The bourgeoisie: the upper middle class of modern capitalists who are the employers of wage labor and the industrial owners. The proletariat: the lower middle class of wage laborers who sell their labor for money to live. According to the Communist Manifesto the bourgeoisie is destined to fall and that by creating the proletariat it had also created the weapon that will be used against it.
The bourgeoisie will ultimately become corrupted and seek to turn all virtues of life into an object of monetary value. It forces the growing community to rely on it and molds the world in its own image. Hence the proletariat, who turn their hard work into that of wage labor to be used and exploited by the bourgeoisie.
However the constant exploitation of the worker can only lead to one thing: revolution. The worker will turn on the bourgeoisie individual who has taken so much advantage over them and destroy the industrial instruments of production which compete with the proletariat. They seek to make their class known and not be out-competed by the industrial machines. As the grow they will group and form unions to fight against the bourgeoisie and keep up the rate of wages. The bourgeoisie fall to the proletariats is inevitable.
Personally I don’t have much to say on this reading. Marx describes this competition as akin to a war zone and perhaps it is. I wonder if the proletariats created art to help support their revolution and what it could look like. I think it would be similar to motivational posters. Perhaps during Thursday’s discussion there will be some art presented that reflects these ideas.
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