Economic Interests of the Middle Classes: Bourgeois Landowners

Thus Engels summarised the traditional Marxist thesis that the 1789 revolution had been the instrument of immutable social change in which the aristocratic, feudal and landed élite was replaced by the entrepreneurial bourgeoisie, the symbol of capitalist industrialisation. As we have already noted, some rich nobles were entrepreneurs. We have observed that many middle-class entrepreneurs demonstrated an un-Marxist preoccupation with the acquisition of landed estates. Bureaucratic and professional elements in the bourgeoisie were equally active in the property market. While the middle class were eager to huy land, European aristocracies were far more resilient than Marx had expected. In this chapter we shall consider the impact of the bourgeois quest for landed respectability. Why did the bourgeois want to become the squire and what were the consequences for social and economic development in the nineteenth century?