this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
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Why are small business owners considered petit bourgeoisie? (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 3 days ago by znsh@lemmygrad.ml to c/asklemmygrad@lemmygrad.ml
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This question is coming from another post where I was asking what the intelligensia and petit bourgeoisie difference is (https://lemmygrad.ml/post/10748355)

This is a comment I left when discussing: "This one is really difficult for me to grasp, it’s probably my ignorance and lack of knowledge, but why would someone who is a small business owner that doesn’t employ any other worker be bourgeois? Are freelancers and struggling artists who are trying to get their foot in the door of an industry also in that class? I hope I don’t come off as aggressive (I just read back what I wrote and it sounds a bit like that, but I swear it isn’t :D)"

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[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 3 days ago

A key feature about the classification is that small business owners do not enter negotiations with an owner for their value of their labour-power, they themselves are the owner and decide that. That being said, being petite-bourgeois does not automatically make one better well economically nor does it mean that you work less hours than working class people which is something that confuses a lot of people, a good example is farmers, these are commonly viewed as petite-bourgeois for their relation to capital yet everyone acknowledges that they're pretty much enslaved to their capital.