The Petty Bourgeoisie as described by Karl Marx are the previously middling powerful class before the days of the industrial revolution. They developed after the practice of Serfdom, but still under the old system of Feudalism. Thus their traditional goals were wholly separate from industrialization. They initially employed Journeymen as Marx calls them, who eventually would “[Become] manufacturing workers who were even then employed by larger capitalists” (Communist Manifesto, pg. 44). That quote gets at the problem of the Petty Bourgeoisie by Marx’s day, they’re on their way out. New industrial capitalism is on its way in and making them obsolete. Marx even describes them as one of the first classes to go during a theoretical workers revolt. He says “At this stage – the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeois” (Communist Manifesto, pg. 19).

As that previous quote illustrates, these Petty Bourgeoisie are the small-time landowners of the old regimes. They aren’t at the level of landed aristocracy (though Marx says they would sometimes manage the property of those gentry), but that of petty landlords and renters. They are then responsible for early manufacturing, and were the first leaders of production before the true Bourgeoisie arose. The Petty Bourgeoisie are then the comparatively small producers of yesteryear. They are the previous middle men of exchange and production who are now outclassed by the Bourgeois capitalists and their high efficiency manufacturing. It’s also helpful to think of the Petty Bourgeoisie as craftsmen of some education and personal aptitude. 

These Petty Bourgeoisie are the merchants and people of commerce who existed before the aristocracy was thrown into disarray by industrialization. It makes sense then that they would be perfectly alright with a return to the status quo, and the dominance of their previous niche. But barring a complete return to monarchy, Petty Bourgeoisie are described as wanting democratic socialism. In this they find friends with Proletariat and working classes who are yet to believe in full communism. As can be seen in the Eighteenth Brumaire ch. 3, “The petty bourgeois saw that – their material interests were imperiled, and that the democratic guarantees which were to insure the effectuation of these interests were called in question by the counterrevolution. Accordingly they came closer to the workers”.  

It’s here I’d like to briefly discuss one of the only political actors we can successfully attribute to the Petty Bourgeoisie, The Legislative National Assembly. Arriving just after the ouster of the republican Bourgeoisie, this coalition was a combination of the Petty Bourgeois need for democracy, and the working class’s desire for socialism. This grouping lasted for a short period of time before they were tricked into self destruction via similar methods that stomped the Proletariat Revolution. It’s then difficult to say whether a continued Petty Bourgeois government would have succeeded without falling into ruin and infighting.

Lastly let me discuss how a democratic-socialist government furthers the Petty Bourgeois economic interests, as Marx believes all classes political ideals do. The driving competitor of the Petty Bourgeoisie is the true capitalist Bourgeoisie. Their large factories made previous production lines look ramshackle in comparison. Majority of the class will be pushed out by the true Bourgeoisie via industrialization, so their political ends are to limit the other Bourgeoisie by any means. Democratic-socialism is a good way to accomplish this, since they can forge a strong tie with the working class they’re very near to becoming. This way they gain a numerical advantage against anyone else who’d oppose them. But as we saw with the Legislative National Assembly, a class who must rely on another to seize power is doomed to fail. The ends of the Petty Bourgeois political aspirations are self-serving like all other classes, but ultimately are unachievable due to their diminished importance, lack of internal numerical advantage, and little support from classes above them.