Communism is filled with terminology that makes almost no sense to the uninitiated, but many of these phrases have a very simple meaning. One that I’d like to define today is “Bourgeoisie”. This term seems like it has a lot more weight than it actually does, but let’s explore it to fully understand what makes something “Bourgeois”. The Bourgeois, or as we’ve called it before, the owning class, is exactly that, the class that owns their ability to make a profit. Whether that means they own their own small shop or a massive business, the very act of owning their place of work is bourgeois. That seems like an extremely broad net, but that’s because it is. The Bourgeois class encompasses a lot, but let’s break down the sections of the class.
The first section we’re going to talk about is the national bourgeoisie. This section includes the owning class of a single country. What sets it apart from other sections of the bourgeoisie proper is the fact that the national bourgeoisie acts as a singular unit for its own country, and nothing more. While this section is mostly historical, as the national bourgeoisies of most countries have united as a single force in themselves internationally, it is still present in some countries that avoid globalization. This section divides itself from the greater bourgeois class, and acts as rogue agents, working for the improvement of the singular nation’s bourgeoisie instead.
The next section of the bourgeoisie we’re going to cover is the Petit Bourgeoisie. This section of the bourgeoisie is made up of the small business owners of the world. While this section of the bourgeoisie does not command the same amount of resources, it still has basic ownership of their workplace. This is what sets them apart from the working class, or the proletariat. This section of the bourgeoisie is economically precarious, meaning that one bad turn in the economy could destroy the wealth of the Petit Bourgeoisie. This places the Petit Bourgeois interests constantly in flux, meaning they could either swing to the left or to the right. While this may be the case, Petit Bourgeois interests are almost always captured by fascist talking points, as we can see with the small business owner support of both Mussolini and Donald Trump. This is because fascism promises security to the Petit bourgeois, even if this security is false, as fascism is always aligned ultimately with big industry.
Finally, I’d like to talk about the international bourgeoisie. This section is the newest of the bourgeoisie, and the most predatory. This section is made up of the international businesses and massive conglomerates of the world. International bankers and CEOs of big companies fall into this category, as they have gone above the nation, and now see the bourgeoisie as a class itself the only thing worth supporting. It is the most nefarious level of the bourgeoisie. This section sees the global world as a collection of interior and exterior markets, and will use the working class as both the producers and consumers in an ever growing cycle. The issue is that the cycle is unsustainable. There will be a crash where there will no longer be an exterior market to effectively exploit, and the international bourgeoisie will then turn on the interior, the western world. We see this happening now, with inflation and unemployment rising in the West while horrible labor practices are taking place in the global south.
The only way to truly fix this is to seize the bourgeoisie’s means of production. Their businesses, their factories, their capital. The resources used to produce more and more useless stuff could be much better served in the hands of the working class, who could effectively establish a society that places them first. This is what Marx means when he refers to a dictatorship of the proletariat.