The Proletariat
The Proletariat
The proletariat is the working class of society. They differ from the bourgeoise in that they don't have access to the means of production, such as factories, which means that they have to sell their labour or time to survive.
Engles, 1847
Engles, 1847
"The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor – hence, on the changing state of business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. The proletariat, or the class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the 19th century."