Rise of Professionalism

Vilfredo Pareto

"What gave rise to our modern conceptions of professional status, and how did particular professions gain their privileged status? Magali Sarfatti Larson shows how our present conception and acceptance of profession was shaped in the liberal phase of capitalism. Larson argues that professionalization was both a response to the extension of market relations and a movement for the conquest of collective social status by sectors of the bourgeoisie. By comparing the development of various professions in England and the United States during the first part of the nineteenth century, the author gives concrete historical illustration to the multiple relations professions form within their society. Larson examines the new conditions of professionalization in the phase of corporate capitalism, drawing on a number of historical and sociological sources. While professions began as a mode of...