Marx and the Proletariat

In the theory of Karl Marx, the term proletariat designated the class of wage workers who were engaged in industrial production and whose chief source of income was derived from the sale of their labour power. As an economic category it was distinguished in Marxian literature from the poor, the working classes, and the Lumpenproletariat. Because of its subordinate position in a capitalist society and the effects of periodic depressions on wages and employment, the proletariat as described b...