Abstract
In this article, the writer looks at the views of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx regarding class struggle and economic and social conditions. The writer discusses that their political and economic theories were formulated in order to analyze how society functioned in a state of upheaval, constant change, and class struggle.

From the Paper
"In works like "The Communist Manifesto", written with Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx proposed a model of history in which economic and political conditions determined social conditions. Marx and Engels deplored the exploitation produced by capitalism and examined the emergence of classes such as the bourgeois and the proletariat, which they considered to be products of the rise and dominance of capitalism in Europe."

Abstract
This paper challenges conventional interpretations of the welfare state and its supposed benefits to the working class. It concludes that its bureaucratic elitism has actually led to a more divided authoritarian society and has been shaped by forces hostile to an independent working class culture.

From the Paper
"At a time when Charles Murray's initially controversial theory of the underclass has been absorbed into official New Labour thinking, there would seem to be little that conservative thinking could add to the dominant left-liberal consensus on the question of widening inequality, and the malaise evident in working class communities. The blight of welfare dependency, and the enfeebling effect on its recipients, is a staple of government pronouncements and a testimony to the New Right's intellectual hegemony. "

Tags:capitalism, history, liberal, poverty, socialism, state, trade, unions

Abstract
This paper reviews the key texts of the Frankfurt School on the sociology of culture. It also discusses Jurgen Habermas' writings on the subject, particularly in "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society." Finally, it discusses the works of French critical theorists such as Guy Debord, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari and examines the ways in which the Frankfurt School impacted their thought.

From the Paper
"The French radical philosophers and sociologists built upon the foundation laid by the Frankfurt School in developing their own critique of culture. They extended the Frankfurt School theorists' attack on mass culture, liberal tolerance, and the decay of the public sphere to include such key areas a language, discourse, and the psyche. Thus, it can be said that the French theorists were much more interested in the ways in which culture played out on the semiotic or symbolic level. Debord's Society of the Spectacle articulated the fact that no true social interactions could take place, as all interactions are now mediated. Foucault introduced the notion of discourse as a tool for maintaining power-as-knowledge via specialization in the professional realm. In a similar vein, Bourdieu's analysis of language was meant to show us "our place" in the social sphere. He connected language with what he deemed "symbolic capital"; just as Foucault linked knowledge with currency, Bourdieu would assert that those in possession of "symbolic capital" were the same who possessed enough power to perform acts of "symbolic violence" against those with less symbolic capital. But the greatest destabilization would come from Deleuze and Guattari, who would reject the Freudian-Marxist axis upon which the Frankfurt School theory had developed altogether in favor of a whole new freedom that would be based on the libidinal flow of desire."

Tags:Bourgeois, public, tolerance, relations

Abstract
This is a book review of David Brooks' book, "Bobos in Paradise:The New Upper Class and How They Got There." This paper examines David Brooks' concept of the "Bobo," a compound of bourgeois and bohemian, which is the new emerging class of the millennium. This class is made up of bankers, baby boomers and the new generation that is running the billion dollar dot-com industries. The author also points out several weaknesses in Brooks' thesis, and traces this back to his own background which makes him biased in his writing about "Bobos."

From the Paper
"Till there it is okay. But the problem starts when Brooks attempts to give authenticity to this newfound culture with all its new sense of taste and style. He starts appreciating the Bobo culture because of its "sober" bourgeois achievement, which takes into it the creative, and the spontaneous element of the sixties. On one level he scoffs at those Bobos who think $ 10K outdoor Jacuzzi is crass but $20K slate shower reflects simple rhythm of life. Yet on another level he appreciates this new upper class style which is based on the display of sufficient taste to know what the best is and to choose it--whether the best coffee, the best food, the best building materials, or whatever. He has his full support for them who find that it is not okay to spend extravagantly on something for display along; it is okay to spend extravagantly on something that is useful in enhancing one's authentic personality."

Tags:bohemian, bourgeois, success, millenium, class, establishment, hedonism, achievement, business, society

Abstract
This paper discusses the lives of Louise Bourgeois and Louise Nevelson by focusing on two examples of their artwork, which demonstrates feminism's entanglement with modern art in the United States. The author investigates, from an art history and cultural context, one representative large-scale work from each artist: Bourgeois' 1996-1997 sculpture "Spider" from the National Gallery of Art and Nevelson's most famous sculpture 1958 "Sky Cathedral" in the Smithsonian American Art Museum . The paper discusses how each of these two works challenges traditional notions of the "feminine" in positing new ideas of what it means to be female in the 20th century. The paper includes color photographs.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Louise Bourgeois' Spider
Louise Nevelson's Sky Cathedral
Comparison
The Sculptures in Context
Conclusion

From the Paper
""Sky Cathedral" can readily be seen to fit in with the tradition of Abstract Expressionist painting in America; indeed, it was executed in the 1950s, when Abstract Expressionism as a movement was in full swing. What is unusual, of course, is the fact that it is not a painting at all, but a sculpture. Still, one sees traces of the influence of Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell, and other artists who used a large-scale "all over" form of expression in their works. At the same time, one sees traces of the Cubist influence in this sculpture, as well."

Tags:male-dominated, abstract expressionist, motif surrealist vagina

From the Paper
"Renowned to the Parisian theatergoers and the members of Louis XIV's court for his farces and comedies, as a writer, director and actor, Moliere surpassed all his contemporaries in the mid-seventeenth century (Mander 16). His popularity can be attributed to his ability to entertain them in all aspects. Facing a diverse audience of the city's upper and upper middle-classes, the aristocrats, court officials and the royal family, Moliere's works present a cast of characters which mirrors his audience (Mander 18). Furthermore, he tapped into the spirit of his age by capturing realistically the lives of his audience and incorporating it into his art.

In addition to entertaining his audience with the realistic portrayal of Parisian life, Moliere also sought to illuminate the inherent hollowness of the existing conventions of high society..."

Abstract
The paper discusses how in the writings of Marx, the proletariat class is that class of society which actually does not have the means of production; those means rest in the hands of the bourgeoisie or capitalist class. The paper explains that these people are the wage-earners who earn their money - what little of it there is - by selling their toil and abilities to the capitalist; the materials they make are commodities that the capitalist can subsequently sell in the marketplace for handsome financial returns. The paper shows how the proletariat is the exploited class Marx wants to rise up against its malefactors; he sees the relationship between the aforementioned proletariat and the aforementioned bourgeoisie as inherently dialectical or oppositional.

From the Paper
"How does Marx identify the proletariat in the context of Bourgeois capitalist society? How does property figure in defining the relationship of the proletariat to the bourgeoisie? In the writings of Marx, the proletariat class is that class of society which actually does not have the means of production; those means rest in the hands of the bourgeoisie or capitalist class. These people are the wage-earners who earn their money - what little of it there is - by selling their toil and abilities to the capitalist; the materials they make are commodities that the capitalist can subsequently sell in the..."

Tags:marx, questions, answers

From the Paper
" Camille
Alexandre Dumas fils (1824-1895) was the illegitimate son of the novelist Alexandre Dumas and a Belgian seamstress. Although his father acknowledged him as his son and for some time they were constant companions, Dumas fils was undoubtedly aware of the social position he and his mother occupied and the limitations of that position. Consequently, a reader is not surprised to find in Camille a sympathetic rendering of the courtesan, Marguerite Gautier. However, Dumas fils also establishes at the outset that he does not intend to excuse the behavior of courtesans. Instead, he merely offers the case of one courtesan who may differ in significant respects from people's usual expectations of a courtesan to demonstrate that courtesans should not be judged too harshly."

Abstract
This paper examines how Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" is the portrait of a woman trapped in an unsatisfactory marriage in an ordinary bourgeois town. Her attempts to escape the monotony of her life through adulterous relationships with other men are ultimately disillusioned by the reality that the men she has chosen are shallow and self-centered and that she has overstretched herself financially. In despair, Emma resolves her dilemma by taking her own life. It discusses how, following the end of the novel, "Madame Bovary" can be considered a story of one woman's faulty perception of reality; namely, Emma is a victim of her own romanticism. It also discusses whether it is possible to consider Emma as a woman crushed by a materialist and complacent century; that is, she is a victim of the "bourgeois century."

From the Paper
"It seems that the mistake in involving too deeply in romanticism is the fact that it fosters a fundamentally false understanding of the world. As Emma says, "what I love now is the kind of story which one can read at a single sitting, which one can give one a thrill of terror. I hate low heroes and lukewarm sentiments of the sort one finds in real life" (Flaubert, 73). It encourages expectations that have no reasonable hope of ever being realized. This sets up a pattern which recurs throughout the novel: Emma dreams of one thing but gets something else. Marriage, motherhood, and adultery all fall short of Emma's expectations, and she seems constantly destined to disillusionment. For instance, the flat Norman landscape that surrounds her is in conflict with the exotic lands of romantic fiction; on the other hand, Tostes, Yonville and even Rouen are no match for the erotic and artistic promise of Paris; and finally, Emma's men fail to correspond to her fantasies of the perfect lover despite their initial promise."

Tags:bourgeois, class, society

Abstract
This paper attempts to introduce Karl Marx's view of capitalist exploitation, which states that the bourgeoisie is the ruling class in capitalist society, which owns the means of production, while the proletariat is the working class, whose sole commodity is his labor power. It examines the issue of how division of labor further increases the exploitation of the worker and how the exploitation of the worker is not confined simply to the bourgeois capitalist who employs him, but also to all the other capitalists who form the society around the proletarian worker.

From the Paper
"In order to keep the worker subjugated, the bourgeois capitalist only provides the laborer with the basic requirements for continued existence. In evidence of this, Marx claims, "The costs occasioned by the worker are limited almost entirely to the subsistence which he requires for his maintenance and reproduction of his race. The price of a commodity, and therefore of labor, is equal to its costs of production." By giving the worker the minimum one can possible allow him, only barely allowing enough for the necessities, the proletarian can never acquire any property of his own, and thus never has any hopes of gaining the means of production for himself."

Tags:bourgeois, capitalism, exploitation, proletariat