What is the Bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie is called middle and wealthy social class in which those people who own property and high economic returns are grouped.
The term bourgeoisie derives from the French bourgeoisieto refer to people who lived in cities where they had certain work privileges such as being merchants or artisans.
The bourgeoisie is a term that represents people who do not do any type of manual work and who have a significant accumulation of goods and money that makes them wealthy people. Therefore, it is a term that designates the wealthy middle class.
The bourgeoisie is divided into three categories: the upper bourgeoisie, which is responsible for the means of production and senior political officials; the middle bourgeoisie, which are people who practice a liberal profession; and the lower bourgeoisie, which are the people who are part of the industrial and commercial sector.
According to Karl Marx, the bourgeoisie is a social class of the capitalist regime, in which its members are responsible for production, are owners of their own business and are the opposite of the working class.
Likewise, Marx recognizes that it is thanks to the bourgeoisie and its values that the term society evolved and paved the way for obtaining civil rights and a representative State.
See also Bourgeois.
Characteristics of the bourgeoisie
Below are the main characteristics of the bourgeoisie.
It is composed of levels in which groups of individuals are differentiated according to their wealth, work activity and prestige. Its fundamental value is to recognize civil rights and the division of powers. It is based on the conception that States must have a political system representative.The bourgeoisie can hold political positions.The bourgeoisie can form select groups of people with great economic and political influence.They benefit from capitalist economic activity.It establishes the differences between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
Origin of the bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie emerged in the Middle Ages, specifically in Europe, when the main source of work was still rural activity, although merchants of clothing, jewelry and spices, as well as artisans, already existed.
Therefore, the term bourgeoisie was used to refer to people who had left the countryside and rural activity to move and live within the walled cities in new spaces called burgs. However, these people were despised by the nobility.
It should be noted that the bourgeoisie were not feudal lords or serfs and they did not belong to privileged classes such as the nobility, the clergy or the peasantry.
Since then, the bourgeoisie increased and in the 18th century the bourgeoisie ideologically expressed their values and interests regarding the individual, work, innovation, progress, happiness, freedom and equality of conditions, themes summarized in the French revolutionary motto: I liberated, égalité, fraternity.
Likewise, it was the bourgeoisie who actively participated in the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution demanding their social rights, political rights and economic rights.
On the other hand, with the emergence of the bourgeoisie, bipartisanship originated in the political system, after the French Revolution, which consists of the composition of two majority parties, in this case, that of the bourgeoisie on the one hand and that of the aristocracy. for the other.
See also Bipartisanship.
Currently, people who belong to the middle class or who have their own business are called the bourgeoisie. However, a derogatory use of the term bourgeoisie is also made since it is used to classify common and vulgar people who do not have very good taste.
See also: