What do the bourgeoisie represent in Europe in the 1920s? How and why was this group so important? Your answer should be at least one hundred words.

Bourgeoisie, the social order that is dominated by the so-called middle class. In social and political theory, the notion of the bourgeoisie was largely a construct of Karl Marx (1818-83) and of those who were influenced by him. In popular speech, the term connotes philistinism, materialism, and a striving concern for "respectability," all of which were famously ridiculed by Molière (1622-73) and criticized by avant-garde playwrights since Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906).