It really doesn't matter what you call it. It is there and has had many
names in the course of its history. And it is not racial or ethnically
defined in the U.S. There have always been the hicks, hillbillies, white
trash, etc.
Rod
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> >Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> >
> >>>Or perhaps they are right. The working class is seen as and is a
> >>>class in the
> >>>middle between the capitalists and the underclass.
> >>>
> >>>Rod
> >>
> >>What's the definition of the "underclass"? Poor people of color?
> >
> >...with loose morals and a propensity towards crime. The Atlantic
> >has Nicholas Lemann's classic article on the topic at
> ><http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/poverty/origin2.htm>. A concept
> >not unrelated to "The 'dangerous class', the social scum, that
> >passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old
> >society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a
> >proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it
> >far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue." Or,
> >"the lumpen proletariat, which in all big towns forms a mass sharply
> >differentiated from the industrial proletariat, a recruiting ground
> >for thieves and criminals of all kinds living on the crumbs of
> >society, people without a definite trade, vagabonds, gens sans et
> >sans aveu [men without hearth or home], varying according to the
> >degree of civilization of the nation to which they belong, but never
> >renouncing their lazzaroni character...."
> >
> >Doug
>
> I hope the term "underclass" will get dropped at least from leftist
> discourse, if not from _The Atlantic Monthly_. Luckily, not many
> people use the term "lumpen proletariat" any longer.
>
> Yoshie
--
Rod Hay
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