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Proletariat

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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Dictionaries
1910 New Catholic Dictionary
• Proletariat
Webster Dictionary
• Proletariat
Encyclopedias
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
• Proletariat
The Nuttall Encyclopedia
• Proletariat

or Proletariate, a term borrowed from the French and used collectively of those classes of a political community who depend for their livelihood on their daily labour, the wage-earning, operative class as opposed to the capitalowning class. It is of frequent use by those social reformers who base their theories on the supposed antagonism of capital and labour. The Latin proletarius, from which the word was formed, was the name given to the body of citizens possessed of no property and who therefore served the state with their children (proles, offspring). This division of the members of the state was traditionally ascribed to Servius Tullius.