Celina Lucke
Tuesday, 12 October 2021
History 140
History paper 2: Marx

The social class that I have chosen to analyze is the bourgeoisie class. The bourgeoisie class as described by Marx himself in the Communist Manifesto is a social class that is located at the middle-higher socioeconomic levels of society, “the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour. [Engels, 1888 English edition]” (The Communist Manifesto, 14). This class according to Marx is a dreadful new social class that developed, expanded, and exploited the different manufacturing industries. This class is mainly conformed by manufacturers, industry owners who own the means of production and as Marx describes “have all the power”. In Marx’s vision, the bourgeoisie have all the economic powers since they control the industry, institutions, and have power over the working class, or as Marx states the “proletariat”, which is a large percentage of the population.


What Marx thinks makes the bourgeois class a class are their interest for the county as a market player, they have obtained great amounts of power, as well as their common vision of “it´s unfortunate but it needs to happen”. Furthermore, what they have in common is that they are people who are economically better off than most people. They are motivated to make Britain a global competition in the international markets and believe that the industrial advances as well as technological, are a must even with the collateral damage that they might cause to the lower classes, in addition to the effects these advancements might have on the standards and quality of life of the proletariat class. Marx thinks the material interests of the bourgeoisie are mainly focused on economic interest as stated by Marx, this class was a self-centred and self-interest class, a class who is not confirmed and is always seeking for more and more, “The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere”(The Communist Manifesto, 16). Marx makes them seem as always unsatisfied, in a hustle to keep on growing and in a way as conquerors. In the 18th Brumaire, we have a clear example of the material interest of the bourgeoise class “But it is precise with the maintenance of that extensive state machine in its numerous ramifications that the material interest of the French bourgeoisie are interwoven in the closest fashion”(The 18th Brumaire, 62)
In addition, Marx believes that the bourgeoisie have taken away the importance and merit of the distinct occupations, transforming all of the different occupation and trade workers into simple factory workers who are only driven by money (wage) and have ripped the meaningful familiar ties with basic economic substitutes, “The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.”(The Communist Manifesto, 16)
Marx thinks the political interests of the bourgeoise class are they have an inclination for having free trade, focused mainly on mass production, as well as no regulations and free competition in the industry. As Marx states in his Communist Manifesto, “The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralized the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralization. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff”(The Communist Manifesto, 17) In addition we can see how Marx portrays this political interest of the bourgeoise in the 18th Brumaire “On the other hand, its political interest compelled it to increase daily the repressive measures and therefore the resources and the personnel the state power, while at the same time it had to wage an uninterrupted war against public opinion and mistrustfully mutilate, cripple, the independent organs of the social movement, where it did not succeed in amputating them entirely.” (The 18th Brumaire, 62)
The political interest of the bourgeoise can clearly be identified in the policies that they made in order to have a bigger economic benefit to their industries, it can be seen by Marx´s 18th Brumaire “Thus, the french bourgeoise was compelled by its class position to annihilate, on the one hand, and therefore, likewise, of its own, and to render irresistible, on the other hand, the executive power hostile to it”.(The 18th Brumaire, 62)