Professional-managerial class

The professional-managerial class was an influential new class hypothesis in social science in the United States in the 1970s by John and Barbara Ehrenreich.[1] The Ehrenreichs hypothesized a social class within capitalism that, by controlling production processes through superior management skills, was neither proletarian nor bourgeois. This hypothesis contributed to the Marxist debates on class in Fordism and was used as an analytical category in the examination of non-proletarian employees.

This group of middle class professionals is distinguished from other social classes by their training and education, typically business qualifications and university degrees,[2] with occupations including academics, teachers, social workers, engineers, managers, nurses, and middle-level administrators.[3] The professional-managerial class tends to have incomes above the average for their country.[4]

It is estimated that in the 1930s United States people in professional-managerial class occupations made up less than 1 percent of total employment. In 1972, about 24 percent of American jobs were in professional-managerial class occupations. By 1983 the number had risen to 28 percent and in 2006, 35 percent.[5]

James Burnham proposed the existence of a similar class in his 1941 book, The Managerial Revolution, and argued that they had become the new ruling class.