Theory of Pauperization of the Proletariat

It refers to the theory of the process and tendency of deterioration of the economic and life conditions of the proletariat accompanying the accumulation of capital under the capitalist system.

Under the system of capitalist private property, the only purpose of production is to obtain more surplus-value. In order to pursue profits, capitalists cruelly exploit workers, resulting in pauperization and deterioration of their lives. In the 1840s, Marx conducted a profound study of the misery of the proletariat. When examining the capitalist relations of production, he regarded the misery of the proletariat as an objective process and put forth the theory of the pauperization of the proletariat. Marx initially dealt with the theory of the pauperization of the proletariat in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and in Wage-Labor and Capital of 1847. The famous address Wages, Price and Profit delivered by Marx at the two sessions of the General Council of the International Workingmen’s Association, made a further scientific exposition of the pauperization of the proletariat under the capitalist system. In 1867, Marx established the theory of the pauperization of the proletariat on the basis of the general laws of capitalist accumulation in Capital, Vol. 1, thus further perfected it. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Lenin applied Marx’s theory of the pauperization of the proletariat to analyze the economic condition of the proletariat during the imperialist period, and has further enriched the theory of the pauperization of the proletariat by applying the categories of relative and absolute pauperization.

The pauperization of the proletariat is the inevitable result of the general law of capitalist accumulation. In the process of accumulation of capital, there is an inherent and necessary connection between the accumulation of wealth of the bourgeoisie and the accumulation of misery of the proletariat. The process of accumulation of capital is the process of increase in the organic composition of capital and the expansion of the relative surplus population, and also the process of deterioration of the economic and life conditions of the proletariat. In order to obtain more surplus-value, capitalists cruelly exploit the laborers, and the laborers’ wages are restricted to the minimum required to maintain the reproduction of labor-power, or even lower than the value of labor-power. However, this approach is limited by the physical and social conditions of workers, so that capitalists mainly obtain more surplus-value by adopting advanced technology, expanding the scale of production, increasing the productivity of labor, and relatively increasing the surplus labor-time. However, technological progress and increased productivity of labor have increased the organic composition of capital, increasing the proportion of constant capital for purchasing the means of production and decreasing the share of variable capital for purchasing labor in the total capital, which has resulted in the emergence of a relative surplus population. As the absolute number of the proletariat increases, the industrial reserve army becomes larger, which aggravates the exploitation of the workers by the capitalist and leads to the accumulation of poverty of the proletariat. The accumulation of capital “establishes an accumulation of misery, corresponding with accumulation of capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e., on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital.”

The pauperization of the proletariat is manifests itself in two forms: relative and absolute pauperization. Relative pauperization means that with the accumulation of capital, the proportion of the working class in national income tends to decline relatively. Even though workers’ wages increase in the case of an increase in total national income, they remain relatively low compared to the surplus-value obtained by the capitalists. The relative pauperization of the proletariat does not contradict the improvement of the actual living standards of the proletariat. Absolute pauperization refers to the extreme deterioration of the condition of the working class in times of economic crisis and war, which manifests itself as a fall in the real wages, an increase in unemployment and the hardships of life.

Marx’s theory of the pauperization of the proletariat has explained the real causes of the pauperization of the proletariat and revealed the antagonism between the fundamental interests of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. It is of great theoretical and practical guidance for us today to analyze the phenomenon of pauperization of the working class in the context of economic globalization and to understand the world-wide issue of poverty.