Rise of Professional Society, Revised Edition: England since 1880

The Rise of Professional Society lays out a stimulating and controversial framework for the study of British society, challenging accepted paradigms based on class analysis. Perkins argues that the non-capitalist "professional class" represents a new principle of social organization based on trained expertise and meritocracy, a "forgotten middle class" conveniently overlooked by classical social theorists. Book Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Contents......Page 5 Introduction to the 2002 edition......Page 12 Preface to the first edition......Page 22 The meaning of professional society......Page 28 Class versus hierarchy......Page 29 Professional rivalries and the state......Page 36 The culmination of the Industrial Revolution......Page 44 The zenith of class society......Page 54 The height of inequality......Page 55 The climacteric of British capitalism......Page 63 The decline of Liberal England......Page 67 The fear of the poor......Page 80 A segregated society......Page 89 The riven middle class......Page 105 Lives apart: the remaking of the working class......Page 128 Class society and the professional ideal......Page 143 Professionalism and property......Page 150 The defence of property......Page 168 The professional ideal and the origins of the welfare state......Page 182 The crisis of class society......Page 198 The aborted pre-war crisis......Page 201 The supreme test of class society......Page 213 The crisis averted......Page 231 A halfway house: society in war and peace......Page 245 The great divide, 1914 18......Page 251 Social change between the wars......Page 268 The old order changeth......Page 278 'Money isn't everything'......Page 285 Spiralists and burgesses......Page 293 The road from Wigan Pier......Page 300 Towards a corporate society......Page 313 The corporate economy......Page 318 The corporate state......Page 342 The corporate society......Page 358 The triumph of the professional ideal......Page 386 The professional ideal and the decline of the industrial spirit......Page 390 Professionalism and human capital......Page 404 The condescension of professionalism......Page 417 The plateau of professional society......Page 432 The Second World War and the revolution in expectations......Page 434 'Most of our people have never had it so good'......Page 445 The bifurcation of the professional ideal......Page 463 The persistence of class......Page 482 The backlash against professional society......Page 499 Professionalism under fire......Page 502 Rolling back the state?......Page 510 The resurgence of the free market ideology......Page 522 Britain's economic decline and the political dilemma......Page 533 Notes......Page 547 Index......Page 605 The long-awaited sequel to "The Origins of Modern English Society" focuses on the rise of the "forgotten middle class", the non-capitalist or professional class which the chief social commentators left out of their analyses