Isn’t that what bourgeois means though? Business owners that have the means of production?
In a nutshell, yes. But in the case of a petty-bourgeois with a small shop and a few employees, they don’t have the economical or political power to constitute the bourgeois class.
Consider it like a spectrum, if you have the means of production in a small scale, you’re a petty-bourgeois, if your business grows to a certain point, you become a part of the bourgeois class, but this “certain point” is not clearly defined, and would require an in-depth analysis of a particular case.
The McDonald’s brothers, at the time when they took out a loan through the Bank of America to finance their hamburger venture, they were two petty-bourgeois brothers finding a way to earn money. When decades later, as a result of that venture, the current owners of the largest international fast-food chain McDonald’s have enough capital to lobby politicians to approve their wars for profit, these owners perhaps constitute the bourgeoisie.
I’m still not sure about the accuracy of my understanding of the petty-bourgeoisie, but feel free to study Marxism and correct me, I’d appreciate it haha
Isn’t that what bourgeois means though? Business owners that have the means of production?
In a nutshell, yes. But in the case of a petty-bourgeois with a small shop and a few employees, they don’t have the economical or political power to constitute the bourgeois class.
Consider it like a spectrum, if you have the means of production in a small scale, you’re a petty-bourgeois, if your business grows to a certain point, you become a part of the bourgeois class, but this “certain point” is not clearly defined, and would require an in-depth analysis of a particular case.
The McDonald’s brothers, at the time when they took out a loan through the Bank of America to finance their hamburger venture, they were two petty-bourgeois brothers finding a way to earn money. When decades later, as a result of that venture, the current owners of the largest international fast-food chain McDonald’s have enough capital to lobby politicians to approve their wars for profit, these owners perhaps constitute the bourgeoisie.
I’m still not sure about the accuracy of my understanding of the petty-bourgeoisie, but feel free to study Marxism and correct me, I’d appreciate it haha