Adorno and Horkheimer returned the abuse: they regarded Brecht as a petit-bourgeois poseur and apologist for Stalinism

the new petty bourgeoisie that is the very carrier of the neocapitalist and neoliberal lifestyle of ‘hard work and hard play’, of careerism-cum-consumerism, which, as will be discussed infra, may indeed be considered the indispensable cultural foundation of contemporary capitalism’s society

Continuing the provincial petit bourgeois theme, Goldwater was the grandson of the founder of a five-outlet department store chain

The petit bourgeois is a man unable to imagine the Other.

This is a space in which, in principle, neither direct political propaganda nor civic expressions of emotion, neither ‘petty-bourgeois’ psychologism nor refined formal experiments, are forbidden

Orwell was suspicious of this indeterminate, petit bourgeois class, because it wanted to change itself first, and society second.