professionals

[the_auspex]

Hi there, folks. I've been a reader of Redstar's site for a while now, and lurking on this board for the past couple weeks, so it's about time I started contributing to the discussion.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the social role of "professionals" -- people whose work requires a formal degree and a long period of (formal or informal) "apprenticeship".

During their working lives, professionals seem to behave as "conditional" members of the bourgeoisie. From the perspective of Marxist economics, a retired doctor or lawyer is indistinguishable from a retired businessman -- they both do no work and live off the profit of stock, real estate etc. (Like my asshole landlord! :angry:) But what about a doctor or lawyer who's just gotten their degree? They can reasonably expect their "bourgeois-ness" to grow exponentially over the next thirty years, as their income increases and they can invest (rather than spend) a greater proportion of it -- but this growth is conditional on their continual work activity. Increasingly, they're saddled with large student debts for their graduate and undergraduate degrees, which they have to pay off before they can start investing. Their initial job conditions, while socially prestigious and physically safe, demand long overtime hours. This is probably not "exploitation" in the technical sense of Marxist economics, because professionals get a salary rather than a wage. It's my understanding that in addition to the economic benefits (to the firm/hospital) of young professionals' unpaid overtime, there's a significant element of hazing involved -- "trial by fire" via overwhelming workloads. If I'm not mistaken, the American Medical Association recently passed a bylaw forbidding young doctors doing their "residency" from being forced to work more than a certain number of hours at a time -- because some of them were falling asleep during surgery! :o

The point of all this isn't to feel sorry for the "poor overworked professionals," of course, but to get a clearer understanding of how they actually function and behave in class society. Their class position at the end of their lives is indistinguishable from that of a true bourgeois, but during their working lives, professionals' material relationship to the means of production is distinct from that of the traditional bourgeoisie. So (as Marxism predicts) their class consciousness is different. In my observation, it combines the traditional bourgeois contempt/fear of the working class with a significant unspoken resentment of the genuine bourgeoisie, who don't have to work.

I think the existence of the professional class helps explain the persistence of the ideology of "upward mobility," despite the growing class stratification in American society. The children of professionals start with bourgeois advantages (better schools and health care), but they still experience tangible, quantifiable upward mobility over the course of their lives -- as long as they continue to "prove themselves." (Increasingly, they're forced to by student loans. I don't have specific numbers, but it's my impression that student debt has skyrocketed over the past thirty years.)

I also think that this helps explain the continuing appeal of Leninist "party discipline." The sense that with enough self-sacrificing hard work you can eventually "make it" is a part of professional consciousness because it's largely true within the restricted sphere of the professions -- a recent med school or law school graduate can reasonably expect to see their income increase over time. A child of the professional class who finds their way into radical politics carries this assumption with them -- dedicate all your free time to selling papers and doing shitwork, and some day you too could make partner... get tenure... join the Central Committee.

Regarding Redstar's recent comments that Leninism is a "petit-bourgeois" ideology, I think that referring to the "professional class" (or the "conditional bourgeoisie") is a much more useful distinction. The petit-bourgeois are small businessmen, shop owners, etc. (a very different social group), and the term "petit-bourgeois" has anyways become a generic lefty "swear word" by this point.

When I have some free time I'm going to try to investigate this further, with some "hard numbers." Is the proportion of professionals increasing? Declining? Are their salaries rising? Falling? I don't know the answers to these questions... but I think they'd be very useful to know.

[redstar2000]

A very thoughtful and interesting post...I've been wishing lately that we'd have more like them here. Welcome to the board! :)

If Marx was right, these people in the "professions" will be "pushed down" into the working class as late capitalism decays. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll become "manual laborers". What seems to be happening is that their "professions" become "proletarianized".

My impression is that a young doctor who goes to work for a "Health Maintenance Organization" now is in much the same position as a very highly skilled worker in some industrial setting. The money is pretty damn good...but the "autonomy" traditionally associated with "professional work" is mostly just a distant memory.

In Marx or even Lenin's time, a doctor or lawyer was a member of the petty-bourgeoisie...an independent seller of medical or legal "services" as if they were commodities like any other.

We may be seeing that change "right before our eyes".


I quite agree that "petty-bourgeois" is often used as a "swear word" among lefties...something that one person can call another when they run short of rational arguments.

I've lost count of how many times I've seen the phrase "petty-bourgeois anarchism" without even a token effort to do an actual class analysis of anarchism in theory or practice.

Instead, what's offered is a kind of "reasoning" like this...

1. The petty-bourgeoisie are "individualist" entrepreneurs who reject collective discipline.

2. Anarchist theory rejects authority and discipline as a matter of principle.

3. "Therefore", anarchism "is" a petty-bourgeois ideology.

All this inspite of the historical evidence that the petty bourgeoisie have been among the most enthusiastic supporters of the "Party of Order"...up to and including the Nazis!

The petty-bourgeoisie love discipline...when it is imposed on the working class!

In my opinion, the Leninist infatuation with discipline is far more indicative of its petty-bourgeois origins than anything that might be associated with anarchism or "ultra-left" communism.

I've actually seen Leninists on this board raise the "terrifying specter" of "mob rule"...meaning a working class that has no Leninist party to "keep things under control".

It seems to me that the evidence points in a very clear way towards the conclusion that Leninism is a radical petty-bourgeois ideology. If we are to take them at their word, they want a society in which they replace the old capitalist class...but everything else stays pretty much the same.

We'd still have professional armies and police, a massive prison complex, a central economic authority that would do what corporate managers do now, a market where workers would purchase their necessities out of their wages, and so on.

Of course, they also promise us all sorts of "welfare goodies"...free education, free health care, lower rents, blah, blah, blah.

But it's pretty clear that there's no way to hold them to their promises...any more than we can hold a contemporary bourgeois politician to his promises. The Leninists propose a Party despotism in which ordinary working people would have no more political power than they have now.

And even the Party itself is a despotism; only the "leading circles" have any significant influence on public policy.

Obviously such a society in the "west" (if it were even possible) would rapidly degenerate into a new capitalist society...as the petty-bourgeois "revolutionary leaders" devolved into a new ruling class.

Fortunately, it's not possible...even remotely. No sensible worker wants to "take a chance" on a Leninist party despotism.

What is still "bad" about the remnants of "western" Leninism is that it fucks people up!

A middle-class kid who gets involved in a Leninist party just has his own convictions of "inherent superiority" confirmed. If he stays in radical politics, he becomes a "Bob Avakian" or tries to. Most likely, he will perceive that Leninism "is going nowhere" and just switch to some sort of right-wing ideology...always a "happy home" for the petty-bourgeoisie.

What's far worse is what happens to a working class kid who gets involved with Leninism. S/he finds herself/himself in the same situation as s/he experienced in all of the other institutions in class society: being told what to do by her/his "superiors".

So what does s/he conclude? That "radical politics" is just another racket. That there is "no hope" of really getting out of the shit! And, sadly, that the "best thing to do" is "start your own business".

Individual escape from wage-slavery is "all there is".

I don't think that "ultra-leftists" can "abolish" Leninism by act of will...or polemic. But what some of us can do is try to get to the kids before Leninism has a chance to fuck them up!

Even a middle class kid with a temporary romantic interest in revolution has a right not to be dicked around by these petty-bourgeois posers.

And young working class kids with an interest in revolution are precious...they really are "the hope of the future".

It's imperative that we do whatever we can to get our message across to them: Leninism has nothing to do with proletarian revolution.

Tough job!

But really important!

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Bannockburn]

Outside of Marx, concerning the role of intellectuals, and how they play in the role of the state, pick up Chomsky's American Power and the new mandarins

[People's Coalition]

I've always seen "Professionals" as some kind of Hitman...lol, j/k

[YKTMX]

Umm, I can't say I've given this topic a lot of thought. The stresses and vacillations of the middle strata are not my main concern! But still, I agree with Red, a nice piece of clear thinking on your part.

One thing I think is important to say is that the term 'professional' has become far, far too broad. Classically, we would have included teachers, professors, doctors, lawyers in this 'group'. However, I think it should be obvious that the class location of a high school teacher in a state school is completely different to a consultant in a private hospital - even if both are 'salaried' and require degree/period of training.

The teachers, or college lecturers, will typically have a sense of 'civic duty' and an interest in the wellbeing of their pupils. They will also have greater contact with 'management' or superiors. Also, notice the increase in 'inspection' of schools -along with other phenomena such as league tables. Teachers are now amongst the most highly supervised workers!

Consultants, dentists or 'established lawyers' have no, it seems to me, similar inclination towards a sense of 'duty'. Most consultants, at least here in Britain, split their time between NHS hospitals and their more lucrative private enterprises. Their goal is to 'get in, get out' and spend as much of their time on the golf course as possible. We might defend the small strata of lawyers who work pro-bono, or mostly 'legal aid' work here in Britain as an exception.

I'd point to statistics that show high levels of support for the Labour Party amongst 'professionals' employed in the state sector - such as teachers, nurses, professors, lecturers and GP's. And this isn't a new thing, it has long historical precedence.

As for the point about the professionals and Leninism. I think most people will recognise that as very tenuous indeed. As I've stated before, there is a tendency for party full timers to be intellectuals, but this would be true in all revolutionary movements, Leninist or not.

Michael Albert, as far as I know, doesn't spend his daytime making cars for GM.

[Module]

I presume I'm allowed to do this, I don't necessarily have anything to add to this topic but I'd still like to see other people's input, and since there are some posts, however unsatisfying, already here, it seems unnecessary to make another thread on it.

[ckaihatsu]

There's a good, active thread that covers this topic, somewhat tangentially:


Class as Identity?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/class-identityi-t110698/index.html