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Concept
Proletariat
Summary
The proletariat (ˌproʊlɪˈtɛəriət; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist philosophy regards the proletariat under conditions of capitalism as an exploited class - forced to accept meager wages in return for operating the means of production, which belong to the class of business owners, the bourgeoisie.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) argued that this capitalist oppression gives the proletariat common economic and political interests that transcend national boundaries,
impelling them to unite and to take over power from the capitalist class, and eventually to create a communist society free from class distinctions.
The proletarii constituted a social class of Roman citizens who owned little or no property. The name presumably originated with the census, which Roman authorities conducted every five years to produce a register of citizens and their property, which determined their military duties and voting privileges. Those who owned 11,000 assēs (coins) or fewer fell below the lowest category for military service, and their children—prōlēs (offspring)were listed instead of property; hence the name proletarius (producer of offspring). Roman citizen-soldiers paid for their own horses and arms, and fought without payment for the commonwealth, but the only military contribution of a proletarius was his children, the future Roman citizens who could colonize conquered territories. Officially, propertyless citizens were called capite censi because they were "persons registered not as to their property...but simply as to their existence as living individuals, primarily as heads (caput) of a family."
Although included in the Comitia Centuriata (Centuriate Assembly), proletarii were the lowest class, largely deprived of voting rights. Late Roman historians such as Livy vaguely described the Comitia Centuriata as a popular assembly of early Rome composed of centuriae, voting units representing classes of citizens according to wealth.
Official source
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