verb
- to reduce (a person or group) to the status of a proletarian; to cause to become a member of the working class
Usage: formal; often used in political or sociological contexts
Examples
- Industrial automation proletarianizes skilled craftspeople by reducing them to factory workers.
- The economist argued that globalization proletarianizes the middle class in developed nations.
- Economic policies that proletarianize workers often lead to social unrest.
- The revolution aimed to prevent capitalism from proletarianizing the entire population.
- Technological displacement proletarianizes professionals who lack retraining opportunities.