The mob is a by-product of bourgeois society, not the working class

Evidence

The rise of the mob out of the capitalist organization was observed early, and its growth carefully and anxiously noted by all great historians of the nineteenth century. Historical pessimism from Burckhardt to Spengler springs essentially from this consideration. But what the historians, sadly preoccupied with the phenomenon in itself, failed to grasp was that the mob could not be identified with the growing industrial working class, and certainly not with the people as a whole, but that it was composed actually of the refuse of all classes. This composition made it seem that the mob and its representatives had abolished class differences, that those standing outside the class-divided nation were the people itself (the Volksgemeinschaft, as the Nazis would call it) rather than its distortion and caricature. The historical pessimists understood the essential irresponsibility of this new social stratum, and they also correctly foresaw the possibility of converting democracy into a despotism whose tyrants would rise from the mob and lean on it for support. What they failed to understand was that the mob is not only the refuse but also the by-product of bourgeois society, directly produced by it and therefore never quite separable from it. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 422

Categorization

• DEFINE: Arendt’s precise definition of the mob: ‘refuse of all classes,’ a by-product of bourgeois society, distinct from both the working class and ‘the people.’ Central concept for the toolkit.
• XREF: The Volksgemeinschaft concept and the mob’s abolition of class appearance connects directly to the imagined community of the nation theme and to how later race-thinking collapses class distinctions — supports the reader’s scaffolding goals. — connects to: Economic function, not legal status, defines membership in the working class. — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 156