Proletariat

From Infoshop OpenWiki

The proletariat is that class in society which lives from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor - hence, on the changing state of business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. The proletariat, or the class of proletarians, is, in a word, the modern working class.

The 19th century definition of proletarian excluded anyone who drew profit from capital. Of course, that might lead one to wonder in our modern age what class this would leave an American blue collar worker whose compensation or retirement package included a small amount of stock options or stock ownership. This has been a debated issue among Marxists in the mid to late 20th century.

This page is part of the Field Guide to the Left.