Difference Between Bourgeois and Proletariat

Bourgeois vs Proletariat
 

If we look at the history of mankind, or simply the histories of different societies and culture, we find that all history is merely a reflection of class struggles to have control over means of wealth and production. Since ages, it is plain clear to everyone that there have been elites in the society enjoying privileges and the fruits of wealth or power while there has been a working or slave class just like in a bee colony that works and only works for its existence. To describe two different classes of people in a society the words Bourgeois and proletariat have been used by philosophers and pundits of political science. Many people find difficult to appreciate the differences between these two classes. This article attempts to highlight these differences so as to enable readers to understand essays on social classes easily.

Bourgeois

In the writings of Engels, Karl Marx, and other philosophers, Bourgeois has been a word used to refer to those classes of the society that have traditionally held the means of production and wealth. In other words, capitalist class is labeled as bourgeois that also happens to be the class that gives means of living to the wage labor. In societies that are capitalist in nature, average people are seen as workers who are nothing more than becoming a cheap means for production for the capitalist class. Workers live on a subsistence wage with all the profits going into the pockets of the Bourgeois class. Bourgeois set wages in such a manner that the working class (proletariat) neither has anything when born nor does it die with anything.

Proletariat

This is the name for the working classes, and in every society, proletariat are always in an overwhelming majority. The modern society has born out of the old feudal system where the landlords were Bourgeois while the slaves and vassals were there to serve them. There are new classes and new forms of oppression, but the class struggle remains the same. In fact, the society is more or less made up of two classes, the haves and the have-nots. It is the class labeled as have-nots that is referred as Proletariat in the writings of great philosophers and political analysts.