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how socially useful their knewledge and skills vay later prove to be, they ave etd hl "dependents," a pleasant word for parasites, Rather than earn a living, students chisel or hustle for one, Even the son of a member cf the ruling class knows that he has gotten his sports car by finagling it out of his ~old man, not through productive labor (like his father's workers) or legalized, respec- | table plunder (like his father); he relates to his father like a call girl or swindler? Students are denicd ever bourgeois democratic rights, As neither workers ner owners, living under coercive rules without even the illusion of having chosen the authority over them, students share some cf the experience of the more clearly classless elements of society, the true lumpenproletariat, This experience has at least some effect on their consciousness, They know what it is to be considered a parasite and to live like one, Their class loyalties weaken, The sanctity of both work and private property -is questioued, Of course they are still largely products of their natal class, But because their class position is now ambiguous, many of them slip out of the class roles for which they suppocedly were being trained, and some find it quite easy to become outright class traitors, Some sons and daughters of workers compete for managerial careers, and a fcw even become lower level bosses over their parents, Some sons and daughters of the wealthiest capitalists become conscious revolutionaries, secking to overthrow their parents’ rule, and a few even succeed in merging with the workers, But the sost striking phenomenon is that of the drop-out, who slides directly from an existence with some supervicial resemblances to the lumpenproletarfat into becoming a4 bona fide member of that class, And during the present period, the beginning of the {inal collapse of imperialism, that is becoming a mass phenomenon, ECE Raper gs The alienated street people, predominately ex-students whose neighborhood usually adjoin @ Black or Brown ghetto, form an arbisuous connection to the dispossessed luwpenprole- tariat and lover strata cf the proletariat, The potential exists for two kinds of. conflict, and both have already taken place: in one, whites and Third World people fight against each other; in the other, both fight together against the police, This represents in dramatically clear form the classical ambiguity of and within the lumpenpreletariat , . The Lumpenproletariat and the Working Class Although the Jumpenproletariat must play a role in revolutionary struggle, as a class it 3s incapabic of being the main force, Its capacity for fighting and destruction may be great, but cf all clacses within suciety it is the least capable of seizing and maintaining state pcwer, at. + suvement is emnirici«aonm. whi 120 GUE TOVETHETL 20 Chparata sity Wais z n ases its ca. o eer * fica error ¢cyrr : hei wine = i oO 41 1 evrrent] cing mac c 7 only on what hes already taken place here and now, In any pre-revolutionary or early revolutionary condition, the least stable elements within society are those te go into’ motica first, This almost aluays includes stucents and elements of the lumpenproletarie Enpirictsm uistakes this first force for the leading force or vanguard,, and concludes thee the revolution will be made by precisely those elements in fact least able to earry it cEhreugh to completion, than the nhs Chat nriger tlhrar a lass te #ha amebdne ral L Pe Ste te power i faaet wy swe Ls he hie ¥ wa Retr Me jam nO $ wna gues fe not a revoluticnary, for revolution at this point in history max. the ov.rthiow ¢f the bovrgeoisie by the proletariat, (One can, however, be a fighting anti-inperialist, totally cormitted to the destruction of the bourgeois stete, without being a revolutionary, But whether the means of destruction are fire or plapus, ‘ott Aes iman 1h cal ales wa & os pe. , os - estoy Pie an tack i ore " *. a ai aad dt. Del. -,'* eetig fives . ‘ek pee 5 a fa os Foote ey ye eto. . co / at... Te »- _ aie Fen ae mana A i nf hy, . gp dian! om ee x * apt “By oo Se Lard wre re as re ae a, woe ee ee ell itt on 2 EO thine he eats = ee ee Pst Le lee