[Kuinox]

Were the middle class, but what people think of middle class today, doesn't apply to what it was back then.

> The bourgeoisie are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a " middle class" between the peasantry and aristocracy. They are traditionally contrasted with the proletariat by their wealth, political power, and education, as well as their access to and control of cultural, social, and financial capital.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourgeoisie

Today the meaning of bourgeoisie, still applies to "business owners, merchants and wealthy people", but is now seen as upper class.

[t-3]

Yes, the proletariat has been brainwashed and convinced that they're the middle class, while the middle classes have become the new aristocracy. The disappearance of hereditary nobility and rise of liberalism (which brings along separation of church and state, which removes the power of the clergy) made the old distinctions less useful, so we have the modern lower (proletariat), middle (skilled workers), and upper (bourgeois) classes.