“The little guy” is dissatisfied with his existence, but holds to his role with an iron grip. Now the wage laborers are called by other names: as “the little guys” or “the man on the street.” As such (and not as proletarians!) they are a major reference point for democratic politicians. In school it is known that factory work is to be avoided later in life if possible. However, everybody knows that poverty exists and is not desirable. If it does not represent a problem, then there is also no need to be concerned with it. This point of view shows that the proletariat was of interest to social science only insofar as it was a problem for bourgeois society. Therefore there can also be no objective common position. The term might have been meaningful in previous times, but affiliation with the working class did not prove important for the formation of community.

The working class experiences only one form of discrimination among many (like discrimination against women, foreigners, the uneducated, etc.).This argument is about as reasonable as stating that apples and pears do not fall under the category of fruit because they are different. The class term originates in industrial society, but in the present it would designate too large or too small a social layer to apply to a single class unit.In the social sciences, it is also passe to talk about the “proletariat.” There are several trends: Since achieving its goal, it can conceive of nothing better than the current capitalism. The goal of Social Democracy was for the proletarians to attain the status of citizens by securing their national rights it is tremendously proud of this achievement. They represent themselves as a business service. Today they no longer want to hear about “class struggle,” “wage conflicts” or “strikes” – or any fights at all. The best example of this “progress” by bourgeois society is a previous winner of the class struggle: the trade unions.

Supposedly, this means that the proletariat belongs to the past and, with the removal of the word, bourgeois society has overcome this contradiction the resistance resulting from class conflict was pacified within capitalist society. In those days, the workers were class conscious: they understood that they not only had to work for their living costs, but they also had to fight for them. It is widely believed that the the “proletariat” existed only in history, in Manchester capitalism. The word has disappeared, just like “working class” or even “worker.” There is no “workers’ movement” anymore, no labor parties, the trade unions no longer fight. Nobody talks about the “proletariat” these days. Proletariat – does that still exist? Ruthless Criticism

Das Proletariat by Peter Decker