“The poor are thought to be dangerous, either morally dangerous because they are unproductive social parasites - thieves, prostitutes, drug addicts, and the like - or potentially dangerous because they are disorganized, unpredicatble, and tendentially reactionary. In fact the term lumpenproletariat (or rad proletariat) has functioned for times to demonize the poor as a whole. … The industrial reserve army is a constant threat hanging over the heads of the existing working class because, first of all, its misery serves as a terrifying example to workers of what could happen to them, and, second, the excess supply of labor it represents lowes the costs of labor and undermines workers' power against employers (by serving potentially as strike breakers, for example).”

— Antonio Negri , book Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

130
Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire

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Antonio Negri 63

Italian sociologist 1933

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Source: "John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires", [Ronald, Wright, A Short History of Progress, 2004, 124, Anansi Press, Toronto, https://books.google.com/books?id=nzWPFQIEvfEC&q=%22temporarily+embarrassed+millionaires%22#v=snippet&q=%22temporarily%20embarrassed%20millionaires%22&f=false]

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