Written by Dan Evans, sociologist and author of A Nation of Shopkeepers: The Unstoppable Rise of the Petty Bourgeoisie.
In my 2023 book A Nation of Shopkeepers: The Unstoppable Rise of the Petty Bourgeoisie, I argued that the petty bourgeoisie is central to modern politics, and we cannot understand the rise of right and left populism without a specific understanding of this class.
As Nicos Poulantzas argued, the question of the petty bourgeoisie is important both in terms of class analysis and understanding the class structure but also because it poses squarely the question of socialist strategy.1 The existence of a difficult subordinate class which very often aligns with capital and expresses hostility towards the working class and collectivist policies necessarily initiates a discussion of strategy by forcing us to confront points of divisions (and unity) within the subordinate classes, and hence how to approach class alliances properly.
It is therefore in many ways the key to unlocking mass socialist politics.
The Petty Bourgeoisie has expanded and is now the base of populist politics
Contrary to the predictions made by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, the petty bourgeoisie has not shrunk, but has in fact grown enormously as part of the shift to neoliberalism and the quest for labour market flexibility.
The modern petty bourgeoisie has two fractions, like a DNA double helix: one is the ‘old’ or ‘traditional’ petty bourgeoisie, comprised of self-employed people such as tradesmen, hairdressers, shopkeepers; the other, following the work of Nicos Poulantzas (1975), is the ‘new petty bourgeoisie’, which is made up of the sprawling mass of low paid, white collar service workers, exemplified by downwardly mobile graduates.
The new and old fractions ostensibly have very little in common with each other. The new is geographically mobile, has attended higher education, tends to have high cultural capital and low economic capital (see also Savage et al’s ‘emergent service worker’ or Standing’s ‘precariat’), tends to live in cities or urban areas and be socially liberal. The old is geographically immobile, tends to reject higher education in favour of technical education, upholds traditional family structures and rejects social liberalism. Despite their cultural and social differences, the two fractions are united in their ideological belief in social mobility and hence individualistic outlook; as well as their cultural and social attempts to differentiate themselves from the working class.
The petty bourgeoisie - both old and new - are now significant political actors.
The old or traditional petty bourgeoisie - formerly the main social base of fascism and Thatcherism - is now the core pillar of right populist movements across Europe and the US, both electoral and extra-parliamentary forms. The small producer is disproportionately over-represented in Reform, Trumpism, the NR, Vox, AFD, Fratella D’Italia and others; as well as the Gilet Jaunes, trucker protests, and farmer protests across Europe.
Meanwhile the new petty bourgeoisie has become a key pillar of left-liberal or progressive electoral movements across the world such as Corbynism, the Sanders movement (and now Mamdani’s New York movement); Podemos; Syriza, Die Linke and others; as well as extra parliamentary movements such as the Arab Spring, Gezi Park, Euromaidan, etc.
Neither the radical populist right or the radical populist left should be classed as ‘working class’ movements (although the former has a far better claim to this than the latter). They are both movements of the petty bourgeoisie and are both driven by frustrations around blocked or downwards social mobility. Indeed, it can be argued that this class is (and always has been) the most important political force in world politics, rather than the ‘working class’ which has both objectively shrunk and lost its political and cultural power.
The old petty bourgeoisie
The petty bourgeoisie occupies a unique position in the class structure as it simultaneously both worker and capitalist. As Marx puts it, the class is ‘cut up into two people’. Small capital is both dependent on- and crushed by - monopoly capitalism and the state. This distinctive economic and social position has historically produced a ‘torn’ class consciousness and a distinctive worldview which has led to a janus-faced politics, both radical (anti-monopoly, anti-statist); as well as anti-socialistic, anti-collectivist (e.g., radical artisans against socialism and unskilled workers).
Ethnographic work on small producers has consistently revealed an identity defined by pride in hard work or skill, and an ideological tendency towards ‘producerism’ (sometimes known as the idea of “makers v takers”), the idea that society is split between a productive, hard-working majority on the one hand, and a parasitic minority on the other. This tendency towards producerism can produce both anti-capitalistic sentiment (viewing the bourgeoisie/boss class as parasitic); as well as reactionary, anti-redistributionist tendencies stemming from hostility to the working class beneath them which is viewed as both dangerous and lazy/undeserving. This producerism is also linked to libertarian anti-statism, specifically hostility to state bureaucracy and ‘experts’ telling them what to do. These individualistic/libertarian impulses have also led to a suspicion of socialism, precisely because of its association with the state and the working class.
Marginalised under the welfare state, the petty bourgeoisie was consciously grown and mobilized by Thatcher (herself the personification of the class), and indeed Thatcherism can be understood as a petty bourgeois cultural revolution which made petty bourgeois values hegemonic throughout the UK. As Stuart Hall noted at the time, the appeal of Thatcher’s popular anti-statism was inexpicable for a left which fetishised the welfare state and which did not understand the petty bourgeoisie.
In the UK at present the old petty bourgeoisie - the base of Thatcherism - has left its old home in the Tory party and switched to Reform, in the process totally gutting the Tory party. (The class had previously defected to UKIP and later BXP but were temporarily reaborbed into the Tory party by Boris Johnson, only to become detached again under Sunak). The class has now found its leader and outlet in Farage, who, like Thatcher, clearly understands them and the power of producerism as an ideology. Reform’s manifesto is a homage to the small producer and small landlord, and Farage’s rhetoric mimics Thatcher almost to the letter, focusing on ‘alarm clock Britain’ while demonising parasites (immigrants, politicians and welfare recipients) and a state which coddles them while punishing the hard-working majority.
While Starmer’s Labour have attempted to appeal to the petty bourgeoisie (cutting the welfare bill and tackling immigration), economic policies such as NI rises have been de facto pro big business while penalizing small businesses; while Labour-run councils have singularly failed to deal with crime, decay and the death of the high street. There remains a continuing tension between Labour’s attempts to appeal to this class on the one hand with the party’s nanny state tendencies on the other.
The new petty bourgeoisie
The NPB essentially refers to ‘white collar’ employees in the ‘unproductive’ service sector: workers who don’t generally directly produce commodities but who are involved in either the circulation of commodities or in social reproduction via the state. This incorporates a huge array of jobs and experiences, from civil servants and teachers to salespeople and call-centre workers.
Not only has this intermediate, unproductive group grown, but large swathes of it are also increasingly proletarianized. The ‘knowledge economy’ has proved to be a sham, and social mobility has gone into reverse: the ‘graduate premium’ is no more and there are today around 5 million graduates in non-graduate roles. Automation is rapidly decimating white-collar work, removing the entry level jobs formerly relied upon to ‘get on the ladder’.
Today, downwardly mobile white-collar workers play a huge role in politics and have emerged as the main social base of many of the progressive left/liberal movements across the world. Zohran Mamdani has just secured the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York, largely powered by the frustrations of this group.2 In the UK, since New Labour the Labour Party has been in effect an uneasy class coalition between the PMC and the new petty bourgeoisie. However, the Starmer leadership has potentially fractured this coalition for good and large swathes of the radical younger element has now defected to the Green Party en masse, with a smaller cohort likely to join Your Party.
The ‘problem’ of this class fraction has only grown. Indeed, it is now far larger and more influential than the era when Poulantzas identified its significance. Yet despite its political potency, attempts to theorise it are still underdeveloped. One of the biggest problems in this regard is that unproductive white-collar work has historically often been defined by what it is not (the working class) rather than its own internal life, culture or habitus, which remains under-studied.
It seems clear however that the modern NPB is defined by the scarring impact of downward social mobility and precarity (both in the labour market and housing market) - a phenomenon which is only going to continue, which will further radicalise this fraction and make it still more powerful as a political force. Yet while its experience of proletarianisation means it is moving ‘objectively’ closer to the old working class as it experiences poverty and deskilling, it remains split off from these potentially allied classes culturally, socially and geographically. It is unclear whether the aforementioned political vehicles for this fraction will be able to overcome social and cultural ‘red lines’ and build class alliances with socially conservative workers - early signs from the Greens and Your Party in the UK suggest that attempts to ‘compromise’ on social justice issues in order to build broader class alliances will not be forthcoming.
Nicos Poulantzas, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, New Left Books, 1975 https://voidnetwork.gr/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Classes-in-Contemporary-Capitalism-by-Nicos-Poulantzas.pdf
Rachel Ensign et al, The Young College Grads Who Propelled Mamdani to Victory in New York, Wall Street Journal, 26 June, 2025 https://www.wsj.com/us-news/zohran-mamdani-nyc-election-voters-economy-ead5d808