Class-Based Society: Bourgeoisie, Proletariat, and Workers’ Movements
Class-Based Society
The Bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie‘s main activities were commerce, crafts, liberal professions, and government posts. In the Modern Era, the economic significance and power of the bourgeoisie grew. Modern society is still based on the dominance of this “middle-class.”
We can identify three types of bourgeoisie:
- High bourgeoisie: This group stimulated industrialization and enjoyed most of its profits. They were the leaders and pioneers of industrialization.
- Middle bourgeoisie (or Middle Class): These consisted of individuals in the liberal professions: lawyers, doctors, architects, journalists, government employees, and owners of small factories.
- Low bourgeoisie, or “petit” bourgeoisie: This group consisted of small-scale commerce, low-level employment, etc. Their situation wasn’t particularly different from that of the proletarians.
Proletariat or the Working Class
The proletariat is a person who works for another in exchange for a wage. The roots of the proletariat can be found in the employees of the pre-industrial workshops, farm laborers, etc. They were usually landless peasants and paupers.
The rural proletariat increased in number as a consequence of the Agricultural Revolution. Many peasants had to leave their lands and work for others.
The Beginnings of the Workers’ Movement
The first movements were at the beginning of the 19th century, and they were against the use of machines, originally considered by workers to be the root of all their problems. This movement was called Luddism, after one of the leaders, Ned Ludd (although he may have been a mythical character). The English government brought out numerous laws to try to stop the movement against mechanization, even though they understood the reasons for the outbreak of anti-machine violence.
In 1838, a further development was the creation of Chartism. This was a movement based on a workers’ charter, which had been sent by a committee of workers to parliament with various petitions, including universal suffrage and a secret ballot (vote). In this way, they succeeded in participating in political life and were able to improve the social and working conditions of workers, but from parliament.
Development of Workers’ Associations
- Socialists (the word comes from society) believe in solidarity and an egalitarian society in which everyone has equality of opportunity. They believed in a classless society.
- Communists (the word comes from community) based their ideas on Karl Marx. He believed that Liberalism was “false liberty.” The “Declaration of the Rights of Man” of 1789 was focused too much on the individual. The individual had liberty, but many bourgeoisie factory owners had used liberalism to make themselves very rich and exploit the proletariat. Only in this way could people be “free.” The proletariat would dominate the bourgeoisie and then control the means of production. The Russian Revolution of 1917 applied communist theory to practice.
- Anarchists differed from the communists in that they rejected all types of authority. The anarchists believed that politics as practiced by the State was simply a form of economic oppression. They advocated for “Free association,” in which society would organize itself from the “top down.”
In places, the anarchist movement was very important. There were different ideas and sub-groups, and some of them employed violent terrorist-type methods, especially during periods of economic crisis.