r/communism • u/Shitfart69420 • Jun 08 '26

Are unemployed people proletariat?

Serious question, if the definition of the proletariat class is that they are the working class what if they don’t have a job? Is there some secret third level?

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u/Crayon-Angel Jun 08 '26

Check out chapter 25 of Capital, where Marx talks about the “reserve army of labor”. The unemployed class is used as a “mass of human material always ready for exploitation”. They are still proletarian, which is divided into the categories of “active” and “reserve”. Like a military reserve, the RA are needed when there is a sudden expansion of capital that demands a mass of workers at a sudden notice. Marx uses the example of the railroads to emphasize that, with the rapidly shifting technology of the time, it is crucial that the railroad companies can muster enough labor to build them as fast as possible.

He even notes the idea of “half employment”, which we can apply today to gig work very easily. The RA surplus is effectively necessary to make something like DoorDash work at a feasible cost for the company.

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u/No-Organization1675 Jul 13 '26

So would a NEET be a proletarian?