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What is the definition of a proletariat. The dictionary tells me any working person, but in the roman empire it was a lower class citizen. Can middle class be considered proletariat?

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  • What part of the Roman Empire are you referring to? Did they speak English there? Borrowed words don't necessarily fully retain their source meaning, and the lapse of time changes it to. Your common references will distinguish between current meaning and historical meaning. Given that, show some examples of what you don't understand, if you still have your question. Aug 31, 2014 at 2:47
  • What would you make of the following sentence. I could drift along like this, in some dreamy proletarian idyll, except for two things.
    – Ingles
    Aug 31, 2014 at 2:49
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    If you keep asking the same question over and over, and they should all be on a different site anyway, they'll all just be closed.
    – Fattie
    Aug 31, 2014 at 6:45

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The Proletariat (there is in most uses only one of It, although some inadequately class-conscious analysts speak disparagingly of a distinct Lumpenproletariat) is the entire body of those working people who create the Surplus Value which is appropriated by Capital. An individual member of the Proletariat is a Proletarian.

In analyses which embrace the term Proletariat the Middle Class is comprised of those petits bourgeois precariously poised on the cusp between exploiting and being exploited. Some rise into the Ruling Class or Grande Bourgeoisie, others fall into the Proletariat.

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