Abstract

While the Professional Managerial Class (PMC) was to be the postwar harbinger of a post-industrial, post-conflict, post-revolutionary capitalism, much has changed over the past fifty years to complicate this social compact and remake the formation and composition of this class. The vaunted autonomy of the PMC has been disrupted by various forces of decomposition and formalized rankings and measures of performance that features managerial protocols that, rather than reflecting confidence in expertise, now promote scepticism regarding specialized knowledge.



Yet, by conventional measure, the ranks of the PMC continue to swell and, concomitantly, higher education continues to expand even as it shifts emphasis and effective consequence from an engine of mobility to one of debt. The class question newly posed by the PMC then becomes how to understand the social conditions of these massive aggregations of debt, which, if taken as a source of expansive revenue streams suggest a rethinking of the relations between labour and capital.



This essay will explore some of these political implications by looking at key arguments regarding the PMC. The essay will consider recent theories of the PMC and take stock of the political potential of the PMC today. The current status of this class will be understood in the context of contemporary finance, which bears unprecedented wealth and holds the promise of a society founded on abundance as opposed to austerity in its sway.