The petty bourgeoisie have defined the crisis of the 21st century with the post 2008 economic period proving how dire it is for them. My life experiences and philosophical thoughts on this matter very much match Nicolas D Villarreal’s piece I want to use this blog post to start to outline some of them.
The petty bourgeoisie ride into late 2029
I’ll start with my experiences in Maine that connect to the petty bourgeoisie’s favorite party of the era: The Republicans. Many have read about Paul LePage being the first Donald Trump and as someone who was born in Maine and has not left, I have lived it. The backgrounds of LePage and Trump are very different with LePage being a Maine French speaker who was literally homeless with Donald Trump being a man privately educated from the upper classes in New York. The platforms and things they talk about diverge but the vibe remains the same, they wholeheartedly support the petty bourgeoisie cause and have no use for Democrats or anyone below the established middle classes complaining. Economic boom and a return to the 1950s conditions are right around the corner if we cut taxes and empower our job creators, the only thing in between that outcome and the current slump is Democrats and welfare bums. Both men think it is very simple for Americans, you show up and if you work hard enough, you become middle class or better. Both men came to power against well funded candidates in primaries with the Maine GOP in 2010 or the National GOP in 2016 having little to no interest in them at first. Unlike the Democratic party known for its use of superdelegates and much tighter rules around its primary process to protect from left wing populism (lately Bernie Sanders) , the GOP is an entirely different beast and ironically it is the literal democratic party of the two! Activists from the grassroots of the Republican party as the majority of the party wanted LePage and Trump and the cruel fate for Maine and America was the majority wanted no part of them but got forced to live with it!
a childrens party hosted by the petty bourgeoisis in 2011
Jumping over to the 2012 presidential Republican primary process Mitt Romney’s struggles with Tea Party types and Ron Paul campaign foreshadowed Trump and overall lunacy petty bourgeoisie types would bring to the party and ultimately America. As I’ve noted, rank and file Republicans have a much greater control over power within the state and local parties and as a result of its nomination process, I think about this a lot because I saw it with my own eyes as a young man. In late 2011 I was out of college , alienated and captured by the emerging Republican primary on cable television. In college I had mostly taken a cynical anarchist view of elections and in my last two years did not follow political news or vote, I think that was good for my studies and certainly led to amusement when I caught back up on the state of the Republican Party. As someone who studied philosophy I was witnessing the fun house of ideology phase of the Republican party breakout in real time. My curiosity and lack of full time work got me caucusing for Ron Paul and attending the state convention by early 2012. I was taken back by the anti-war energy of the rank of file of the GOP and blown away that I witnessed Ron Paul backers take over and lead the Maine convention democratically! It was not a question of whether I was really a Republican or the people I dealt with being morally good or morally bad, I was correct at predicting the energy I saw from the rank and file would be picking the Republican presidential candidate in the future as well as its platform. Little did I know that not only would this break before 2020, it would be the TV star Donald Trump and he would win the White House! As Maine goes, so goes the nation!
Trump helps the petty bourgeoisis grow bigger more profitable Maine blueberries in 2026
The entire existence of the petty bourgeoisie is defined by their struggle to keep their chin above water, by existential threats posed by the state on one hand, the workers on the other, and their larger cousins on the other. At any moment, their revenue could slip below their costs and condemn them to the life of the common man they were supposed to be distinguished from. Those few who actually have the ability to create successful organizations leave their ranks to join the high bourgeoisie. Collectively, they are like rabid animals, their brains curdled by the terror. They cannot help but lash out.1
Villarreal nails the quagmire most of the small time bourgeoisie find itself in, whether they are literally living paycheck to paycheck like many or not, they need revenue streams to keep up or else they risk bankruptcy and ruin. It does not matter if they own a franchise connecting back to large corporations , if they literally own a small shop or even housing rentals, they need disciplined workers and consumer spending to not fall. Whatever it takes from the state to keep revenue streams at levels that support them, they will support. Donald J Trump is the best leader of rabid animal petty bourgeoisie values at the moment because he’s all over the place with a core message to Make America Great Again which ideologically follows that the petty bourgeoisie should remain a staple part of social reproduction indefinitely. If mainstream liberalism or conservatism could help this class it would have, but they can not change the historical trend of profit falling that Villarreal’s pieces point out and is backed up by coherent uses of Marx’s work. The petty bourgeoisie are stuck with acting like hooligans now and if it takes literal Nazi positions and street violence to attempt to preserve themselves as a class so be it.
The most crazy rabid animal flip flops the petty bourgeoisie have done recently is around the paycheck protection program connecting with Covid 19 policy’s. Ironically, the paycheck protection program saved them from ruin and now most of them basically oppose any and all future efforts like it. The Covid slowdown of the US economy created a real preview that other forms of meta-stable society can exist. In the early 2020’s months in response to the Covid threat the United States was still capitalism in every real sense but had a pause in many sectors, we did not have literal lockdowns, we printed money so businesses could stay afloat with various degrees of slowdowns and temporary commerce closures. I don’t think any side could really argue this exact arrangement was sustainable for years, but it proved the world could still function with all sorts of productive elements slowed or halted. Rental assistant and anti homeless efforts compared to the previous eras never did better, working people got checks from the federal government themselves and the slowdown didn’t seem in aggregate to boot them down to absolute poverty. I would not claim this era was social democracy , but it was a preview of a better world and I argue animal spirits of the petty bourgeoisie took notice.
Do the petty bourgeoisis want free money from the wagon, well it depends….
Across the board almost four years later from Covids first detection it is basically the mainstream position that the government overreacted to Covid with many going even further to reject Covid vaccines and making broad statements that masking can never return to the United States ever again! Of course we could side track a whole other essay on Covid risks and politics, but I think the denial based revisionist attitude on Covid 19 is rooted in petty bourgeoisie panic. It is a really amusing and bizarre contradiction , the petty bourgeoisie as a class would have been bankrupt and bought out by larger capital during the first wave of Covid but because of a fairly coherent government policy endorsed by both parties focusing on public health , businesses got free money in many cases to do nothing! We briefly lived in an America where all sorts of petty bourgeoisie business running types got free money but were sidelined in productive M - C - M’s circuits. The fright was too much! Never again should we close things down, never again should small businesses be given free money to keep all classes more healthy! If working people do alright , overall GDP stay’s above recessions levels and big business doesn’t crumble , why would a meta-stable society desire a Petty Bourgeoisie?
And as we watch him
Digging his own grave
It is important to know
That was where he’s at
He can’t afford to stop
That is what he believe
He’ll keep on digging
For a thousand years2
It is not literally true the petty bourgeoisie as we know them today are thousands of years old but if you asked them, that’s how they feel as the recent “how often do you think of Ancient Rome? ’’ discourse has shown. From the literal petty bourgeoisie owners of small business to everyone who has ever watched and enjoyed The Apprentice dreaming about ancient Rome is the cover, it makes them feel better that magically ahistorically they have always existed. Most people are idealists and this class and its friends are no exception , they don’t want to believe they are a post war phenomena and they don’t want their entire psyche to be entitled. Old time stories about any group that isn’t literally the very richest but does well is a good time for these people. Riffing off Villarreal’s phrasing, these people are rabid animals who have totally lost the plot and I say it’s time to cut them off and ask them to rejoin the back of the pack. I take no inspiration from 20th century communist party violent outbursts at richer classes, mainly because it doesn’t work and also violence is pretty gross. I do not wish to eat the petty bourgeoisie literally I want the state and banks to cut them off. This will not magically bring about the end of capitalism, but it will curtail the political threat society faces from them (That as Trump’s supporters show, includes violence) and allow climate and employment reform efforts to be more coherent and targeted. America needs to strive to be a more meta-stable society and the biggest threat it faces right now is the historically doomed petty bourgeoisie.