[WS:] Intellectuals denote a certain social status rather than a relationship to production. Artisan or skilled "manual" workers, technicians, etc. use cognitive skills in their jobs with to the same, if not larger degree than 'intellectuals. Fixing faulty plumbing or electrical circuitry or diagnosing a sick animal often requires more critical thinking than writing a book. Yet plumbers, electricians or veterinarians are not considered intellectuals but writers are.
Intellectuals form a socio-economic class only by Weber's and Bourdieu's definition of class, but not by Marx's.
As to the petite bourgeois consciousness - it varies. Bourdieu did a study of intellectuals (Homo Academicus) and found significant variations between different groups. That is why I am reluctant to dump the entire group into one one bag, as Joanna does. i understand that he speaks from the Eastern European perspective where there was a definitive anti-prole undercurrent among the intelligentsia, but I think it was more of a reaction to the official state propaganda extolling faux "proletarian" virtues than animosity toward blue collar workers. My experience was somewhat different - a lot of intellectuals worked with blue collar workers in the 1970s dissident groups. There is a book by Michael Kennedy "Professionals Power and Solidarity in Poland" based on field studies which claims, again, that different groups of intellectuals had different attitudes toward both blue collar workers and the political system.
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."