Bourgeoisie: Who Are They?
What Does "Means of Production" Mean?
Before we fully understand the bourgeoisie, we need to understand the means of production. Think of them as the "ingredients and tools" needed to make anything valuable. If you want to bake cookies, you need flour, sugar, an oven, and a mixing bowl. In a bigger, economic sense, the means of production are the essential resources used to create goods and services for society.
The central argument of Karl Marx is that who owns these means of production determines the structure of society. If a small group of people owns them, they hold immense power over everyone else who must work for them to survive. This is the core of the bourgeoisie-proletariat relationship.
A Brief History: From Merchants to Industrial Giants
The term "bourgeoisie" originally comes from the French word for town-dweller. In the Middle Ages, it referred to merchants, bankers, and artisans who lived in towns (burgs or boroughs), distinct from the nobility who owned land and the peasants who worked it.
According to Marx, this class didn't stay as simple shopkeepers. With the discovery of new trade routes and the decline of feudalism, this merchant class accumulated wealth and influence. The real transformation came with the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. The bourgeoisie used their wealth to build factories, buy machines (like the steam engine), and organize mass production. They became the new dominant class, replacing the old land-owning aristocracy.
This historical progression can be simplified into stages:
| Historical Period | Primary Means of Production | Bourgeoisie Role |
|---|---|---|
| Middle Ages (Feudalism) | Land, Plows, Manual Tools | Merchants & Artisans in towns; not the dominant class. |
| Renaissance & Early Modern | Trading Ships, Early Workshops, Capital (Money) | Gaining wealth through trade and banking; challenging nobility. |
| Industrial Revolution (Capitalism) | Factories, Machines, Railways, Raw Materials | Owners of factories; the new ruling economic and political class. |
The Bourgeoisie vs. The Proletariat: A Fundamental Conflict
In Marxist theory, society under capitalism is divided into two main, opposing classes. To remember the difference:
- Bourgeoisie (Capitalists): Own the means of production.
- Proletariat (Workers): Do not own the means of production; they must sell their labor to the bourgeoisie to earn a wage.
Marx saw this relationship as inherently exploitative. Here's a simple way to understand the economic mechanism, using a basic formula:
A factory owner (bourgeois) sells a product for a certain price. The money from the sale covers:
- The cost of raw materials and running the factory.
- The wages paid to the workers (proletariat).
- The leftover profit, which goes to the owner.
Marx argued that the value of the product comes entirely from the labor of the workers. The owner, by merely owning the factory, captures a portion of this created value as profit. This captured value is called surplus value. The formula can be simplified as:
$ \text{Selling Price} = \text{Costs} + \text{Wages} + \text{Surplus Value (Profit)} $
The conflict arises because the bourgeoisie wants to maximize profit (surplus value), often by lowering wages or making workers more efficient, while the proletariat wants higher wages and better conditions. Marx believed this conflict would eventually lead to a revolution where the workers would seize the means of production.
A Tale of Two Bakeries: A Practical Example
Let's make these abstract ideas concrete with a story about two bakeries.
Bakery A (Traditional): Ms. Garcia owns a small bakery. She bakes the bread herself, sells it at the counter, and uses her own savings (capital) to buy flour and fix the oven. She is the owner and the worker. This is simple commodity production, not full-blown capitalism in the Marxist sense.
Bakery B (Industrial): Mr. Chen owns "City Bread Co." He uses his wealth to build a large factory with industrial mixers and ovens (means of production). He hires 50 workers to run the machines, a manager to supervise them, and uses trucks for delivery. Mr. Chen does not bake bread himself. He owns the factory and the "City Bread" brand. The workers receive an hourly wage. The profit from selling millions of loaves goes to Mr. Chen, which he uses to buy another factory or a luxury car.
In this example:
- Mr. Chen is the bourgeoisie. He owns the capital and the means of production (factory, machines, brand).
- The 50 workers are the proletariat. They own only their ability to work (labor), which they sell to Mr. Chen for a wage.
- The surplus value is the difference between the total value created by the workers' labor and the wages they are paid.
This example scales up to any major industry—automobiles, clothing, technology—where ownership and labor are separated.
Important Questions
Q: Is "bourgeoisie" just a fancy word for "middle class" today?
A: Not exactly, and this is a common point of confusion. In everyday language, "middle class" often refers to people with comfortable incomes, education, and jobs like doctors, teachers, or engineers. In strict Marxist theory, however, the bourgeoisie is defined by ownership, not income or lifestyle. A highly paid software engineer who does not own a company is still a proletarian (selling labor). A small business owner with a modest income is part of the bourgeoisie if they own the means of production and hire employees. The modern usage has blurred the original economic definition.
Q: Did Marx think the bourgeoisie was "evil"?
A: Marx approached it scientifically, not morally. He didn't paint the bourgeoisie as mustache-twirling villains. In fact, he praised them for creating incredible technological progress and breaking down old, rigid feudal systems. His critique was that the capitalist system they built contained internal contradictions (like the boom-bust cycle of economies) and exploitation that would lead to its own collapse. He saw them as playing a necessary, but temporary, historical role.
Q: Does the bourgeoisie still exist in the 21st century?
A: From a Marxist perspective, absolutely. The ownership of the major means of production—tech platforms (like social media companies), pharmaceutical labs, energy conglomerates, large-scale agriculture—is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group: major shareholders, founders, and top executives of multinational corporations. They fit the definition of the bourgeoisie. However, society's class structure has become more complex with the growth of a large "professional-managerial class" (like managers, lawyers, consultants) that sits between the two main classes.
Footnote
[1] Karl Marx: A German philosopher, economist, and revolutionary socialist (1818-1883). He co-authored "The Communist Manifesto" and wrote "Das Kapital," developing the theory of historical materialism and critique of capitalism that defines the terms bourgeoisie and proletariat.
[2] Means of Production: The physical and non-physical assets used to produce economic value, such as factories, machinery, tools, land, raw materials, technology, and capital (money for investment).
[3] Proletariat: The social class that does not own the means of production and must sell its labor power to the bourgeoisie in exchange for a wage or salary in order to survive.
[4] Surplus Value: In Marxist economics, the value produced by workers that exceeds the cost of their own wages (labor power). This "extra" value is retained by the owner of the means of production as profit.