Marginalization and lumpenization in the social structure of society. Lumpens and outcasts

Word " lumpen"was borrowed from German language "Lumpen", which literally translates as " rags" and denotes beggars, degraded people, declassed elements, tramps.
The term lumpen was first introduced into use by Karl Marx, who was the founder of communist theory. He wrote about this: " The lumpen proletariat, this passive product of the rotting lower strata of society, is partially drawn into the movement by the revolutionary situation, but due to its structure of life it is more inclined to sell itself to the obscurantist conspiracy"("Manifesto of the Communist Party" First chapter "Proletarians and Borgeois" Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx)

"Lumpens are citizens who do not know how and do not want to work. They have neither ethical standards nor property, are unable to plan their destiny, and are completely irresponsible." (publication in Novaya Gazeta dated November 19, 2012, issue 131)

Synonym for "lumpen"

Declassed element

Criminal

Tramp

Scourge (see the meaning of the word quilted jacket)

Herd

Bottoms

Black

Gopnik

Beggar

Tramp

Bum

Alcoholic

Crowd

Plebs(see who this duck is)

What is lumpen?

"Philip Philipovich was sitting near the table in his favorite chair. Near the curtain, standing tall with his legs crossed, was a short man with an ugly appearance. On his head, hair grew as hard as wire, as if in separate plantings in a harvested field, with an unshaven face. His forehead surprised with its small size. Almost next to his dark tassels spread out eyebrows began to grow, hair thick as a brush. His jacket, torn under the right armpit, was covered with straw, the striped trousers on the left knee were torn, and on the right were stained with purple paint. The neck of this citizen was tied with a sky-poisonous tie with fake ruby pin. The shade of his tie was so bright that Philip Philipovich, covering his tired eyes, noticed a brightly blazing torch with a blue top on the wall. Having opened them, he was blind again, because from the floor, spreading spots of light on the floor, white leggings with varnish boots caught his eye.
Philip Philipovich shook his head several times and said firmly: “So that you stop sleeping on the wards. Is everything clear to you? What kind of impudence is this anyway! You’re disturbing women!” A shadow came over this man’s face, and his lips protruded slightly: “So are women right away. That’s businesslike. Are they some kind of ladies? Simple servants, but with conceit, like a commissar’s.”
Philip Philipovich looked carefully: “Don’t throw cigarette butts on the floor, I’m telling you for the hundredth time. And don’t swear in the apartment anymore! And don’t spit! There’s a spittoon for that. Handle the urinal more carefully. Forget about Zina altogether. From she receives complaints that you are waiting for her in the dark. Listen! Who told the patient “the devil knows”!? Where do you think you are, in a drinking establishment?"
“Why are you my father, you began to oppress me greatly,” this man said in an unexpectedly whiny tone" ("dog's heart" M. Bulgakov)
Lumpens are a degraded category of people. for example, a banker became a tramp. or any other person who has become homeless is lumpen. and the marginalized are people who have “lost” their roots. for example, a villager moved to the city to live. he is marginal.

Marginals and lumpen

Everyone knows these words from school lessons history, this is how more fortunate people usually call their relatives who are less fortunate in life - representatives of the lower stratum of society. But are they really so close to each other - lumpen and marginal?

Explanatory dictionaries characterize both of them almost identically, as people who have lost touch with their social environment who became outcasts in it. However, from this position, anyone can turn out to be lumpen or marginal, depending on which society is taken as a starting point. Therefore, clarification is required.

Word " marginal" comes from Latinmarginalis- “extreme, located on the edge.”Marginal - this is someone who is between two irreconcilable cultures, without completely belonging to either of them, and at the same time accepting some character traits from both.

In economics there is a similar (only phonetically) term with a French pronunciation: “marginal”, associated with the conceptmargin– “margin, profit, the difference between the purchase and sale prices; minimum, lower limit."

Well, the word “lumpen - and is considered colloquial. This is short for German expression, used in Marxist theory, -Lumpenproletariat, WhereLumpen- “torn, rags”, andproletariat- “proletariat”. The lumpen proletariat are beggars, vagabonds, criminals and other dregs of society. So, we conclude: the wordlumpen not identical to the wordmarginal , although it has a lot in common with it.

^ Lumpens and outcasts.

These two groups of the population, each in its own way, seem to fall out of the stable social structure of society.

The word "lumpen" comes from the German lumpen - rags. People who have sunk to the bottom are considered lumpen. public life- tramps, beggars, homeless people. As a rule, these come from different social strata and classes. An increase in the number of this group (lumpenization of the population) is dangerous for society, since it serves nutrient medium for various kinds of extremist organizations. Different position and different social role in the marginal layers (lat. marginalis - located on the edge). These include groups that occupy an intermediate position between stable communities. One of the main channels of marginalization is mass migration from rural to urban areas. This process took place, for example, in the late 20s - 30s. in our country. The ongoing industrialization required more and more workers. Former rural residents, having lost touch with the village way of life, had difficulty adapting to the urban environment. On for a long time they became people with ragged social connections, destroyed spiritual values. Such sections of the population, “unrooted”, with unstable social status, strived for a solid state-established order, for " strong hand". This created a social basis for an anti-democratic regime.

The above example shows one of negative consequences increase in marginalized groups. At the same time, one cannot help but admit that often it is precisely these sections of the population, not bound by traditions and prejudices, that especially actively support the progressive, often acting as its initiators.

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. Who are the marginalized anyway, to put it simply? People who at will didn’t want to be part of society, or?

Or are these the people who are just standing next to the company on the side? Such a sensational word, but not everyone knows exactly what this concept means. I'll say more. The meaning of this word is quite vague. Many people understand when and to whom it can be applied, but they cannot give a definition. But you and I will try.

Marginal - who is this?

The term came to our language from Latin. There was the word "margo" which meant " edge, border, verge"(marginal, respectively, is “located on the edge or already beyond”).

This term became widespread in the 20s of the twentieth century. Then this word meant a person who had the status of an emigrant in America and in a new society. He left his country, his family, his job and his usual way of life in order to exchange for something new. Their failure to adapt to what has already developed in the states social behavior called marginalization.

IN in a general sense, a marginal is a person who, willy-nilly or not, went beyond the established rules (he was pushed out or he came to this himself). For example, in socially- outside one's own social group Human. Essentially this is outcast.

But there are many types (reasons) of marginalization - social failure, financial collapse, religious outcast, ethical, political, physical (illness, disability). They reflect the reasons why people became outcasts.

For some reason (in my opinion, wrongly) this word has become a complete synonym for the word lumpen, originally denoting a person from the very bottom of the working class (it is translated as rags). Nowadays, tramps, beggars and other “degraded” people are called lumpen. They, of course, can also be classified as “outcasts,” but this is still a special case of (financial) marginality.

The explanatory dictionary also conveys ambiguously meaning of this word:

marginal is an asocial object that is outside groups (social, economic, political...);
“marginal” is a word that describes a person who does not participate in the activities of people gathered by interests or goals;
a person who for some reason was removed from the group (outcast).

These are members of society who do not have any material values, and who have them. In essence, it is a caste. As a rule, they do not have any property. They earn money either by doing odd jobs, or by begging, or by robbing.

For me, so lumpen is a particular and very radical example of marginalization. It is not indicative, because it reflects only one hypostasis (financial).

The marginalized sections of society will not necessarily wear cast-offs and beg. They can easily earn their living. They're just "break away from the team" and play “their own game” (in the social, political, religious, and so on).

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

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What is the difference between marginalized people and lumpen people?

The main difference is that the marginalized can be very wealthy people who, for various reasons, have lost their previous position in society. They can do useful things social activities, but for some reason are not recognized by society. Lumpen, on the contrary, most often do not have their own housing, do odd jobs and have only the most necessary set of things for life. They often wander and become socially dangerous because they are always looking for a way to make quick money.

Lumpen most often submit to a stronger and more influential group of people; they believe that only the strong at a certain historical moment in time will be able to change anything. They do not have their own moral principles and cowardly obey persons who have greater power.

The marginalized, as opposed to the lumpen, who serve as a mindless force carrying out the orders of the more powerful, are most often the victims in such cases.

Our speech is constantly enriched with new words introduced into it from other languages, from scientific vocabulary and other sources.

So, increasingly in colloquial speech words began to appear "marginal" And "lumpen", used mainly to denote a person leading an antisocial lifestyle. But who are the marginalized and lumpen really?

Marginalized - people cut off from their environment

Word "marginal", like many others scientific definitions, borrowed from Latin language, Where "marginalis" means "on the edge" . In sociology, marginals are usually called people who have been torn out of their usual social stratum and way of life, but have not yet found a place in new conditions.

Such people feel very insecure because they have no support, are deprived of family support and are not familiar with the customs of other sectors of society.

The largest number of marginalized people appears during social upheavals, wars and conflicts. Rural residents arriving in the city become marginalized because they are not familiar with the urban way of life, do not have a specialty that provides a sufficiently high income, and are often even deprived of normal housing.

Refugees who find themselves in another country become marginalized due to poor language skills, lack of knowledge local customs and lack of material basis for existence. People left without work often join marginal groups even without changing their place of residence.

In conditions of a calm existence of society, there is always a certain number of marginalized people - people who have lost ties with their usual social environment.

Up or down?

From a sociological point of view, marginalized people can be divided into three main groups:

- a stabilizing group, which includes people of a conservative nature, who do not change their lifestyle with a change of place of residence, retain their specialty and social level;

— a degrading group, whose representatives, having been torn out of their usual conditions of existence, quickly slide into the lower strata of society, not wanting to acquire new skills and new professional qualifications;

- a promotion group, to which belong people who are ready to fight for improving their living conditions, including acquiring a new, more in demand and profitable profession, adopting new habits and customs of a new living environment.

It is easy to notice that representatives of the stable and increasing group are one way or another integrated into the life of society, while the decreasing group is the source of the formation of the lower stratum of society. From the downgrading group usually comes a replenishment of the social stratum of those who have dropped out of society, i.e. lumpen.

Who are the lumpen?

Word "lumpen" comes from German "Lumpen"- rags. For the first time, the concept of lumpen proletariat was introduced by K. Marx and denoted the lowest layer of the proletariat, people without sufficient qualifications, performing the most difficult, dirty and uncomplicated work.

Today in terminology social sciences representatives of the lower social classes who do not have property and permanent job who make odd jobs and do not strive to improve their situation. In the CIS countries, lumpen people can have their own housing, which, as a rule, was received by their parents during the Soviet era.

The main difference between the lumpen and other poor segments of the population is their asocial lifestyle. Lumpen does not have a permanent job and does not strive to find one. He does not have sufficient qualifications to provide, does not want and does not have the opportunity to learn a new profession.

His source of income is casual part-time work, often bordering on crime, and/or social benefits, benefits from the state or charitable foundations. As a rule, lumpen people are homeless tramps, beggars, prostitutes, alcoholics and drug addicts.

In conditions of social inequality, falling into the lumpen layer almost always means a death sentence for a person, since he will never be able to get promoted.