What is the difference between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat for marx engels

Analysis of class divisions and struggles is especially important in developing an understanding of the nature of capitalism. For Marx, classes are defined and structured by the relations concerning i work and labour and ii ownership or possession of property and the means of production. These economic factors more fully govern social relationships in capitalism than they did in earlier societies.

While earlier societies contained various strata or groupings which might be considered classes, these may have been strata or elites that were not based solely on economic factors — e. Marx did not complete the manuscript that would have presented his overall view of social class.

Many of his writings concern the class structures of capitalism, the relationship among classes the dynamics of class struggle, political power and classes, and the development of a classless society, and from these a Marxian approach to class can be developed. Note that Hadden does not discuss class in any detail, although the class structure of capitalism is implicit in the labour theory of value and can be derived from this theory.

The main classes in capitalism are the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. However, other classes such as landlords, petty bourgeoisie, peasants, and lumpenproletariat also exist, but are not primary in terms of the dynamics of capitalism. The bourgeoisie or capitalists are the owners of capital, purchasing and exploiting labour power, using the surplus value from employment of this labour power to accumulate or expand their capital.

It is the ownership of capital and its use to exploit labour and expand capital are key here. Being wealthy is, in itself, not sufficient to make one a capitalist e. What is necessary is the active role of using this wealth to make it self-expansive through employment and exploitation of labour. Historically, the bourgeoisie began cities of medieval Europe, with the development of traders, merchants, craftspersons, industrialists, manufacturers and others whose economic survival and ability to increase wealth came from trade, commerce, or industry.

In order for each of these to expand their operations, they needed greater freedom to market products and expand economic activities.

In the struggle against the feudal authorities church and secular political authorities this class formed and took on a progressive role. That is, they helped undermine the old hierarchical and feudal order and create historical progress. For a segment of this class, wealth came by employing labour industrial capital , for others it came through trade merchant capital , banking and finance finance capital , or using land in a capitalist manner landed capital.

It was the industrial capitalists who employed labour to create capital that became the leading sector of the bourgeoisie, whose economic activities ultimately changed society. In Britain, this class became dominant politically and ideologically by the mid-nineteenth century. By employing workers, industrial capital created the surplus value that could take on the various forms such as profit, interest and rent.

The proletariat are owners of labour power the ability to work , and mere owners of labour power, with no other resources than the ability to work with their hands, bodies, and minds.

Since these workers have no property, in order to survive and obtain an income for themselves and their families, they must find employment work for an employer. This means working for a capitalist-employer in an exploitative social relationship.

This exploitative work relationship recreates or reproduces itself continually. If the capitalist-employer is to make profits and accumulate capital, wages must be kept low. This means that the proletariat is exploited, with the surplus time above that required for creating subsistence worked by the worker creating surplus products.

While the worker produces, the products created by this labour are taken by the capitalist and sold — thus producing surplus value or profit for the capitalist but poverty for workers.

This occurs each day of labour process, preventing workers from gaining ownership of property and recreating the conditions for further exploitation. The antagonistic and contradictory nature of this system is evident as capitalists attempting to reduce wages and make workers work more intensively, while workers have exactly the opposite set of interests. Work and the labour process in the capitalist mode of production are organized so that workers remain propertyless members of the proletariat.

The surplus products and value created by workers turns into capital, which is accumulated. Historically, the proletariat emerged as the aristocracy began to suffer financial difficulties in the later middle ages.

Many of those who were supported by working for the aristocracy lost their livelihood — the "disbanding of the feudal retainers and the dissolution of the monasteries. People who had subsisted on the land were denied the possibility of making a living on the land, and they become propertyless.

Population growth was also considerable, and in some areas forced labour slavery, indentured servants, poor, prison was used. While some people subsisted in rural industry and craft production, factory production began to undermine these as well in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Together these changes created a large class of landless and propertyless people who had no choice but to become members of the proletariat — many working in factories.

These people became free wage labourers, free from feudal ties and free from a source of livelihood. The proletariat is further helped in its unification by the increased means of communication made possible by modern industry, allowing for the struggles to take on national character.

While the organization of the proletariat into a class is continually destroyed by competition among workers, each time it rises again stronger. Furthermore, as other classes try to use the proletarians to forward political their own ends, they give them tools to fight the bourgeoisie.

Marx explains that the only class today that is really revolutionary is the proletariat. All of the other classes that fight the bourgeoisie--such as the shopkeeper--are conservative, fighting to preserve their existence. Among the proletariat, however, the Old Society is already past preservation. Historically, the proletariat are also unique. In the past, when a class got the upper hand, it tried to subject all of society to its own mode of appropriation.

However, the proletariat lack any property of their own to retain or expand. Rather, they must destroy all ways of securing private property at all. The bourgeoisie were revolutionary in the sense that they represented a radical change in the structure of society. Add to that the long hours, the use of child labor, and exposure to extreme conditions of heat, cold, and toxic chemicals, and it is no wonder that Marx and Engels referred to capitalism , which is a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.

For Marx, what we do defines who we are. In historical terms, in spite of the persistent nature of one class dominating another, some element of humanity existed. There was at least some connection between the worker and the product, augmented by the natural conditions of seasons and the rise and fall of the sun, such as we see in an agricultural society.

But with the bourgeoisie revolution and the rise of industry and capitalism, the worker now worked for wages alone. His relationship to his efforts was no longer of a human nature, but based on artificial conditions. Marx described modern society in terms of alienation. Alienation refers to the condition in which the individual is isolated and divorced from his or her society, work, or the sense of self.

Marx defined four specific types of alienation. Taken as a whole, then, alienation in modern society means that an individual has no control over his life. Even in feudal societies, a person controlled the manner of his labor as to when and how it was carried out.

However, these goods and services become the property of capitalists who own the means of production. Thus, it is the capitalists who sell the goods and services at the market and earn money. Bourgeoisie refers to the capitalists who own the means of production and most of the wealth in the society whereas proletariat refers to wage earners who do not own means of production and must sell their labour to survive. Whereas bourgeoise owns the means of production, proletariat does not own means of production and survive by selling their labour.

In addition, bourgeoise exploits proletariats and makes massive profits. Proletariats, who are exploited by the bourgeois, generally earn a minimum wage and live in poverty. Bourgeoisie refers to the capitalists who own the means of production and most of the wealth in the society whereas proletariat refers to a class of workers who do not own means of production and must sell their labour to survive.

Thus, this is the main difference between bourgeoisie and proletariat.