Bourgeoisie,

Bourgeoisie, a French term, originally denoting the citizens of towns as a rank or class of society as opposed to the nobility and the working-classes proper. The French communists and socialists (especially since Saint-Simon) have widened its signification to express the more or less comfortable middle-class as opposed to the working-class and the proletariat; and, moreover, invariably read into the name a one-sided, narrow-hearted, and selfish devotion to the interest of capital as against labour.