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when we analyze class dynamics in capitalism we generally draw distinctions based on relations to means of production. The proletarian is a proletarian because they do not possess that with which they labor, the machinery, the product, even the very process of production is dispossessed of them. The bourgeois is bourgeois because they as an individual own the means by which a proletarian produces without providing any labor themselves. The petit bourgeois is the petit bourgeois because they simultaneously own and operate the means of production, whether alone or alongside their workers, there are many forms of the petit bourgeoisie, most common of which today are the small merchants and, increasingly, artisan producers.
Beyond basic class analysis and into sub-strata-thinking
But, while this overview of class does indeed cover all of class, class society is not solely class-based, though it may be class-oriented. Classes contain ideas and cultures, which must be conveyed within this new world of socialized production, the factory floor is never silent, and the voices spread what they can. Hence, as the late, great, esteemed comrade Antonio Gramsci determined, class society creates intelligentsias, sub-stratas, if you will, which act to disseminate and reproduce class-oriented cultural hegemony.
Within capitalism, the intelligentsia exists as a chain of ideas:
Bourgeoisie -> Bourgeois media outlets -> Proletariat
The idea starts out as being necessitated to uphold capitalism, this then gets translated into a form which the proletariat is trained to digest (liberal analysis), put forth to the bourgeois media outlets, and finally digested by the proletariat. But how does a proletarian get to a point where they accept liberal analysis uncritically, to the point of not even recognizing it as politically informed?
To answer this we must dive into the childhood of people in capitalism.
Capitalist childhood
From the moment you are birthed, you are assigned a liberal label, "boy" or "girl" this is the first step by which capitalist society infiltrates the burgeoning mind, the gender mask is applied immediately, externally, ready to be internalized as soon as the brain is formed enough to comprehend it's own inner gender. Then all through childhood, liberalism is reinforced, through TV shows like paw patrol which encourage the acceptance of bourgeois police officers, or batman, which normalizes fascist vigilante justice. The media then, reinforces and establishes a base political line, which must become second nature to all children, when they see a cop, they should think "police officer, friend, helpful" and not "threat, class oppression, violence" despite the latter being the more accurate reading. This is ingrained liberalism at work.
Beyond the early childhood however, the child develops critical faculties, this poses a problem, left to their own devices, many children develop so-called "rebellious phases" where they become conscious to contradictions in familial relations or social relations. To harness this, capitalism developed schooling, a school is made to contain a child, sending them to the factory would be helpful for tight spaces, but risks them developing class consciousness at an early age, so they cannot be contained in a factory, they must be contained in a separate facility, and so capitalism takes advantage of this and creates schools, a space where children can be contained and indoctrinated without worry.
How school works
For this new system, they developed various tools to enforce liberalism and tame the burgeoning consciousness. The idea is to make children perform unproductive labor, i.e, labor which produces nothing, conditioning them to alienation, to enforce this, the school class unit is overseen by a singular, external entity, the teacher. The teacher is to the school class, what a manager is to a factory-floor worker, a figure with a comparable class relation, who has been chosen to be elevated by the bourgeoisie in order to disseminate and enforce bourgeois thought amongst the workers. The teacher creates and enforces arbitrary rules, arbitrary rating of labor quality and assigns collective residual labor (homework). Unlike the proletarian however, the student is not compensated for their labor, they are essentially forced through the VSA (Violent State Apparatus) to be subject to the ISA (Ideological State Apparatus) from fellow proletarians* acting as a professional intelligentsia.
A professional intelligentsia, is a strata of proletarian who puts their labor power towards the enforcement of the ISA through means such as the bourgeois media outlets or the schooling system.
Through this intense and heightened alienation, the proletarian is prepared for entry into socialized productive labor. This is achieved by using this exceptionally mounted contradiction to break the spirit and crush the remnants of early-youth consciousness into a fine powder, ready to be processed into liberal compliance.
*the student is a dependent upon their parents, and hence inherit the class relation of those parents (in a dependent configuration).