define proletariat and bourgeoisie
Best Answer: Bourgeoisie: The people who own the means of production. This usually refers to the wealthy, upper class people, who own the companies/factories. They are sometimes called capitalists in Marxist/Conflict Theorist terminology. Proletariat: The people who does not own the means of production. They are usually referred as the working class, the labor workers. False Consciousness: People from the working class do not understand that they are being exploited and used for the benefit for the capitalists.
The term proletariat is used in Marxist theory to name the social class that does not have ownership of the means of production and whose only means of subsistence is to sell their labor power for a wage or salary. Proletarians are wage-workers, while some refer to those who receive salaries as the salariat.