Editing Bourgeoisie (section)

==Denotations==

===Marxist theory===
{{Marxism|sociology}}
[[File:Karl Marx 001.jpg|thumb|Karl Marx]]

According to [[Karl Marx]], the bourgeois during the Middle Ages usually was a self-employed businessman – such as a merchant, banker, or entrepreneur{{sfn|Siegrist|2001|p=785}} – whose economic role in society was being the financial intermediary to the [[feudal]] [[landlord]] and the [[peasant]] who worked the [[fief]], the land of the lord. Yet, by the 18th century, the time of the [[Industrial Revolution]] (1750–1850) and of industrial capitalism, the bourgeoisie had become the economic ruling class who owned the [[means of production]] (capital and land), and who controlled the means of coercion (armed forces and legal system, police forces and prison system).{{sfn|Siegrist|2001|p=785}}{{sfn|Berend|2015|p=94}}

In such a society, the bourgeoisie's ownership of the means of production allowed them to employ and exploit the wage-earning working class (urban and rural), people whose only economic means is labor; and the bourgeois control of the means of coercion suppressed the sociopolitical challenges by the lower classes, and so preserved the economic status quo; workers remained workers, and employers remained employers.<ref>{{cite book |author-link=Karl Marx |first=Karl |last=Marx |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/index.htm |title=The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071230150829/http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/class-struggles-france/index.htm |archive-date=30 December 2007 |date=1850 |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref>

In the 19th century, Marx distinguished two types of bourgeois capitalist:
* the functional capitalists, who are business administrators of the means of production;
* [[rentier capitalist]]s whose livelihoods derive either from the [[Economic rent|rent]] of property or from the [[interest]]-income produced by finance capital, or from both.<ref>{{cite book |first=T. B. |last=Bottomore |author-link=Thomas Bottomore |title=A Dictionary of Marxist Thought |page=272}}</ref>

In the course of economic relations, the working class and the bourgeoisie continually engage in [[class struggle]], where the capitalists [[Exploitation of labour|exploit]] the workers, while the workers resist their economic exploitation, which occurs because the worker owns no means of production, and, to earn a living, seeks employment from the bourgeois capitalist; the worker produces goods and services that are property of the employer, who sells them for a price.

Besides describing the [[social class]] who owns the [[means of production]], the Marxist use of the term "bourgeois" also describes the [[Consumerism|consumerist]] style of life derived from the ownership of [[Capital (economics)|capital]] and [[real property]]. Marx acknowledged the bourgeois industriousness that created wealth, but criticised the moral hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie when they ignored the alleged origins of their wealth: the exploitation of the proletariat, the urban and rural workers. Further sense denotations of "bourgeois" describe ideological concepts such as "bourgeois freedom", which is thought to be opposed to substantive forms of freedom; "bourgeois independence"; "bourgeois personal individuality"; the "bourgeois family"; et cetera, all derived from owning capital and property (see ''[[The Communist Manifesto]]'', 1848).

===France and Francophone countries===
In English, the term ''bourgeoisie'' is often used to denote the middle classes. In fact, the French term encompasses both the upper and middle economic classes,<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0AHZMAiFx2EC&q=bourgeoisie+French+term&pg=PA23 |title=French Bourgeois Culture |first1=Béatrix |last1=Le Wita |first2=J. A. |last2=Underwood |isbn=9780521466264 |date=1994-06-16 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |access-date=16 October 2020 |archive-date=27 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427104113/https://books.google.com/books?id=0AHZMAiFx2EC&q=bourgeoisie+French+term&pg=PA23 |url-status=live |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> a misunderstanding which has occurred in other languages as well. The bourgeoisie in France and many French-speaking countries consists of five evolving social layers: {{lang|fr|petite bourgeoisie}}, {{lang|fr|moyenne bourgeoisie}}, {{lang|fr|grande bourgeoisie}}, {{lang|fr|haute bourgeoisie}} and {{lang|fr|ancienne bourgeoisie}}.

====''Petite bourgeoisie''====
{{Main|Petite bourgeoisie}}

The {{lang|fr|petite bourgeoisie}} is the equivalent of the modern-day middle class, or refers to "a social class between the middle class and the lower class: the lower middle class".<ref>{{cite web |title=the petite bourgeoisie |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/the%20petite%20bourgeoisie |website=Merriam-Webster |access-date=26 January 2018 |archive-date=27 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180127084156/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/the%20petite%20bourgeoisie |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Nazism===
[[Nazism]] rejected the [[Marxism|Marxist]] concept of [[proletarian internationalism]] and [[class struggle]], and supported the "class struggle between nations", and sought to resolve internal class struggle in the nation while it identified Germany as a [[proletariat]] nation fighting against [[plutocratic]] nations.{{sfn|Nicholls|Nicholls|2000|p=245}} The [[Nazi Party]] had many working-class supporters and members, and a strong appeal to the [[middle class]]. The financial collapse of the [[White-collar worker|white collar]] middle-class of the 1920s figures much in their strong support of Nazism.<ref name="Burleigh, 2000. p. 77">{{cite book |last=Burleigh |first=Michael |title=The Third Reich: A New History |location=New York, USA |publisher=Hill and Wang |date=2000 |page=77}}</ref> In the poor country that was the [[Weimar Republic]] of the early 1930s, the Nazi Party realised their social policies with food and shelter for the unemployed and the homeless—who were later recruited into the Brownshirt {{lang|de|[[Sturmabteilung]]}} (SA – Storm Detachments).<ref name="Burleigh, 2000. p. 77"/>

[[Adolf Hitler]] was impressed by the [[Populism|populist]] [[antisemitism]] and the anti-liberal bourgeois agitation of [[Karl Lueger]], who as the mayor of Vienna during Hitler's time in the city, used a rabble-rousing style of oratory that appealed to the wider masses.{{sfn|Nicholls|Nicholls|2000|pp=159–160}} When asked whether he supported the "bourgeois right-wing", Hitler claimed that Nazism was not exclusively for any [[Nazism#Social class|class]], and he also indicated that it favored neither the [[Left-wing politics|left]] nor the [[right-wing politics|right]], but preserved "pure" elements from both "camps", stating: "From the camp of bourgeois tradition, it takes national resolve, and from the materialism of the Marxist dogma, living, creative Socialism."<ref name="commentary">{{cite book |first1=Adolf |last1=Hitler |author1-link=Adolf Hitler |first2=Max |last2=Domarus |author2-link=Max Domarus |title=The Essential Hitler: Speeches and Commentary |pages=171, 172–173}}</ref>

Hitler distrusted capitalism for being unreliable due to its [[egotism]], and he preferred a state-directed economy that is subordinated to the interests of the ''[[Volk]]''.{{sfn|Overy|2004|p=399}} Hitler told a party leader in 1934, "The economic system of our day is the creation of the Jews."{{sfn|Overy|2004|p=399}} Hitler said to [[Benito Mussolini]] that capitalism had "run its course".{{sfn|Overy|2004|p=399}} Hitler also said that the business bourgeoisie "know nothing except their profit. 'Fatherland' is only a word for them."{{sfn|Overy|2004|p=230}} Hitler was personally disgusted with the ruling bourgeois elites of Germany during the period of the Weimar Republic, whom he referred to as "cowardly shits".<ref>Kritika: explorations in Russian and Eurasian history, Volume 7, Issue 4. Slavica Publishers, 2006. Pp. 922.</ref>

===Modern history in Italy===
Because of their ascribed cultural excellence as a social class, the [[Italian fascism|Italian fascist]] régime (1922–45) of Prime Minister [[Benito Mussolini]] regarded the bourgeoisie as an obstacle to [[modernism]].<ref name="Bellassai05">{{cite journal |last=Bellassai |first=Sandro |date=2005 |title=The Masculine Mystique: Anti-Modernism and Virility in Fascist Italy |journal=[[Journal of Modern Italian Studies]] |volume=10 |issue=3 |pages=314–335|doi=10.1080/13545710500188338 |s2cid=144797296 }}</ref> Nonetheless, the Fascist state ideologically exploited the Italian bourgeoisie and their materialistic, middle-class spirit, for the more efficient cultural manipulation of the upper (aristocratic) and the lower (working) classes of Italy.

In 1938, Prime Minister Mussolini gave a speech wherein he established a clear ideological distinction between capitalism (the social function of the bourgeoisie) and the bourgeoisie (as a social class), whom he dehumanized by reducing them into high-level abstractions: a moral category and a state of mind.<ref name="Bellassai05" /> Culturally and philosophically, Mussolini isolated the bourgeoisie from Italian society by portraying them as social parasites upon the fascist Italian state and "The People"; as a social class who drained the human potential of Italian society, in general, and of the working class, in particular; as exploiters who victimized the Italian nation with an approach to life characterized by [[hedonism]] and [[Consumption (economics)|materialism]].<ref name="Bellassai05" /> Nevertheless, despite the slogan ''The Fascist Man Disdains the "Comfortable" Life'', which epitomized the anti-bourgeois principle, in its final years of power, for mutual benefit and profit, the Mussolini fascist régime transcended ideology to merge the political and financial interests of Prime Minister Benito Mussolini with the political and financial interests of the bourgeoisie, the Catholic social circles who constituted the [[ruling class]] of Italy.

Philosophically, as a [[Materialism|materialist]] creature, the bourgeois man was stereotyped as irreligious; thus, to establish an [[Existentialism|existential]] distinction between the supernatural faith of the [[Roman Catholic Church]] and the materialist faith of temporal religion; in ''The Autarchy of Culture: Intellectuals and Fascism in the 1930s'', the priest Giuseppe Marino said that:

{{Blockquote|Christianity is essentially anti-bourgeois. ... A Christian, a true Christian, and thus a Catholic, is the opposite of a bourgeois.<ref>{{cite book |last=Marino |first=Giuseppe Carlo |date=1983 |title=L'autarchia della cultura. Intellettuali e fascismo negli anni trenta |language=it |trans-title=The Autarchy of Culture: Intellectuals and Fascism in the 1930s |location=Rome |publisher=[[Editori Riuniti]]}}</ref>}}

Culturally, the bourgeois man may be considered effeminate, infantile, or acting in a pretentious manner; describing his [[philistinism]] in {{lang|it|Bonifica antiborghese}} (1939), Roberto Paravese comments on the:

{{Blockquote|Middle class, middle man, incapable of great virtue or great vice: and there would be nothing wrong with that, if only he would be willing to remain as such; but, when his child-like or feminine tendency to camouflage pushes him to dream of grandeur, honours, and thus riches, which he cannot achieve honestly with his own "second-rate" powers, then the average man compensates with cunning, schemes, and mischief; he kicks out ethics, and becomes a bourgeois.

The bourgeois is the average man who does not accept to remain such, and who, lacking the strength sufficient for the conquest of essential values—those of the spirit—opts for material ones, for appearances.<ref name=paravese39>Paravese, Roberto (1939) "Bonifica antiborghese", in Edgardo Sulis (ed.), ''Processo alla borghesia'', Roma: Edizioni Roma, pp. 51–70.</ref>}}

The economic security, [[Financial independence|financial freedom]], and social mobility of the bourgeoisie threatened the philosophic integrity of Italian fascism, the [[Ideology|ideological monolith]] that was the régime of Prime Minister Benito Mussolini. Any assumption of [[Legitimacy (political)|legitimate]] political power (government and rule) by the bourgeoisie represented a fascist loss of [[Totalitarianism|totalitarian]] state power for social control through political unity—one people, one nation, and one leader. Sociologically, to the fascist man, to become a bourgeois was a character flaw inherent to the masculine mystique; therefore, the ideology of Italian fascism scornfully defined the bourgeois man as "spiritually castrated".<ref name="paravese39" />