Persistence and Change: the petite bourgeoisie in industrial society

Abstract

The Petite Bourgeoisie is a stratum that has attrated little academic study. Historians have given it short shrift, the radical scholars dismissing it as the petty bourgeoisie and the aristocratic historians discounting its members as small fry of no significance! And historians are not alone in their neglect, for in economics, political science and sociology there is a similar disdain for those who cannot be cast in the hero's role in any of the major developments of western capitalism. The petite bourgeoisie remains in the wings because to writers of diverse opinions and academic specialisms it has appeared as essentially trivial.