I would like to expand on the lumpen
That includes Mafia bosses and members,drug dealers and junkies but also political thugs(see the "proud boys" in usa)
Also some mafia lawyers or other scammers and corrupt members of society could be consider lumpen
While they dont harm anyone they do live
parasitically
This
Marx meant smething similar to gypses rather than what we see in the streets today
I also nominate working class and petit bourg as terms that are not used in the way they should be, but perhaps point to real phenomena in their misuse
So now that we have all these ideas, let's discuss what many leftists think they mean and more accurate meanings as far as the Marxist tradition can be concerned as I was planning earlier. To start: socialism, Communism and Marxism are often confused while in truth the three are irreducible to each other as concepts. The first is a kind of society which generally (for there are bourgeois socialisms too, such as the utopian variant of socialisms) relates to some kind of common ownership and coordination; the second is a dynamic movement initially towards the abolition of exclusive (private) property and the advancement of the commons; the third is a theory which at its heart concerns the nature of the social world, which not only cannot be documented using bodies of thought which are reducible to religion-like moral doctrines, philosophical frameworks (complete with ethics) or empirical sciences, but cannot be explained using a combination of all three kinds of knowledge. To my knowledge, Marxism binds its variant of Communism to class society while Communists seek to weaponise socialism.
socialism existed before Marx. it should be taken to mean – and only mean – Utopian socialism. as it always has been and virtually is today.
Capitalist class
Working class
Workers’ State
Small capitalist
Criminal underclass
Socialism
Communism
I think that the rest of the terminology doesn’t need to be updated. The only question is how exactly to even spread Marx’s ideas in the modern day. Simply clarifying terms is a first step, but it won’t get people to read his works. We need something more to do that to spread his ideas.
Then what of 'scientific socialism'?
Sorting out whatever we're referring to and filling in any gaps in our present understandings is key before we even get to propaganda.
Before Marx, socialists were people that wanted to reform society, usually along religious or social lines, without wanting to change the material circumstances and processes which produced the problems that they're reacting against. You know Thomas More's Utopia? That was socialism before Marx.
Scientific socialism is the application of dialectical analysis to currently and previously existing society in order to understand why things are like they are and why in order to devise a framework for change. That's why Marx called himself a Communist, to distinguish their theory from the idealist socialists.
Now depending on who you ask, socialism is the 'lower stage' of communism, the transitory period betwern full capitalism and full communism, as things like private property, markets, and other trappings of capitalism are phased out and new social mechanisms replace them.
This is why the Manifesto should still be required reading. Marx explains most of this in summary.
I know about bourgeois socialisms and other socialisms before Marx. There were communisms before Marx as well. I remember the idea of socialism being the 'stage' before class society is no longer in existence, which is why I believe that socialism must be regarded as a weapon as far as Communists are concerned. These are much easier, but things like 'reformism', 'opportunism' and 'revisionism' require much more study to unpack - it is not enough to say that both refer to our disagreements with non-Marxian-Communist socialists or even that they are un-Communist deviations from any theory and praxis which are worthy of the Communist label. Was this not one of the problems which the more forceful Bolsheviks faced while Mensheviks were waiting for conditions to become 'dialectical' enough?
Define what you mean by parasitically, and define what you mean by NEET.
What constitutes the lumpenproletariat is relative because material conditions, and thus culture, vary regionally. It's frequently a buzzword when people inject their own biases into it and try to use it as a euphemism for "niggers".
The modern scientific method didn't exist in Marx's time, so holding it to such a standard is intellectually dishonest. Also frequently hypocritical, since the vast majority of critics from this angle hold liberal democracy to a different standard.