What is the Third Estate?

            
             The third estate, simply the most powerful of the classes but it did not know it. Abbe de Sieyes wrote about his theory of the importance of the third estate and how it should be treated. "The Third Estate embraces then all that which belongs to the nation; and all that which is not the Third Estate cannot be regarded as being of the nation" . Sieyes thought that the society should be of strictly producers and consumers. His ideal society contained four classes. The first three being producers and sellers while the last an intellectual consumer class.
             The first class was made up of initial producers such as farmers. The farmers grew the raw goods, which were used to make the things that the consumer would buy. Examples of this are wheat, milk, corn, and beef. One cannot eat wheat straight one must process it into bread or cereal before human consumption. .
             The second class was made up of bakers and industry men. They were the ones who transformed the milk into cheese and ice cream. They were the ones who transformed the wheat into bread.
             The third class was the link between production and consumption. They determined the most efficient production and delivery of goods. The merchants created competition because if one baker had tastier and cheaper bread than another, that is the baker the merchants would go to. The consumers started to an increase in variety and they began to have a choice in each thing they bought.
             The fourth and final class was the intellectuals. The white-collar people who do not use their hands but their ideas to make themselves wealthy. They were into more abstract things. .
             In Sieyes theory he said that monopoly was horrible because it was moving back to the old ways of kings. He wanted a free-market system but with enough regulations that it would create competition. Since he was working during the time of the Enlightenment he used the idea of self-advancement.