Bourgeois liberalism (simplified Chinese: 资产阶级自由主义 zh; traditional Chinese: 資產階級自由主義; pinyin: zīchăn jiējí zìyóu zhŭyì) refers to either parliamentary democracy or Western popular culture. The foundations for bourgeois liberalism is that of Adam Smith's writing The Wealth of Nations, seen in 19th-century classical economic liberalism. The French term bourgeois' origins are that of 'middle class' however Marxist usage implies bankers or merchants. The late 1980s saw the first major usage of the term when a number of campaigns against bourgeois liberalism were initiated lasting till the early 1990s.
The term is in active use in Chinese politics, with the Communist Party of China's Constitution stating party objectives include "combat bourgeois liberalization" in line with the four cardinal principles.
Famous quotes containing the words bourgeois and/or liberalism:
“The bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self.... And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)
“The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)