Bourgeoisie: Difference between revisions

The '''bourgeoisie''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|b|ʊər|ʒ|w|ɑː|ˈ|z|iː|audio=En-ca-bourgeoisie.oga}} {{respell|BOORZHBOOR|wahzhwah|ZEE}}, {{IPA-fr|buʁʒwazi|lang|LL-Q150 (fra)-Touam-bourgeoisie.wav}}) isare a class of business owners and merchants which emerged in the [[Late Middle Ages]], originally as a "[[middle class]]" between [[peasant]]ry and [[Aristocracy (class)|aristocracy]]. They are traditionally contrasted with the [[proletariat]] by their wealth, political power, and education,<ref>{{cite web |title=bourgeoisie Facts, information, pictures {{!}} Encyclopedia.com articles about bourgeoisie |url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/bourgeoisie.aspx |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161002081923/http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/bourgeoisie.aspx |archive-date=2 October 2016 |access-date=28 September 2016 |website=encyclopedia.com}}</ref>{{sfn|Siegrist|2001|p=785}} as well as their access to and control of [[Cultural capital|cultural]], [[Social capital|social]], and [[financial capital]].

In [[Communistcommunist philosophy]], the bourgeoisie is the social class that came to own the [[means of production]] during modern [[industrialization]] and whose societal concerns are the value of private [[property]] and the preservation of capital to ensure the perpetuation of their economic dominance in society.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/b/o.htm#bourgeois-society |title=Bourgeois Society |website=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |access-date=15 November 2021 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19991127200949/http://www.marxists.org:80/glossary/terms/b/o.htm |archive-date=27 November 1999}}</ref>

In the 18th century, before the [[French Revolution]] (1789–1799), in the French {{lang|fr|[[Ancien Régime]]}}, the masculine and feminine terms {{lang|fr|bourgeois}} and {{lang|fr|bourgeoise}} identified the relatively rich men and women who were members of the urban and rural [[Estates General (France)|Third Estate]] – the common people of the French realm, who violently deposed the [[absolute monarchy]] of the [[House of Bourbon|Bourbon]] King [[Louis XVI]] (r. 1774–1791), his clergy, and his [[French nobility|aristocrats]] in the [[French Revolution]] of 1789–1799. Hence, since the 19th century, the term "bourgeoisie" usually is politically and sociologically synonymous with the ruling upper class of a capitalist society.<ref>{{cite book |title=Dictionary of Historical Terms |editor-first=Chris |editor-last=Cook |date=1983 |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |edition=3rd |page=267 |isbn=978-0333673478}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Engels |first=Friedrich |author-link=Friedrich Engels |chapter=How Proudhon Solves the Housing Question |title=The Housing Question |date=1872 |chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/housing-question/ch01.htm |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref> In English, the word "bourgeoisie", as a term referring to French history, refers to a social class oriented to [[economic materialism]] and [[hedonism]], and to upholding the political and economic interests of the capitalist [[ruling class|ruling-class]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Oxford English Reference Dictionary |edition=Second |date=1996 |page=196}}</ref>

Historically, the medieval French word {{lang|fr|bourgeois}} denoted the inhabitants of the {{lang|fr|bourgs}} (walled market-towns), the [[craft]]smen, [[artisan]]s, [[merchant]]s, and others, who constituted "the bourgeoisie". They were the socio-economic class between the peasants and the landlords, between the [[Working class|workers]] and the owners of the [[means of production]], the feudal nobility. As the economic [[manager]]s of the (raw) materials, the goods, and the services, and thus the [[capital (economics)|capital]] (money) produced by the feudal economy, the term "bourgeoisie" evolved to also denote the middle class – the businessmen and businesswomen who accumulated, administered, and controlled the capital that made possible the development of the bourgs into cities.<ref name="The Columbia Encyclopedia 1994">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Bourgeoisie |encyclopedia=The Columbia Encyclopedia |edition=Fifth |date=1994 |page=?}}</ref>{{request quotation|date=February 2018}}

Contemporarily, the terms "bourgeoisie" and "bourgeois" (noun) identify the "ruling class" in capitalist societies, as a social stratum; while "bourgeois" (adjective / noun modifier) describes the {{lang|de|Weltanschauung}} ([[worldview]]) of men and women whose way of thinking is socially and culturally determined by their [[economic materialism]] and [[philistinism]], a social identity famously mocked in [[Molière]]'s comedy {{lang|fr|[[Le Bourgeois gentilhomme]]}} (1670), which satirizes buying the trappings of a noble-birth identity as the means of climbing the social ladder.{{sfn|Benét|1987|p=118, 759}}{{sfn|Molière|1899}}{{page needed|date=October 2020}} The 18th century saw a partial rehabilitation of bourgeois values in genres such as the {{lang|fr|drame bourgeois}} (bourgeois drama) and "[[bourgeois tragedy]]".

Emerging in the 1970s, the shortened term "bougie" became [[slang]], referring to things or attitudes which are middle class, pretentious and suburban.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=What Does Boujee Mean And Who Said It First? |url=https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/boujee/ |access-date=22 February 2023 |website=Dictionary.com |date=11 April 2018 |language=en-US |archive-date=22 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230222211123/https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/boujee/ |url-status=live}}</ref> In 2016, a hip-hop group Migos produced a song [[Bad and Boujee]], featuring an intentional misspelling of the word as "boujee"<ref name=":0" /> – a term which has particularly been used by [[African Americans]] in reference to African Americans. The term refers to a person of lower or middle class doing pretentious activities or [[virtue signalling]] as an affectation of the upper-class.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Tulp |first=Sophia |title=What you're really saying when you call something 'bougie' |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/college/2017/06/30/what-youre-really-saying-when-you-call-something-bougie/37433439/ |date=June 30, 2017 |access-date=26 June 2021 |work=[[USA Today]] |language=en-US |archive-date=26 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210626215831/https://www.usatoday.com/story/college/2017/06/30/what-youre-really-saying-when-you-call-something-bougie/37433439/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

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 dehumanised 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 victimised the Italian nation with an approach to life characterised by [[hedonism]] and [[Consumption (economics)|materialism]].<ref name="Bellassai05" /> Nevertheless, despite the slogan ''The Fascist Man Disdains the ″Comfortable″"Comfortable" Life'', which epitomised 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.

Beyond the [[Intellectualism|intellectual]] realms of [[political economy]], history, and [[political science]] that discuss, describe, and analyse the ''bourgeoisie'' as a social class, the colloquial usage of the [[sociology|sociological]] terms ''bourgeois'' and ''bourgeoise'' describe the social [[stereotype]]s of the [[old money]] and of the {{lang|fr|[[nouveau riche]]}}, who is a politically timid conformist satisfied with a wealthy, [[consumerism|consumerist]] style of life characterised by [[conspicuous consumption]] and the continual striving for [[Social status|prestige]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Zinn |first=Howard |author-link=Howard Zinn |title=[[A People's History of the United States]] |date=1980}}</ref><ref>Sven Beckert "Propertied of Different Kind: Bourgeoisie and Lower Middle Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States" in ''The Middling Sorts: Explorations in the History of the American Middle Class'' (2001) Burton J. Bledstein and Robert D. Johnston, Eds. (2001)</ref> This being the case, the cultures of the world describe the [[philistinism]] of the middle-class personality, produced by the excessively rich life of the bourgeoisie, is examined and analysed in comedic and dramatic plays, novels, and films (see [[Authenticity (philosophy)|Authenticity]]).[[File:Molière - Nicolas Mignard (1658).jpg|thumb|The 17th-century French playwright Molière (1622–73) catalogued the social-climbing essence of the bourgeoisie in {{lang|fr|Le Bourgeois gentilhomme}} (1670)|left]]

*[[Beurgeois]] (affluent French Muslims of North- African descent)

*[[Proletariat]], the opposite of the Bourgeoisiebourgeoisie