The End of Bourgeois Values

Michie · May 18, 2025

How America’s shift from Protestant work ethic to post-Christian consumer culture unraveled the values that once defined its middle class.

It’s no secret that America’s working classes - more broadly, those without college degrees and professional jobs - have been living increasingly socially dysfunctional lives. This was documented well by Robert Putnam in Our Kids and Charles Murray in Coming Apart.

Just as one example, America has the highest share of its children living in single parent households of any country in the world. This has profound negative consequences for our country.

One popular culprit for this is a decline in adherence to “bourgeois values” or bourgeois culture. We see these values described well in Amy Wax’s controversial Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed on the subject:

Too few Americans are qualified for the jobs available. Male working-age labor-force participation is at Depression-era lows. Opioid abuse is widespread. Homicidal violence plagues inner cities. Almost half of all children are born out of wedlock, and even more are raised by single mothers. Many college students lack basic skills, and high school students rank below those from two dozen other countries. The causes of these phenomena are multiple and complex, but implicated in these and other maladies is the breakdown of the country's bourgeois culture.
That culture laid out the script we all were supposed to follow: Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.

Failure to valorize and adhere to bourgeois values is part of the conservative theories about the “culture of poverty.”

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