The word "lumpenproletariat" has disturbed me ever since I heard of it. Even without knowing the definition, I can hear a sneer behind that word. It sounds like rich people making fun of poor people.

The word is supposedly marxist terminology for the sector of the oppressed masses that is not interested in revolutionary advancement. If that is the case, then perhaps the word is assigning blame to the wrong people. It's like a corporation yelling at people for not buying its product, instead of giving customers what they want.

So if I come across someone using that particular word seriously, I have reason to worry that they are not interested in democracy of any sort, because they see themselves as being some kind of high-horse smartypants who is allowed to decide things for everyone against their objections.

Forgive me for not wanting to think badly of people. Once upon a time I did, and I was cold. Then someone reached out to me and gave me a chance, and I realized that I had many things to learn from the people I had ignored, and that they were not worth sneering at, after all.

I worry that a political program which allows for such a dismissive concept as "Lumpenproletariat" is critically flawed at its core. How can you be for the people if you are not by the people? How can you be a grass-roots movement if you are looking down upon those roots and calling them unworthy? Who put you in charge if not those people?

Marxism is supposedly prone to falling apart because singular people try to seize power, but jeez, let that be a failure state! Don't bake it into the political discourse before you even get started! The critical flaw of the U.S. constitution is that it enshrines a particular sort of dismissive elitism that seeks to limit the effect of truly proportional representation, which is why we have the Senate and the Electoral College and the 3/5 compromise, and all the initial restrictions on voting. The framers of the Constitution did not actually trust the will of the common people.

Don't go down that road! If you're in it for the people you must be OF the people, not holding yourself in an imagined elite status above them.