In the U.S. 49.7 Million Are Now Poor, and 80% of the Total Population Is Near Poverty

[vive la commune]

69. Some definitions...

In Marxism, class is defined by ownership or non-ownership of the means of production (factories, machinery, farms, shops, etc.) Most Americans don't own any means of production, therefore they are not part of the bourgeoisie, which is how the term bourgeois is defined. If you have only your labor power to sell, you are working class, or proletarian. Most people in what is called the American 'middle class' actually fall into this definition. Most people don't own their own businesses. So, bourgeois does not simply mean middle class by the commonly used American definition of 'middle class', which is based on income and not on relationship (ownership or non-ownership) of the means of production.

The bourgeoisie of the middle ages were independent artisans and craftspeople, true, but they became today's capitalist ruling class. In Marxist terminology, this who the term usually bourgeois refers to, not the artisans and craftspeople, who are usually referred to as 'petite bourgeois', because after the industrial revolution, the big capitalists superseded the little ones. There are still artisans, craftspeople, small business owners and farmers, the classic 'true' middle class, but most people today fall into one of the two major classes, either the bourgeoisie (owning class) or the proletariat (working class). This has been the case ever since the industrial revolution, which was the era Marx wrote in and in which we still live in today. Historical progression is central to Marx's theory--history is not static, and historical change is driven by struggle between classes. Yesterday's emerging middle class displaced the aristocracy and became today's ruling class.