Petit bourgeoisie

Petit bourgeoisie (French pronunciation: [pəti buʁʒwa]) or petty bourgeoisie is a term that originally referred to the members of the middle social classes in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Starting from the mid-19th century, the term was used by Karl Marx and Marxist theorists to refer to a social class that included shop-keepers and government employees.^{[citation needed]}

Definition

The petit bourgeousie are distinct from the proletariat and the lumpenproletariat, who rely entirely on the sale of their labor-power for survival, and from the bourgeoisie (capitalist class), who own the means of production and buy the labor-power of others to work it. Though the petit bourgeoisie may buy the labor power of others, in contrast to the bourgeoisie, they typically work alongside their own employees; and although they often own their own businesses, they do not own a controlling share of the means of production.^{[citation needed]}

More importantly, the means of production in the hands of the petite bourgeoisie do not generate enough surplus to be reinvested in production; as such, they cannot be reproduced in an amplified scale, or accumulated, and do not constitute capital properly.^{[citation needed]}

The petit bourgeois were to lose out in the historical processes that Marxism predicted; the claim was made that they were therefore the mainstay of Fascism, which was presented as a terroristic reaction to the inevitability of these losses.

Petit bourgeois mentality

In some modern usage "petite bourgeoisie", a class that lies between the workingmen and the capitalists, is used, usually derisively, to refer to the consumption habits and tastes of the middle class and the lower middle class in particular.^{[citation needed]} This is related to the meaning attributed to the expression "bourgeois mentality", used to define the cultural worldview associated with Victorianism, in particular the repression of emotional and sexual desires, and the construction of an intensely regulated social space where the key desirable personal trait is propriety.^{[citation needed]}

However, Marxist terminology relates the petite bourgeoisie exclusively to its relationship to the means of production and work rather than to tastes, habits of consumption, or lifestyle (because of the Marxist definition of class).

See also

• Xiaozi

References

• Andrews, G. J. and Phillips D R (2005) Petit Bourgeois healthcare? The big small-business of private complementary medical practice Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice 11, 87-104.
• F. Bechhofer and B. Elliott, Persistence and change the petit bourgeoisie in the industrial society , Eur J Soc xv 11 (1976), pp. 74–79.
• B. Elliott and G. McCrone, What else does someone with capital do?, New Soc 31 (1979), pp. 512–513.
• F. Bechhofer and B. Elliott, The petite Bourgeoisie comparative studies of an uneasy stratum , Macmillan, London (1981).
• R. Scase and R. Goffee, The real world of the small business owner, Croom Helm, London (1981).
• D.R. Phillips and J. Vincent, Petit Bourgeois Care private residential care for the elderly , Policy Politics 14 (1986) (2), pp. 189–208.

Further reading

• Geoffrey Crossick and Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, The Petite Bourgeoisie in Europe 1780-1914. Routledge. 1998.
• Brief but different entry at the Encyclopedia of Marxism .