BourgeoisieProletariatClass positionOwns means of productionWorks for wagesMeans of productionOwns factories, land, infrastructureOperates means of production they don’t ownIncome sourceProfits, investments, rentsWages, salariesWealthAccumulates capitalNo capital, lives paycheck to paycheckPolitical powerDominant class with great influenceMinimal influence as individualsLifestyleComfortable, even extravagant livingBare subsistence level livingTypical jobsFactory owners, bankers, executivesFactory workers, clerks, service workersEducationQuality schools, often highly educatedLower quality public schools, less educationValuesUphold status quo, individual achievementSeek social change, collective interests
According to Marx, the workers are those from a low social class, which he termed the proletariat, whereas those few in charge, the wealthy bosses, owners, and managers, are what he termed the bourgeoisie.
The Bourgeoisie
According to Marx, the bourgeoisie is the ruling class in capitalist societies. That is, economic power gives access to political power and cultural influence.
Thebourgeoisie,sometimes called the capitalists, own the means of production. They are the owners of capital and are able to acquire the means of creating goods and services, such as natural resources, or machinery.
With their capital, the bourgeoisie can purchase and exploit labor power, using the surplus value that their employees generate to accumulate or expand their capital (Wolf & Resnick, 2013).
The key differentiation between the bourgeoisie and other social elites is this ownership of the means of production.
Marx believed that the bourgeoisie began in medieval Europe with traders, merchants, craftspeople, industrialists, manufacturers, and so on who could increase wealth through industry. These individuals employed labor to create capital (Wolf & Resnick, 2013).
Petty Bourgeoisie
Petty bourgeoisie is a term derived from French, often employed to pejoratively describe a social class comprising small-size merchants and semi-autonomous peasants whose ideological position during socioeconomic stability reflects the high bourgeoisie whose morality it endeavors to emulate.
In Marx’s categorization of social classes, the petty bourgeoisie are self-employed, or those who employ a few laborers in their economic activity.
These are associated with the shop-keeping or independent artisan class, who form a buffer between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
The Proletariat
The second major class in Marxism is theproletariat, who own their labor, but none of the means of production. Because these workers have no property, they must find employment in order to survive and obtain an income.
The proletariat are a class of people who, in the view of Marx, compose the majority of society. They sell their ability to do work and their labor in order to survive.
Engels illustrated the image of the proletariat as a class in his study of the working class in Manchester in 1833, which happened concurrently with Marx”s discovery of the proletariat on the streets of Paris. Proletarians literally have nothing to sell but their labor power.
Unlike the bourgeoisie, the proletariat does not own themeans of production. Karl Marx considered this dynamic to be one of exploitation, where the Bourgeoisie absorbs the value of the goods and services that the proletariat produce without paying this value back to them.
In acapitalist society, the proletariat are legally free and separated from the means of production. The proletariat do not receive the value of their goods that their labour produces, but only the cost of subsistence.
Being confined to a component means that workers lose value and are potentially less skilled when seeking other employment (Chiapello, 2013).
Proletariat Revolution
Marxists see capitalism as an unstable system that will eventually result in a series of crises. The more that capitalism grows, the more people take advantage of it, and the more oppressed, degraded, and exploited the proletariat will be (Marx, 1873).
Marx argued that a social revolution would mean changing the existing social and political system from a capitalist to a communist society. A communist society means there are no social classes or private property.
References
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Saul McLeod, PhD
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester
Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.
Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education
Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.
