As usual when it comes to class analysis, the question of the lumpenproletariat (the element which has been pushed to the economic periphery) in the United States has a dual nature. Because the lumpen are a class that’s at the same time especially susceptible to becoming forces for reactionary intrigue, and that’s gaining increasing amounts of revolutionary potential. As Marx and Engels warned about the lumpen—which in their time specifically meant the criminal class—there are counterrevolutionary tendencies within it which the bourgeoisie can exploit. Gangs are military governments that seek access to the black market under capitalism, making them unreliable entities as far as proletarian revolution is concerned. And the social conditioning of individualism, patriarchy, and violence under capitalism can make many within this criminal element enamored with backwards habits, which they aren’t all willing to unlearn.