The term bourgeois arose in medieval France, where it denoted an inhabitant of a walled town. Its overtones became important in the 18th century, when the middle class of professionals, manufacturers, and their literary and political allies began to demand an influence in politics consistent with their economic status. Marx was one of many thinkers who treated the French Revolution as a revolution of the bourgeois.

In Marxist (Marxism) theory, the bourgeoisie plays a heroic role by revolutionizing industry and modernizing society. However, it also seeks to monopolize the benefits of this modernization by exploiting the propertyless proletariat and thereby creating revolutionary tensions. The end result, according to Marx, will be a final revolution in which the property of the bourgeoisie is expropriated and class conflict, exploitation, and the state are abolished. Even in Marx's lifetime, however, it was clear that the bourgeoisie was neither homogeneous nor particularly inclined to play the role that he had assigned to it. Indeed, in many countries the middle classes could not usefully be described as bourgeois.

In much of Western discourse, the term bourgeoisie had nearly disappeared from the vocabulary of political writers and politicians by the mid-20th century. Nevertheless, the underlying idea that most political conflict stems from competing economic interests and is therefore broadly concerned with property—an insight first offered by Aristotle (384–322 BC)—continued to be applied.