semiproletariat

See also: semi-proletariat

English

Alternative forms

• semi-proletariat

Etymology

semi- +‎ proletariat

Noun

semiproletariat (countable and uncountable, plural semiproletariats)

1. The class of marginalized workers who lack regular employment, such as working peasants, pedlars, small handicrafts makers, and the underemployed.
   • 1979, Immanuel Wallerstein, The Capitalist World-Economy, →ISBN, page 107:

     To obtain such a cost differential they must either be able to hold back the proletariat's demands for real wage increases, using segments of the semiproletariat as 'strike breakers', or if they transfer a portion of the advantage to the proletariat they must obtain the asisistance of this group to hold the semiproletariat firmly in check - indeed to expropriate some or all of its land resources.

   • 1992, Mao Zedong, Michael Y. M. Kau, John K. Leung, The Writings of Mao Zedong, 1949–1976, →ISBN, page 730:

     This is because the rural semiproletariat are not so stubborn in clinging to the system of private ownership of the means of production [vested] is small[-scale] peasant holdings, and they are people who will accept socialist transformation more easily.

   • 2008, Kathleen Gough, Rural Society in Southeast India, →ISBN, page 260:

     The semiproletariat consisted of those who did manual labor for one or more masters and who surrendered their surplus product either as rent or as surplus value to their employers.

   • 2015, Arif Dirlik, Alexander Woodside, Global Capitalism and the Future of Agrarian Society, →ISBN, page 241:

     In this contradictory process, the class balances within the nationalist alliance would also begin to shift against the semiproletariat.