Memes of Production

Right, among the middle classes, who Marx treated together as the ruling economic class, the haute bourgeoisie were the bankers, tycoons, etc, and the petite bourgeoisie were the smaller merchants who aspired to obtain full bourgeoisie status. They were often management in larger companies, or owners of smaller companies, yet they were people of means with moderate wealth and status in town, and thus not comparable to today’s lower-middle class. Again in Marx’s era the “middle classes” were only called that due to aristocracy being “upper.” So when Marx refers to the middle classes as bourgeoisie he did mean it in the oligarchic sense, since the middle classes WERE the capitalists of his time.