The bourgeoisie in its original sense is intimately linked to the political ideology of liberalism and its existence within cities, recognised as such by their urban charters e. In communist philosophy , the bourgeoisie is the social class that came to own the means of production during modern industrialisation and whose societal concerns are the value of private property and the preservation of capital to ensure the perpetuation of their economic dominance in society.
Hence, since the 19th century, the term "bourgeoisie" usually is politically and sociologically synonymous with the ruling upper class of a capitalist society. Historically, the medieval French word bourgeois denoted the inhabitants of the bourgs walled market-towns , the craftsmen , artisans , merchants , and others, who constituted "the bourgeoisie". They were the socio-economic class between the peasants and the landlords, between the workers and the owners of the means of production , the feudal nobility.
As the economic managers of the raw materials, the goods, and the services, and thus the capital money produced by the feudal economy, the term "bourgeoisie" evolved to also denote the middle class β the businessmen who accumulated, administered, and controlled the capital that made possible the development of the bourgs into cities.
Emerging in the s, the shortened term "bougie" became slang , referring to things or attitudes which are middle class, pretentious and suburban. The term refers to a person of lower or middle class doing pretentious activities or virtue signalling as an affectation of the upper-class. The bourgeoisie emerged as a historical and political phenomenon in the 11th century when the bourgs of Central and Western Europe developed into cities dedicated to commerce and crafts.
This urban expansion was possible thanks to economic concentration due to the appearance of protective self-organization into guilds. Guilds arose when individual businessmen such as craftsmen, artisans and merchants conflicted with their rent-seeking feudal landlords who demanded greater rents than previously agreed. In the event, by the end of the Middle Ages c. AD , under regimes of the early national monarchies of Western Europe, the bourgeoisie acted in self-interest, and politically supported the king or queen against legal and financial disorder caused by the greed of the feudal lords.
