andrelated categories such asarbeitende KlasseandArbeiterklasse(working
class) madeafirst appearance in the early1800s in order to announce the fun-
damental differenceofthe capitalist mode of production and its social organiza-
tion of labor from the medievalZunft(guild) system. In the paternalistic struc-
tures of theguild system,Handwerker(artisans, craftsmen) weredistinguished
through their particular craft (e.g., cobbler,locksmith, carpenter)rather than
their membership inasocial group made up of equal (i.e., equallyoppressed)
members. ThereferencetoLohnarbeiter(wagelaborer)acknowledgedthe de-
pendent natureoflabor under capitalism and the centrality of work to the organ-
ization of modernlife. Later compound nouns such asGeistesproletarier(intel-
lectualproletarians) included intellectual work in these new structures of
dependency and exploitation,apoint picked up byWeimar-erastudies about
the so-calledakademische Proletariat(academic proletariat). Meanwhile, the dis-
tinctionbetweenHandarbeiter(manual worker)undKopfarbeiter(mental work-
er)reintroduced old hierarchies based primarilyonsocial status and prestige
and superimposed them on analyses of modernclass society.Asimilar system
of differentiation was at work inrelation to the infamousLumpenproletarier,
or subproletarian, who subsequentlycameto function as the ultimate category
of otherness against which the class-conscious proletarian could assert his
power and knowledge.
Located at the intersection of the particularand the universal, the concept of
the proletariat allowed Marx and Engels to establish the theoretical foundations
for asocialist movement no longer beholden, like the utopian socialists,to vi-
sions ofafuture community living in perfect harmony. Insteadtheir thought
was propelled forward by the inevitability oftension and struggle. In the“Eco-
nomic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844”(first publishedin1932),Marx early
on defined the proletarian as“the man who, being without capital and rent,lives
purelybylabor and by one-sided, abstract labor,isconsidered by political econ-
omyonlyasaworker.Politicaleconomycan thereforeadvancethe proposition
that the proletarian, the same as anyhorse, mustgetasmuch as will enable
him to work.It does not consider him when he is not working, as ahuman
being.”⁸Marx’scontinuingclarification of the term hadapronounced literary di-
mension, as evidenced by his quotes from Heinrich Heine’spoemTheSilesian
Weaverswhen reflectingonthe conditionsfor revolution and his references to
Eugène Sue’sTheMysteries ofParis(1842/43)when distinguishingaproletarian
1990). My discussion is indebtedto Karl Erich Heidolph,“Arbeiter,Arbeiterklasse,Revolution,
Ausbeutung.”UntersuchungenzurHerausbildung gesellschaftswissenschaftlicherTermini bei K.
Marx undF. Engels(Berlin: Akademie derWissenschaften, 1975).
Karl Marx,“Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,”MECW3: 241.
54 Chapter 2