Bourgeois liberalism refers to either parliamentary democracy or Western

Western world

The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...

 popular culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

. The foundations for bourgeois liberalism is that of Adam Smith

Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...

's writing The Wealth of Nations

The Wealth of Nations

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, generally referred to by its shortened title The Wealth of Nations, is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith...

, seen in 19th-century classical economic liberalism

Economic liberalism

Economic liberalism is the ideological belief in giving all people economic freedom, and as such granting people with more basis to control their own lives and make their own mistakes. It is an economic philosophy that supports and promotes individual liberty and choice in economic matters and...

. The French term bourgeois' origins are that of 'middle class

Middle class

The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper 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

Communist Party of China

The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...

's Constitution stating party objectives include "combat[ing] bourgeois liberalization" in line with the four cardinal principles

Four Cardinal Principles

The Four Cardinal Principles were stated by Deng Xiaoping in 1979 and are the four issues for which debate was not allowed within the People's Republic of China...

.