I have not read every document the two wrote regarding the subject, so I may be misunderstanding; but the ProleWiki makes it sound like Marx and Lenin–and therefore Marxist-Leninists would–disregard the revolutionary potential of the lumpenproletariat. It seems like sex workers and homeless folks and disabled people are all spat on by the bourgeoisie and would be glad to help take them down? I’m disabled and mostly unable to work (I do work a little, but not even enough to be part-time) and I consider myself an ML.
The wiki describes the lumpen as exploitable by reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces, but we’ve seen in the West that the proletariat as a whole is susceptible to these forces. See Zohran run one of the most radical campaigns we’ve seen in a while and then put on Zionist officials and advocate for changing the system from the inside. The working class is content to sit down and wait for someone else to make change for them. Most disabled people I know, on the other hand, are ready to tear the system down with their own hands. So are we supposed to just gloss over a group of people who’ve been pressure cooking this whole time? If so, why?
I’m going to hazard a guess that it comes down to political leverage. If the lumpen are those not engaged in productive labor, then they have little leverage on the system. Organizing and withholding labor is fundamental to class warfare.
I guess this makes sense. I guess I may have interpreted a moral judgement when it was more of a practical analysis.
I think this really is it. A sex worker (to use one example )can become part of a mass movement, but if they do so outside of literal armed conflict their participation doesn’t actively compromise the system. They can, by joining an organization, perhaps participate in solidarity and eventually acts of praxis and violence, but opposed to workers shutting down factories it really is night and day.
If every sex worker were organized it would be a better world. But compared to organizing every McDonald’s worker (where their mass withholding of labor would be noticeable at scale and strike terror in the heart of the average burger lander), it’s less potent organizing when you’re talking about destroying the system.
I should be clear - this is not to be the Taylor Lorenz straw man about disabled people. Instead, it’s a recognition that to capitalism, the disabled (when without work) are not “worth” what a productive worker is. They can provide visibility, solidarity, and participate in violence, but they don’t ever have the potential to threaten the system the way an organized working class can. If every disabled person marched tomorrow there might be headlines, but absent solidarity from labor nothing would fundamentally change