- "Bourgeois" redirects here; for the composer with that name, see Derek Bourgeois.
Bourgeoisie (boorz'hwäz-ee´) in modern use refers to the wealthy or propertied classes in a capitalist society.
Origin of the term
Bourgeoisie is a French word. The early Anglicization "burgess" is derived from the old French burgeis (Cf. also middle English: burgeis, burges, borges and old Dutch: burgher = the inhabitant of a borough or burgh). In the French feudal order, "bourgeois" was formally a legal category in society, defined by conditions such as length of residence and source of income.
The French term in turn seems to have derived from the Italian borghesia (from borgo (=village), which in turn derives from the Greek pyrgos). A borghese was a freeman dwelling in a burgh or township. The word evolved to mean merchants and traders, and until the 19th century was mostly synonymous with the middle class (persons in the broad socioeconomic spectrum between nobility and serfs or proletarians.
Rise of the bourgeoisie
In the early medieval age, as cities were forming and growing, artisans and tradesmen begin to emerge as an economic force. They formed guilds, associations and companies to conduct business and promote their own interests. These people were the original bourgeoisie. In the late Middle Ages, they allied with fractions of the nobility in uprooting the feudalism system, gradually becoming the ruling class in industrialised nation states. In the 17th and 18th century, they generally supported the American revolution and French revolution in overthrowing the laws and privileges of the absolutist feudal order, clearing the way for the rapid expansion of commerce.
Concepts such as personal liberties, religious and civil rights, and the freedom to live and trade all derive from bourgeois philosophies. But the bourgeoisie was never without its critics; narrow-mindedness, materialism, hypocrisy, opposition to change, and lack of culture were a few of the negative characteristics attributed to them by Molière and others. The earliest recorded pejorative uses of the term "bourgeois" are associated with aristocratic contempt for the lifestyle of the bourgeoisie. Successful embourgeoisement typically meant being able to retire and live on invested income.
With the expansion of commerce, trade and market economy, the bourgeoisie grew in size, influence and power. A new concept of society emerged in English language during the 18th century, namely that of civil society, basically synonymous with the French société bourgeoise and the German bürgerliche Gesellschaft. In Hegel's social philosophy, inspired by the French revolution, the sphere of civil society, to which civil rights apply, is explicitly separated and distinguished from that of the political state.
The modern use of the term bourgeoisie is mainly pejorative, or else mainly a sociological/cultural reference. In most cases, modern English usage has substituted "citizen" and "civil" for the old term "bourgeois".
This reflects the disappearance of the old feudal social classes, and the transformation of the majority of the working population into wage and salary earners. In Latin America, however, the term Burgesia or Burguesia often retains its reference to a class status.
Marx's concept
Karl Marx attacked bourgeois political theory and its view of civil society and civilisation for what he believed to be its falsely universal concepts and institutions; in his view, these concepts were only the ideology of the bourgeoisie as a new ruling class, which sought to reshape society after its own image.
In Marx's economic theories, the bourgeoisie is generally defined as the social class which obtains income from ownership or trade in capital assets, or from commercial activities such as the buying and selling of commodities, wares and services. In medieval times, the bourgeois is typically a self-employed proprietor, small employer, entrepreneur, banker or merchant. In industrial capitalism, the bourgeoisie becomes the ruling class which means it also owns the bulk of the means of production (land, factories, offices, capital, resources). This enables it to employ and exploit the work of a large mass of waged workers (the working class), who have no other means of livelihood than to sell their labour to property owners.
Marx himself distinguished between "functioning capitalists" actually managing enterprises, and "mere coupon-clippers" earning property rents or interest-income from financial assets or real estate.
Marxism sees the proletariat (wage laborers) and bourgeoisie as directly waging an ongoing competition, in that capitalists exploit workers and workers try to resist exploitation.
In the rhetoric of many Communist parties, "bourgeois" becomes an insult. Those who are perceived to collaborate with the bourgeoisie are often called its lackeys. Marx himself primarily used the term "bourgeois", with or without sarcasm, as an objective description of a social class and of a lifestyle based on ownership of private capital, not as a pejorative. He admired the industriousness of the bourgeoisie, but criticised it for its moral hypocrisy. This attitude is shown most clearly in the Communist Manifesto.
In the view of some latter-day Marxist currents such as Maoism and the International Socialists, the nomenklatura or higher state functionaries in Soviet-type societies were or are a "state bourgeoisie" presiding over a state capitalism. According to this interpretation, the long historical association of the bourgeois class with a staunch defence of private enterprise is irrelevant to defining the bourgeoisie. Instead, higher incomes and privileges deriving from the commanding power or control over state-owned assets make the functionaries a bourgeois class.
See also
References to Marxian and Neo-marxist theories of the bourgeoisie
- Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, Vol. 2: The Politics of Social Classes. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979.
- Ralph Miliband, Class and class power in contemporary capitalism, in: Stanislaw Kozyr-Kowalski and Jacek Tittenbrun, On Social Differentiation. A Contribution to the Critique of Marxist Ideology, Part 2. Poznan: Adam Mickiewicz University Press, 1992, pp. 7-62.
- Ernest Mandel, Social differentiation in capitalist and postcapitalist societies, in: Stanislaw Kozyr-Kowalski and Jacek Tittenbrun, On Social Differentiation. A Contribution to the Critique of Marxist Ideology, Part 2. Poznan: Adam Mickiewicz University Press, 1992, pp. 63-91.
- Erik Olin Wright et al., The Debate on Classes. London: Verso, 1989.
- Anthony Giddens, The Class Structure of the Advanced societies.
External links
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