer of the working class that is unlikely ever to achieve class consciousness and is therefore lost to socially useful production, of no use to the revolutionary struggle, and perhaps even an impediment to the realization of a classless society.[1] The word is derived from the German word Lumpenproletarier, "Lumpen" literally meaning "miscreant" as well as "rag". The Marxist Internet Archive writes that "[lumpenproletariat] identifies the class of outcast, degenerated and submerged elements that make up a section of the population of industrial centers" which include "beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, racketeers, swindlers, petty criminals, tramps, chronic unemployed or unemployables, persons who have been cast out by industry, and all sorts of declassed, degraded or degenerated elements."[2]

In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852), Marx gives this description of the lumpenproletariat:

Alongside decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux [pimps], brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars—in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither, which the French call la bohème.[3]

Also see chav.

[ThirdTerm]

They are commonly referred to as yobs or hoodies. I hadn't seen them in London or Cambridge but they may be numerous in impoverished northern towns like Manchester. I assume that their families are on welfare and it's hard to be positive about their future as they get poor grades from schools.

[Donna]

It is a very interesting subject. The US, UK, and Australia all have a white underclass, but I can't really think of any equivalent in Canada. Maybe the Maritimes? I don't know.

[B0ycey]

Who are they and what class do they belong to? Surely they cannot be representative of the working classes.

To be deemed as working class, first you need to actually be 'WORKING'. I regard them as Chavs. Or the Jeremy Kyle class. A society of people who think it is their right to do nothing and expect the tax payer to pick up the bill.

[snapdragon]

The answer is education.
The sure start scheme is brilliant, but of course, Tories have cut funding to the bone, despite initially supporting the idea.
If children start school knowing the basics, then they are much more likely to do well in the long run. It's easy to tie a label on the kids and write them off.

[Ned Lud]

The only really anti-social elements in the UK are Mrs May's subhuman gang of thieves. Thieves elsewhere love to spread their propaganda.

[Nonsense]

#14784397

As the old saying goes, " You can lead a horse to the water, but you can't make it drink", the same is true of children with school, you can take them to school, but you can't make them learn.

The reasons for that are often many, often family, sometimes educational, or with their social peers, the end result is the same.

We live in a dysfunctional society, where those we choose to be leaders are even more dysfunctional than the younger delinquents that they created politically.

As for creating a 'classless society' according to Marx, we do live in a 'classless society' right now, that's our problem, there is no 'class', by that I mean that this country wallows in a whingeing, self-indulgent, hyper-inflated sense of entitlement, selfish, ignorant people, a paradise of a country for such specimens.

When our country is in such a quagmire, we have 'Conservative' minister's proposing that people who 'feel' that they were born with the 'wrong' gender allocated by nature, should have a fortune, funded by other taxpayers to 'rectify' what everyone else does not have, taxpayers money lavished on them.

With such 'priorities' expressed by ministers of a government that believes that the electorate voted them in because they wanted a, "Strong & Stable" government, the people who voted for this CRAP, must be holding their heads in their hands with deep embarrassment at just how STUPID they were\are.

[Potemkin]

When our country is in such a quagmire, we have 'Conservative' minister's proposing that people who 'feel' that they were born with the 'wrong' gender allocated by nature, should have a fortune, funded by other taxpayers to 'rectify' what everyone else does not have, taxpayers money lavished on them.

With such 'priorities' expressed by ministers of a government that believes that the electorate voted them in because they wanted a, "Strong & Stable" government, the people who voted for this CRAP, must be holding their heads in their hands with deep embarrassment at just how STUPID they were\are.

What you have to understand, Nonsense, is that there is no such thing as 'Conservatism' any more, just as there is no such thing as 'Socialism' any more. The only 'values' a Conservative minister believes in is the value of keeping his job and its cushy perks. The same goes for his or her Labour equivalent. Both main parties long ago abandoned their long-held political positions to chase after the votes they believed could be found at the 'Centre'. And what do we find at this fabled 'Centre' of British politics? A "whingeing, self-indulgent, hyper-inflated sense of entitlement, selfish, ignorant people". It's these people Conservative and Labour ministers pander to, Nonsense, it's their precious votes our lords and masters are trying to court.

[demima]

What is your opinion of Corbyns Labour Potemkin?

[Potemkin]

What is your opinion of Corbyns Labour Potemkin?

A ray of light in the darkness. Time will tell whether that ray spreads or is snuffed out.

[Decky]

A ray of light in the darkness. Time will tell whether that ray spreads or is snuffed out.

Never fear Pote, Red Ken, the Beast of Bolsover, Comrade Jezza and of course "Armalite" John McDonnel with crush their enemies into the dirt like the worms that they are. The time is fast approaching when our enemies will toil on the Labour camps and the middle class will tremble like leaves in the wind at every knock on the door in case the red transit vans of Momentum have come to give them a free holiday with lots of fresh air and exercise.

We must simply believe with all of our hearts and venerate the statues of the heroes of the labour movement and light candles for Kier Hardie and pay indulgences to Momentum and one day the soul of William Gallacher MP will descend upon the middle class areas like that angel god send to cull the first born sons of the hated Egyptians.

[Potemkin]

Never fear Pote, Red Ken, the Beast of Bolsover, Comrade Jezza and of course "Armalite" John McDonnel with crush their enemies into the dirt like the worms that they are. The time is fast approaching when our enemies will toil on the Labour camps and the middle class will tremble like leaves in the wind at every knock on the door in case the red transit vans of Momentum have come to give them a free holiday with lots of fresh air and exercise.

We must simply believe with all of our hearts and venerate the statues of the heroes of the labour movement and light candles for Kier Hardie and pay indulgences to Momentum and one day the soul of William Gallacher MP will descend upon the middle class areas like that angel god send to cull the first born sons of the hated Egyptians.

The Lord (by whom I mean, of course, Karl Marx) moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. If the darkness seems to gather around us, then it is only the darkness before the dawn, when the divine Plan of world revolution will come to fruition, as is historically inevitable. Amen.

[One Degree]

There needs to be an intensive study of the effect of the British Isles physical environment upon political thought. I believe Karl Marx was an innocent tourist whose mind was warped by the environment. Perhaps he fell asleep at Stonehenge? Is the heather toxic? Hmmmmm.

[Ned Lud]

Never fear Pote, Red Ken, the Beast of Bolsover, Comrade Jezza and of course "Armalite" John McDonnel with crush their enemies into the dirt like the worms that they are. The time is fast approaching when our enemies will toil on the Labour camps and the middle class will tremble like leaves in the wind at every knock on the door in case the red transit vans of Momentum have come to give them a free holiday with lots of fresh air and exercise.

We must simply believe with all of our hearts and venerate the statues of the heroes of the labour movement and light candles for Kier Hardie and pay indulgences to Momentum and one day the soul of William Gallacher MP will descend upon the middle class areas like that angel god send to cull the first born sons of the hated Egyptians.

It is remarkable what extreme-rightist weirdoes can make of normal British opinion. That's what happens when you start believing your own propaganda - you need as padded cell.

[Thompson_NCL]

Who are they and what class do they belong to? Surely they cannot be representative of the working classes.

"Working classes" is a redundant concept. Trying to apply 19th and early 20th century economic concepts to 2017 is absurd and probably why Communism remains a political irrelevance: total failure to make themselves relevant to people in this day and age.

[ingliz]

"Working classes" is a redundant concept.

It seems not.

Although just 25% of people now work in routine and manual occupations, 60% of Britons regard themselves as working class, a phenomenon described as a “working class of the mind” that has withstood dramatic changes in the labour market.

[Decky]

It is remarkable what extreme-rightist weirdoes can make of normal British opinion. That's what happens when you start believing your own propaganda - you need as padded cell.

Extreme rightist?

[Potemkin]

Although just 25% of people now work in routine and manual occupations, 60% of Britons regard themselves as working class, a phenomenon described as a “working class of the mind” that has withstood dramatic changes in the labour market.

This is probably because being working class in British society is a status just as much as an economic class. Even when someone's economic class changes, their social status may not change. And this status is largely determined by education (type rather than level), accent, and inherited cultural values and assumptions about the world. Hence the astonishing social and cultural inertia of the British class system, despite massive economic changes.

[Decky]

This is probably because being working class in British society is a status just as much as an economic class. Even when someone's economic class changes, their social status may not change. And this status is largely determined by education (type rather than level), accent, and inherited cultural values and assumptions about the world. Hence the astonishing social and cultural inertia of the British class system, despite massive economic changes.

As I always say class in the UK has more in common with the Indian caste system than it does with the class systems of other industrial western economies.