The Fall and Rise of the Petty Bourgeoisie: Changing Patterns of Self-Employment in the Postwar United States

This article explores the historical trajectory of the self-employed segment of the labor force in the United States, particularly since 1940. Self-employment declined in the United States almost steadily from the 19th century to the early 1970s. Since then, it has risen every year. Explaining this reversal in the historical fortunes of the petty bourgeoisie is the central task of this article. We reach four basic conclusions: first, the reversal in the decline of the self-employed is statistically significant and robust across a range of definitions of self-employment rates. Second, this reversal is not a simple countercyclical response to the increase in unemployment since the middle 1970s. Third, part of the resurgence of self-employment result from the expansion of various postindustrial services that tend to have higher levels of self-employment within them. Within postindustrial sectors, however, there has not generally been any increase in self-employment. Fourth, a significant part of the expansion of self-employment is explained by a increase in self-employment within most of the traditional sectors of the industrial economy.