bourgeoisie

Examples of bourgeoisie in the following topics:

• Religion and Social Control

  • Marx viewed religion as a tool of social control used by the bourgeoisie to keep the proletariat content with an unequal status quo.
  • Only then would this class of people be able to rise up against the bourgeoisie and gain control of the means of production, and only then would they achieve real rewards, in this life.

• Marx's View of Class Differentiation

  • In a capitalist society, the ruling class, or the bourgeoisie, owns the means of production, such as machines or tools that can be used to produce valuable objects.
  • A temporary status quo could be achieved by employing various methods of social control—consciously or unconsciously—by the bourgeoisie in various aspects of social life.

• Work and Alienation

  • Workers become autonomous, self-realized human beings, but are directed and diverted into goals and activities dictated by the bourgeoisie, who own the means of production in order to extract from workers the maximal amount of surplus value possible within the current state of competition between industrialists.
  • When the bourgeoisie interferes with or impedes any of these natural tendencies, the worker is alienated.

• Class, Crime, and the Criminal Justice System

  • In Marxist theory, the class structure of the capitalist mode of production is characterized by the conflict between two main classes: the bourgeoisie, the capitalists who own the means of production, and the much larger proletariat who must sell their own labor power.
  • In Marxist theory, the class structure of the capitalist mode of production is characterized by the conflict between two main classes: the bourgeoisie, the capitalists who own the means of production, and the much larger proletariat who must sell their own labor power.

• Weber's View of Stratification

  • Weber claimed there are four main classes: the upper class, the white-collar workers, the petite bourgeoisie, and the manual working class.

• Classical Views on Social Change

  • The capitalists or bourgeoisie employ the proletariat for a living wage, but then keep the products of the labor.
  • Marx's proposed solution was for the proletariat to unite and through protests or revolution (or legislation in democratic nations) overthrow the bourgeoisie and institute a new form of government – communism.

• Capitalism, Modernization, and Industrialization

  • The capitalists, or bourgeoisie, employ the proletariat for a living wage, and, in turn, they keep the products of the labor.

• Caste Systems

  • European societies were historically stratified according to closed, endogamous social systems with groups such as the nobility, clergy, bourgeoisie, and peasants.

• Theory and Practice

  • For example, if one is working from the perspective of a Marxist conflict theory, one might tend to interpret everything as a manifestation of bourgeoisie domination, from the patterns of seating at a school cafeteria to presidential election results.

• Alienation

  • As a result, workers never become autonomous, self-realized human beings in any significant sense, except in the ways in which the bourgeoisie wants the worker to be realized.