Superphysics
How Proletarians Differ from Others?
3 minutes • 530 words
Table of contents
How do proletarians differ from slaves?
| . | Slave | Proletarian |
|---|---|---|
| Selling | The slave is sold once | The proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly. |
| Property | The slave is the property of one master who assures his existence | The proletarian is the property of the entire bourgeois class which buys his labor only when needed. He has no secure existence. This existence is assured only to the class as a whole. |
| Competition | The slave is outside competition | The proletarian is in it and experiences all its vagaries. |
The slave counts as a thing, not as a member of society. Thus, the slave can have a better existence than the proletarian, while the proletarian belongs to a higher stage of social development and, himself, stands on a higher social level than the slave.
The slave frees himself when, of all the relations of private property, he abolishes only the relation of slavery and thereby becomes a proletarian; the proletarian can free himself only by abolishing private property in general.
How do proletarians differ from serfs?
| . | Serf | Proletarian |
|---|---|---|
| Tools | The serf owns and uses tools and land and gives up a part of his product or services as payment | The proletarian works with the tools of others |
The serf gives up, the proletarian receives. The serf has an assured existence, the proletarian has not. The serf is outside competition, the proletarian is in it.
The serf liberates himself in one of three ways: either he runs away to the city and there becomes a handicraftsman; or, instead of products and services, he gives money to his lord and thereby becomes a free tenant; or he overthrows his feudal lord and himself becomes a property owner.
In short, by one route or another, he gets into the owning class and enters into competition. The proletarian liberates himself by abolishing competition, private property, and all class differences.
How do proletarians differ from handicraftsmen?
The handicraftsman of the 18th century is a proletarian at most temporarily.
His goal is to acquire capital himself wherewith to exploit other workers. He can often achieve this goal where guilds still exist or where freedom from guild restrictions has not yet led to the introduction of factory-style methods into the crafts nor yet to fierce competition.
But as soon as the factory system has been introduced into the crafts and competition flourishes fully, this perspective dwindles away and the handicraftsman becomes more and more a proletarian. The handicraftsman therefore frees himself by becoming either bourgeois or entering the middle class in general, or becoming a proletarian because of competition (as is now more often the case). In which case he can free himself by joining the proletarian movement, i.e., the more or less communist movement. [2]
How do proletarians differ from manufacturing workers?
| . | 16th-18th century Manufacturing worker | Proletarian |
|---|---|---|
| Assets | His own instrument of production (loom, family spinning wheel), a little plot of land | None |
| Residence | Countryside in a patriarchal relation to his landlord or employer | City in a cash relation to his employer |
The manufacturing worker is torn out of his patriarchal relation by big industry, loses whatever property he still has, and in this way becomes a proletarian.
