How did the bourgeoisie become class-conscious?

[thriller]

I know about Marx's The Holy Family and the idea that the bourgeoisie (at least in France) instituted 'permanent revolution' towards there class interest. So they seemed aware of their class and they need to dominant society. But how did the bourgeoisie become conscious of their class interests? Maybe I should re-read the Manifesto (but even then I don't think it gives a detailed historical description)?

[Bostana]

His Marx on the history of the Bourgeoisie in the Communist Manifesto:


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.

Hope this helped

[marl]

The Estates General lockout certainly accelerated it a lot. Great question, by the way.

[thriller]

His Marx on the history of the Bourgeoisie in the Communist Manifesto:

Hope this helped

Thanks, but I'm looking for more of an in-depth explaining of how the bourgeoisie became class-conscious (as compared to becoming the dominant class). How, where, when did they become aware that their class interests must be advanced.

[The Jay]

I'm just guessing but I'd like to hear some criticism of my guess: the Enlightenment pushed the small and big capitalists towards a class consciousness that the lower classes were not privy to in full. Like I said, I don't have proof of that as of my typing this but I think that it's plausible.

[Revolution starts with U]

I would think Enlightenment thought and action would be your answer. It's clear from the writings of the time that they were mostly against both the old regime AND the "mob." This seems to scream of an awareness that they are a class seperate from both common laborer and landed aristocrat.

[dodger]

They certainly danced with joy to be free. The shackles of feudalism, foreign religion, corruption impediment to trade, science stifled. "a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks", in Milton's magnificent words. This left them in due time, as counter reformation ceased to be a concern, with the task of exploiting further the working class and drawing labour from the countryside and highlands. Interesting period. Coffee shop radicals would have issued forth "a pox on your coxcomb!!" and perhaps a duel. Makes the flame wars look tame.:blink:

[Jimmie Higgins]

Thanks, but I'm looking for more of an in-depth explaining of how the bourgeoisie became class-conscious (as compared to becoming the dominant class). How, where, when did they become aware that their class interests must be advanced.I don't know if they initially were class consious in an obvious way. This is why the capitalist revolutions initially took a religious bent. The Church was so central to the feudal system that it makes sense that this kind of struggle is where the bourgeois class interests began to find expression.

I think I read somewhere that because of the structure of the feudal system the merchants and nascent capitalists were geographically grouped together in the towns and were also initially outside the main workings of the feudal economy so while they might have been prospering in towns with trade, the larger fuedual system was stagnating. This caused the old regimes to lean more heavily on the wealth being generated by capitalism so in some places the aristocracy was becoming entwined or indebted to the capitalists (like in England where the fading aristocracy began selling their land and titles to the prosperous capitalists). Or it caused the old regimes to crack down on capitalist activities or demand more taxes and increase repression to ensure the political dominance of the old regime over the increasingly economically dominant capitalists.

Out of those kinds of situations capitalists would instinctively begin to have to fight for their interests because the aristocracy was hindering their exchanges and ability to profit. It was almost never overt though - at first it was on religious ideological grounds (new religious ideas that were beneficial to a capitalist way of seeing things: hard work, austerity, frugality, rule of law - in religious terms, scripture over papal decrees). Later capitalist revolutions were under "universal" grounds. Again this means rule of law, end to caste systems and automatic deference to caste, and so on. But it was also necessary for the capitalists to present their interests as "human interests" because at this point there were working classes in the towns and growing cities as well as other forces and so the capitalists had to make an argument that their kind of society would be best for all people.