Bourgeoisie

A French word popularized by Karl Marx that refers to the wealthy class that emerges as a result of the development of industrial capitalism: the modern capitalist “aristocracy.” This term can be used interchangeably with such other terms as the “capitalist class.”

Note that this class also includes the minions of corporate capital who sit at the top of corporate hierarchies, as well as its apologists (the ignorantsia, that is, the pseudo-intellectuals who are commonly found in universities and who people right wing think tanks). In capitalist societies, political interests and economic interests are often different; they are rarely unitary because of the divergent objectives of the masses—here, meaning the working class (proletariat) and the peasantry—on one hand and the bourgeoisie on the other imposed on them by the dictates of the capitalist economic system. For example, when it comes to democracy the bourgeoisie tends to be more concerned with the procedural part of it rather than the authentic part, whereas the masses are interested in both. In other words, in general, though not always, on almost all major societal issues the objective interests of the bourgeoisie and the petite bourgeoisie are diametrically different from those of the masses.

See also Democracy, Left/Right, and Petite Bourgeoisie.