Lumpenbourgeoisie (was Re: Forwarded from Anthony (on fascism))

["Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky" <Gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

En relación a Re: Forwarded from Anthony (on fascism),
el 16 Jul 00, a las 17:42, Dennis R Redmond dijo:

> On Sat, 15 Jul 2000, Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxx wrote:

>
> I've always thought we should talk about the lumpenbourgeoisie ...
> -- the passive, rotting mass of thieves, gangsters and military cadre
> thrown off by primitive global accumulation in the Third World,
> who took the greatest delight in administering IMF austerity programs
> and banking the profits in Switzerland.

I agree in that this kind of class deserves a different name than
that of "bourgeoisie".  But, lumpenbourgeoisie has been too
frequently used in order to lump within this bag of turds the small
businessmen, little mechanics, or new industrialists who from time to
time appear, under the conditions of mass advance against imperialism
in Latin America. This perfectly reactionary idea, which has the
great result that it ends up isolating workers and killing the
eventual national front at its very root, has made the term
"lumpenbourgeoisie" an unhappy one. And, moreover, since we are
permanently subject to the derogatory propaganda from the imperialist
centers, we should not add our own derogatory language to CNN's.

There are words for that kind of class. We Latin Americans have long
known them as the "oligarchs".  I do not know why we could not speak
of "oligarchs", or of "rosca" (as they vividly used to say in
Bolivia: "rosca" meaning "screw thread", the noun conveys the
intrincate lobbying practice which gives origin, more than sheer
economic might, to the web of interweaving connections between the
few members of the oligarchy).

My two cents against "lumpenbourgeoisie" and for "oligarchy".  There
is a witty Spanish saying on those poets who invent new words because
they do not know the old ones.
Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
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