The Professional-Managerial Class

Babara and John Ehrenreich describes the rise of a professional-managerial class as a distinct group under the conditions of monopoly capitalism. According to Ehrenreich, the PMC, though comprising of those who do not own the means of production and who have to sell their labor power to the capitalists, exists in an antagonistic relation with the working classes, perpetuating structures of exploitation. The white collar workers such as scientists, doctors, engineers, and researchers belong to this category.

In today's late capitalist societies, the PMC is expanding as a class and acquiring more and more power and prestige, especially in the light of globalization and uneven flows of global capital. In the globalized, late capitalist societies, immaterial/biopolitical forms of production have acquired a hegemonic status, displacing the industrial modes of production. The PMC has come to dominate as a class within this paradigm with the increasing demand for highly specialized skills in industries such as software or finance. While the developed world with its capacity to train workers in research universities has an upper-hand when it comes to reproducing this class, the third world with its relative lack of facilities to provide necessary skills for the workers to fit specific modes of post-industrial production is lagging behind. As a result, the PMC is a small minority in the third world societies, comprising of those who have access to Western education.

On the other hand, the uneven flows of global capital has relegated the industrial production to the third world, where cheap labour is abundant. According to Lisa Lowe, this has augured racialization and feminization of labor and exploitation of women. In this context, the relations of production is not primarily a relation of class, but has a gender and racial dimension as well.