what is a proletariat

The proletariat is a social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labor power. Members of this class are called proletarians or proletaires. The term was first used by Karl Marx in his socio-political theory (Marxism) to describe a progressive working class untainted by private property and capable of revolutionary action to topple capitalism and abolish social classes, leading society to ever higher levels of prosperity and justice. Marx defined the proletariat as the social class having no significant ownership of the means of production (factories, machines, land, mines, buildings, vehicles) and whose only means of subsistence is to sell their labor power for a wage or salary. In the theory of Karl Marx, the term proletariat designated the class of wage workers who were engaged in industrial production and whose chief source of income was derived from the sale of their labor power.