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Unemployment

“All professions are conspiracies against the laity”.

George Bernard Shaw from  The Doctor’s  Dilemma.

Introduction to Topic Seven:

The Professions.

            The professions, like the trade unions, are very old forms of the organisation of work. Members tend to be seen as more middle class, than members of trade unions. Although some professions have strong historical connections with manual labour, especially medicine. Law, medicine, and theology are usually seen as the oldest professions, although architecture has a good claim too. In the nineteenth century they emerged in the way we know them to-day. The government recognises the profession, often with a royal charter. The professional ruling body has the power to take people into the profession, award them qualifications, and expel them for unprofessional conduct.

            For some time after the Second World War the professions were seen in a very optimistic light, as a model for all public life, including capitalist firms. The professional client relationship, was seen to be based on trust. This was because the price of the professional services was laid down in advance by the professional body, so one could be confident of not being overcharged. Secondly, one could only practice after a long period of training and successful passing of examinations. This provided assurance of a minimum level of competence.

            This mixture of trust by the client, and competence by the professional was overlaid with the concept of altruism. Put simply, this implied that there was a level of care or concern for the client, on the part of the professional. Further, this concern was greater than any concern for self  on the part of the professional. Some went further, and saw this altruism as a denial of personal selfishness. This elevated the professional in the eyes of the client; and in society generally.

Basic Concept

Altruism:
The belief that the defining characteristic
of a professional is concern for, and service
to, the client. This is a specialised meaning
of the more general sense of concern for
others as opposed to self.

            Fundamentally, the professional was seen to be providing a reliable service, and not attempting to maximise profits with low prices and shoddy goods. Finally, professionals were knowledge workers. They had a body of knowledge, which they put to use in the specific context of the client's broken knee etc.. Also they had to keep their knowledge base up to date by reading professional journals. This provides considerable prestige for these workers, and for many of them very high rates of pay. The high pay was justified by the long years of training; especially in the case of doctors, lawyers, and architects. The point was that during training years of pay had been foregone. So the newly qualified professional was entitled to high pay over a shorter working lifetime, than those who had started paid work at a much younger age.

            Perhaps the first thing to notice about this view of the professional is that it is very flattering. The second thing to notice is that it is the professional's own view of themselves. What gave a certain legitimacy to both of these points was that historically the professions were self regulating under a Royal Charter in Britain. This self regulation by the professional body was seen as removing any external pressures; from managers who might want to maximise profits, or bureaucrats who might want to standardise professional behaviour. So, the professional body set the fees, and professionals had the responsibility of providing a service specific to the individual needs of their clients. In the last quarter of the twentieth century all this changed.

Basic Concept

Self Regulating:
Not being subject to political or managerial
controls, with respect to their daily work.
 

            The changes in more recent years can be quickly summarised as follows: working in bureaucratic state offices, working for large capitalist firms, joining trade unions, becoming waged, and finally being forced to become more entrepreneurial. This list is long enough for some professionals to think that they have changed so much as to no longer be professionals, at least not in the sense outlined above.  Also, the explosion of basic scientific discoveries in the late twentieth century meant that it became increasingly difficult to keep up to date. There was a suspicion that older members of the professions were less reliable than younger members. Another major change is to do with what has been called the knowledge base of the professional. The issue here is the growth of do-it-yourself books, which encourage the individual to bypass the professional. This requires a more highly educated population than 25 years ago. And even if one does not bypass the professional completely one can learn enough to ask informed questions about the professional's practice. One can explore greater choice in one's health care, and house design. At an extreme this can encourage clients to sue professionals for professional misconduct. One consequence of this is the sharp increases in the cost of insuring against these claims. This reduces the professional's income.

            Apart from the knowledge base issue, there is the issue of self regulation by the professional.  How much control does a doctor have over clinical decisions in a  national health trust hospital with new layers of managerial bureaucracy? How much control does an architect have over design decisions in a design and build firm, with a large capitalist owner? The ending of fee scales set by the professional body, and the general culture of entrepreneurial values, have all eroded the professional client relationship. Some researchers have taken this idea further, and have argued for the proletarianisation of the professional. A weak version of this thesis argues that the professional still knows more than all, or most, clients; but this knowledge advantage is all that is now left of the earlier basis of the power of the professional. Box two below sums this up.

            A stronger version of the proletarianisation thesis is that when one adds to the above point about knowledge all the other points in the above summary of recent changes, then what is the difference between a skilled manual worker and a professional. And historically surgery was originally practiced by barbers. One way of addressing this issue is to look at the levels, and intensity, of control over the daily working practices of both manual workers and professionals. Controls would include time keeping, and sanctions for lateness; attending the workplace sober and drug free; working extra hours at short notice; 'zero hours' contracts where one waits at home for a phone call to come to work. Researchers have evidence of all these controls for both types of worker. As to which has the greater level of control this is not clear. All one can say is that the differences in controls over both types of worker is not clear. However, this type of evidence is crucial in attempting to come to a judgement about the issue of proletarianisation.

                And yet, medicine and law continue to be very popular subjects at universities, with female students  now accounting for nearly half the undergraduate places. The professional bodies still exist, albeit in a conflictual relationship with recent changes. Some writers have argued that the state needs the prestige of the professions, when an enquiry into some disaster or scandal is set up. Lawyers typically benefit from this, as the recent Scott enquiry into the selling of arms to Iraq demonstrates. Lawyers fees for recent government privatisation of nationalised industries were particularly high.  Further existing legal requirements set by the government guarantee future work for the professions. A very good example of this is the requirement that a firm's accounts should  be audited every year by qualified accountants. If someone else has enough experience and skill to do this task, this is still not acceptable.

           A recent defence of professionalism has argued against this strong version of the proletarianisation thesis. It accepts that professionals are often supervised by managers. But makes two points. One is that this is nothing new. Professionals have always worked for large corporations. Actuaries were present in the earliest life insurance companies. In house `lawyers are often preferred to hiring an outside lawyer. The second point is that often the manager is also a professional. There is still a problem however. The manager/professional may now do little or no professional practice. They may not have kept up with developments in the knowledge base. They have become more managers than professionals. They may spend more time with other managers. Detailed knowledge of the daily working lives of these managers/professionals is required to settle the claims of the strong version. Box Three is a good place to look for this evidence.

                The final issue has been called the professionalisation of everyone. This points to the trend of occupations, which have already been trade unionised, also setting up professional bodies. Nurses and teachers are the best examples. Also occupations like estate agents, which have to deal with other professions like solicitors, have recently created professional bodies with examinations, and so on. Other examples include banks and insurance companies. This is a very ambiguous development. It can be seen as a form of deference to existing professional bodies, and so strengthens the prestige of the professions generally. Alternatively, it can be seen as a development which undermines this prestige, as it is losing it's scarcity value. If everyone, or most employed workers, claim professional status, then they are no longer prestigious. Indeed the word professionalism itself can be, and is, applied to a very wide range of work. Consequently, the word itself loses any clear meaning. Professionalism can be seen as another form of trade unionism in that it protects it's members jobs and income. Researchers have pointed to the control professions have over entry into the profession as being very similar to the old trade union "closed shop". this meant that  one could only enter certain occupations if one's father were already a member. Indeed professionals used to exclude women from becoming doctors. This has been called professional closure.

            It should now be clear that professions have changed considerably in recent years. Drawing up a balance sheet of these changes is very difficult. Perhaps some of the pomposity of earlier generations of professionals has gone. This is to be welcomed, surely. The loss of control over professional charges has had a profound effect. Competition between professionals, once frowned on, is now quite explicit. Competition on both price and service has raised questions again about what is so special about professional workers.

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Management