Some Problems in the Analysis of Urban Proletarian Politics in the Third World

Abstract

This paper assesses the link hypothesized by Marx and his followers between capitalist economic development and the emergence of a sizable and politically progaressive urban proletariat capable of mobilization for revolutionary change. It gives special attention to issues of definition (who is the proletariat?) and to explication of the mechanisms linking economic development, industrialization, and radicalization of the proletariat, discussing the extent to which these mechanisms are operative in mature capitalist societies and Third World countries today.