The modern upper middle class outnumbers the narrowly capitalist bourgeoisie significantly, and probably has for the entire history of capitalism. What is more, on the level of politics and culture, the label 'bourgeois' as conventionally used applies as well, if not better, to the strata of educated professionals and technicians, some of whom are employed by capitalist firms (often in support or managerial functions), but many others (probably the majority) are at least partially insulated from the capitalist market by institutional protections, including employment by the state. The intellectual producers and political operators of bourgeois society are usually drawn not directly from the capitalist class, but instead from this "upper middle" stratum.
I would suggest that this stratum is the direct descendent of, and shares important characteristics with, the educated legal and administrative officials of the absolutist states. This predecessor of the modern professional class was a product of the centralizing projects of the state, and bound up with its fiscal apparatus in various ways--indeed, since its rules of reproduction were essentially to secure a share, however small, of the extractive capacity of the state (and in some places, the residual seigneurial powers of the nobility), it can be characterized as a stratum of cadet members of the nobility.
Yet, the specific relationship of these "cadets" to the state's political power generated a set of strategies and orientations that were not only distinctive at the time (and gave rise to conflicts with the old nobility) but also have a clear family resemblance with those of the modern upper middle stata.
1) They were marked by a veneer of individual achievement: inherited wealth and office were important supports, but each generation needed to pursue its own career path (including crucially education), and some amount of competition for positions was unavoidable because the number of cadets far exceeded the capacity (or desire) of the state to provide well-remunerated places for them. As such, particularly in contrast to the aristocracy with its inherited titles and access to the royal court, members of this stratum tended to think of themselves as possessing "merit." This ideology, including the central institutional position of education (not to mention the state itself), has survived to this day.
2) In contrast with the aristocracy, which ideally possessed political power as a patrimony, members of this stratum were clearly agents of greater social powers, whether the monarchy or (in the case of lawyers working to improve seigneurial extraction) the nobility. This was true even if lesser offices were to some extent treated as private property, since the monarchy had a tendency to continually erode offices in its state-building improvisations. This of course contributed to the sense that members of this stratum needed to compete for their positions (and were thus socially mobile on the basis of their merit). Even if they obtained their positions by purchase or patronage, they to a greater extent than an aristocracy that merely enjoyed its patrimonial rights performed a social function (or, at least, rendered useful service).
3) From these factors arose a combination of individualism and a sense of membership in (and tendency to make claims in the name of) a political "public." The importance of this combination was in its difference from the characteristic orientation of a feudal nobility in position of some degree of autonomous political and coercive power. While a cadet official of the Absolutist era (like a professional or upper-level white collar worker today) possesses their own individual "merit" (and more concretely, their educational credentials and social ties), for the feudal aristocrat this kind of self-possession was secondary to mastery over an organization of military subordinates and territorial subjects. Conversely, while the feudal nobility could and did ally to defend the privileges of their "estate," these privileges were directly tied to the maintenance of the nobility's patrimonial political prerogative. The cadet stratum, however, had no such prerogative to defend, and no one of its members could seek to appropriate some substantial segment of political sovereignty--which was the program of the aristocracy right up to the end of the ancien regime (though of course it was always presented as a REclaiming of rights usurped by the crown). Instead, its political orientation centered on the control of the state as an institution--specifically, its openness to "individuals of merit" and to the public made up of such individuals. This has contradictions, no less than the position of the aristocracy (the fragmentation of sovereignty imperils the preservation of the rule of the nobility as a class), namely that there are too many individuals who think they have "merit," and the institutionalization of political power of a politically responsible "public" (i.e., one that excluded unwanted radical views) is far easier said than done. (In this, the notables' turn to Napoleon is the direct parallel of the current obsession of the American punditry with "moderates.")
If we reprise the question: What is the third estate? The answer should focus on these factors, which have more to do with absolutism than the rise of capitalism, and which can be traced as well in the "loyalist" ideology of 19th century Japan. The recognizable modernity of the enlightenment thought that became the discursive grist of the "bourgeois" revolution arises from the continuity of the forms of life of the "upper middle" strata that include the political and intellectual classes, even while the mode of production in which such strata enjoy a partially-insulated existence has been transformed fundamentally.
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