Postwar European Society: The Managers

Abstract

Despite the spread of economic rewards and educational benefits in the postwar period, some people are, in George Orwell’s words, more equal than others. Although government and administrative positions have increased, only in a few countries are those who occupy positions of power and influence in contemporary European society women or representatives of the lower-middle or working strata. Even among Socialist party leaders, the number coming from manual workers’ homes has in fact decreased since the late 1940s. Government and industry were once viewed as providing a way for the underprivileged to move up into positions of wealth and power. But top positions are now reserved, with some exceptions, for those whose power and authority are based on advanced training—called a meritocracy, technocracy or cadre. And there is only a slightly increased role for women and the manual and lower-level service class primarily because middle-class males have dominated the educational institutions where the people with the skill, called technocrats, are trained. While the decline in the percentage of manual workers in European populations, which we noted in Chapter 9, has lessened the chance that those from the lower social strata might make their way into positions of power and influence, a now larger, relatively underprivileged, service class finds its road to advancement blocked by a lack of training or education.

If property was the criterion of membership in the former dominant classes, the new dominant class is defined by knowledge and a certain level of education.

Alain Touraine, The Post-Industrial Society