On 2012-10-31, at 3:13 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
> Marv: "Woj continues to insist belong to the power structure rather
> the newest layers of the working class. "
>
> [WS:] It is a bit more complicated than that. I never doubted that,
> economically speaking, large numbers of college educated professionals
> are members of the working class. I am certainly in that class and so
> are most folks on this list.
I inferred you were arguing otherwise from your comments earlier today that "it is not some impersonal force like 'globalization' or 'new technology' but...the new social class, the technostructure...that decides power relations inside the US. It is social class and the technostructure class in particular". That's also been the thrust of your previous interventions, where you have said they belong to a "different class than 'ordinary proles'."
In any case, perhaps we can now agree that a very thin layer of professionals with senior policy- and decision-making authority in large public and private enterprises may be seen as part of the ruling class, but that such is emphatically not true of the great majority - not merely "large numbers" - of college educated professionals who work under their direction, who neither sit on nor advise management committees.
> members of the cognitariat espouse ideologies, like
> entrepreneurial libertarianism, that puts them in a different class
> than "ordinary" proles.
What is your evidence for this? I had earlier replied:
"The burgeoning public sector, schools, and health care industry typically attracted social science and humanities graduates who retained their liberal values and still form the core of whatever progressive left exists within the Democratic party and European social democracy. Polls have consistently shown them to be in favour of medicare, social security, government regulation of the economy and environment, and other features associated with the modern welfare state.
"Your description of 'entrepreneurial libertarians' mostly fits those who came out of the commerce and engineering departments and found more lucrative work in the higher reaches of the financial and high tech industries, which also underwent rapid growth. These latter, as you note, are often social liberals but also economic conservatives who aren't reliant on government programs and are consequently for lower taxes and less government spending."
The best and most current data we have is from the BLS (http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat42.pdf).
These indicate both the number of employees in the "management and business and financial occupations" and in the "professional and related occupations", including the percentage of those who belong to trade unions within each category. You can do a further BLS search to view the hundreds of occupations within their sub-categories.
It's clear to me that most of the professionals, particularly in the "life, physical and social sciences", "community and social service", and "education, training, and library" occupations, would necessarily have liberal arts backgrounds, while most of the better paid employees in the management, business, and financial category could be expected to hold conservative economic views. Of course, this is only my impression, and you can do your own analysis and draw your own conclusions.