Dear Editor,
Reference is made to your editorial “Becoming petty bourgeois” (Nov 11). This is just to offer some clarifications and amplifications on the petty bourgeois and its political role. The petty bourgeois is sort of an elusive category of small business people and not a united, organized, demarcated demographic political grouping as you suggest. They are mostly financially concerned about themselves and families rather than community. They play important roles in the economy in every society and are not politically sophisticated. They are known for political grass hopping as they are not ideologically committed to a political cause and are not politically united except when their economic interests are under threat as in the parking meter matter that you cited for illustrative purpose.
As you rightly stated, it ‘is tricky’ to define the “petty bourgeoisie”. Karl Marx, the founder of communism, and perhaps the creator of the term, and who displayed some contempt for the petty bourgeois, never really defined it. He offered some examples of who they were, and he recognized their important role in transforming the society from rural to industrial towards socialism or communism (working class ownership of the means of production). None of the towering communists really condemned the petty bourgeois as they were needed to serve as a buffer between the wealthy bourgeois class and the poor or working class. And they were a small class that came from the working class as you correctly noted. Lenin, following from Marx, also did not define the term although he also used it profusely. The other communist ideologues like Stalin, Bukharin, Trotsky, Martov, Plekhanov, etc. also did not offer specific definitions of the term. Dr. Jagan also did not define the term. We only know who are included among the petty bourgeois and you identified some categories.
Guyana has a small but growing petty bourgeois who dominates the economy (leaving out the multinationals). I will not agree that Bharrat Jagdeo created the group as they had existed since colonial times rising from poverty (from indentureship and slavery) to be accepted by the White colonial ruling class. Cheddi Jagan was critical of some of them, but they (Indian petty bourgeois) largely supported him out of racial solidarity and gave generously to his party as the African petty bourgeois also did to Forbes Burnham and the PNC. Burnham pursued economic policies that largely eliminated them or rendered them powerless and pauperized them, forcing their migration. But in the process, Burnham created a new petty bourgeois who went into smuggling of banned or scarce goods and ‘backtracking’ (smuggling Guyanese migrants to other countries). Desmond Hoyte embraced the rising petty bourgeois and some of them, Indian bourgeois, formed a CREEP for his 1992 re-election campaign.
The PPP leadership may not agree with your editorial that the party is descending into representing the interests of the petty bourgeois against the labouring masses. Hardly anyone in a leadership position disputes that the party remains welded to working class ideology and Jagdeo has not said anything to the contrary. At any rate, the party gets its support from the Indian working class. The petty bourgeois had abandoned the PPP in 2015 and returned in 2020, clearly demonstrating they are not committed to an ideology or a party but to their economic interests.
Sincerely,
Vishnu Bisram PhD
