Word: Bourgeois

Bourgeois:

A. n.
1. orig. A (French) citizen or freeman of a city or burgh, as distinguished from a peasant on the one hand, and a gentleman on the other; now often taken as the type of the mercantile or shopkeeping middle class of any country. Also fem. bourgeoise, a Frenchwoman of the middle class.

2. Used disparagingly. a. In communist or socialist writings: a capitalist; anyone judged to be an exploiter of the proletariat.

I thought this word pertained well to Marx's historical yet social critique of the events leading up to Louis Bonaparte's coup d'état in France. The bourgeois were critical to the power struggles in France at the time and also the term lent itself to Marx's critique on social classes.