On the Professional Regulation of Change

Durkheim E : Professional Ethics and Civic Morals, London, 1957.

Tawney R. H. : The Acquisitive Society, London, 1921.

Carr-Saunders A. M. Wilson P. A. : The Professions, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1933.

Lynn K : ‘The Professions’, Daedalus, 92, No. 4, p. 753, 1963.

Halmos P. : ‘The Personal Service Society’, British Journal of Sociology, 18, No. 1 (March), pp. 18–19, 1967. See also Halmos P. : The Personal Service Society, Shocken, New York, 1971.

Marx K. : Theorien über den Mehrwert, 1, pp. 376–377, 384, 1905–1910. In Marx K. : Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, Bottomore T. B. (trans.), McGraw-Hill, London, 1964.

See for example Kuznets S. Friedman M. : Income from Independent Practice, National Bureau of Economic Research, Washington, 1945. Also, Lees D. S. : The Economic Consequences of the Professions, Institute of Economic Affairs, London, 1966.

Mills C. W. : White Collar: The American Middle Classes, Oxford University Press, New York, 1951. In addition see Mills C. W. : The Power Elite, Oxford University Press, New York, 1956; and particularly, Mills C. W. : ‘The Professional Ideology of Social Pathologists’, American Journal of Sociology, 49, pp. 165–180, 1943.

Young M. : The Rise of the Meritocracy, Penguin Books, London, 1963.

Freidson E. : Profession of Medicine, Dodd, Mead and Co., New York, 1970; also Freidson E. : Professional Dominance, Atherton Press Inc., New York, 1970.

For a useful introductory text see Johnson T. J. : Professions and Power, Macmillan Press, London, 1972. I would like to acknowledge my heavy reliance on this bock for a variety of useful sources and my interest in the alternative framework provided by the author.

Illustrative of these attempts are Flexner A. : ‘Is Social Work a Profession?’ School and Society, 1, (June) pp. 901–911, 1915; Cogan M. L. : ‘Toward a Definition of a Profession,’ Harvard Educational Review, 23, (Winter), pp. 33–50, 1953; Greenwood E. : ‘Attributes of a Profession’, Social Work, 2, No. 3 (July), pp. 44–55, 1957; Millerson G. : ‘Dilemmas of Professionalism’, New Society, 4, (June) p. 15, 1964; Wilensky H. L. : ‘The Professionalization of Everyone?’ American Journal of Sociology, 70, (September), pp. 137–150, 1964; Sherlock B. J. Morris R. T. : ‘The Evolution of the Professional: A Paradigm’, Sociological Enquiry, 37, (Winter), pp. 27–46, 1967.

Goode W. J. : ‘Encroachment, Charlatanism and the Emerging Profession: Psychology, Sociology and Medicine’, American Sociological Review, 25, (December), pp. 902–914, 1960.

Barber B. : ‘Some Problems in the Sociology of the Professions’ Daedalus, 92, No. 4, 1963.

Johnson T. J. : ‘Professions and Power’, pp. 23–32, 1972.

Some examples are to be found in Hall R. H. : ‘Professionalization and Bureaucratization’, American Sociological Review, 33 (February), pp. 92–104, 1968; Hall R. H. : Occupations and the Social Structure, Prentice Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1969; Hickson D. J. Thomas M. W. : ‘Professionalization in Britain: A Preliminary Measurement’, Sociology, 3, No. 1 (January), pp. 37–53, 1969. Note also the empirical evaluation in Snizek W. E. : ‘Hall's Professionalism Scale: An Empirical Reassessment’, American Sociological Review, 37, (February), pp. 109–114, 1972.

Barber B. : ‘Some Problems in the Sociology of the Professions’, p. 671, 1963.

See Johnson T. J. : Professions and Power, Chs. 1 and 2, and Freidson E. : The Professions of Medicine and Professional Dominance. Also, Rueschemeyer D. : ‘Doctors and Lawyers: A Comment on the Theory of the Professions’, Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 1, (February), pp. 17–30, 1964.

Hughes E. C. : ‘Professions’, Daedalus, 92, No. 4, 1963.

Hughes E. C. : ‘Education for a Profession’, The Library Quarterly, 31 (October), 1961. Reprinted in Hughes E. C. : The Sociological Eye, Aldine, New York, pp. 387–396, 1971.

Hughes E. C. The Sociological Eye, p. 375, 1971. See also Becker H. : ‘The Nature of a Profession’ in Henry N. B. (Editor), Education for the Professions, pp. 27–46, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1963.

The process is discussed in more detail in McKinlay J. B. : ‘Clients and Organizations’, in McKinlay J. B. (editor): Processing People—Studies of Organzational Behavior, Holt Rinehart and Winston, London, 1973. A similar case is argued in Becker H. S. : ‘The Nature of a Profession’ in Education for the Professions, Sixty-first Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part 2, pp. 27–46, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1962.

See for example Ranzal E. : ‘Kickbacks Found on Medical Tests’, New York Times, January nth, 1973; Bolande R. P. : ‘Ritualistic Surgery—Circumcision and Tonsillectomy’, New England Journal of Medicine, 280, No. 11, (March), pp. 591–596, (1969); Williams L.P. : How to Avoid Unnecessary Surgery, Nash Publishing Corp., Los Angeles, 1971; Carlin J. E. : Lawyers Ethics: A Survey of the New York City Bar, Russell Sage Foundation, New York 1966.

This concept of front and backstage activities is developed in detail in relation to other areas of activity in Goffman E. : The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Anchor, New York, 1959.

This theme is reiterated several times in Marx K. : Capital, A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, translated by Moore S. Aveling E. : 1, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1959.

Evidence is accumulating which suggests that extensive training occurs even in allegedly ‘deviant occupations’. For example, with regard to prostitution see Bryan J. H. : ‘Apprenticeships in Prostitution’, Social Problems, 12, 3, (Winter), pp. 287–297, 1965.; Bryan J. H. : ‘Occupational Ideologies and Individual Attitudes of Call Girls’, Social Problems, 13, No. 4 (Spring), pp. 441–450, 1966; Greenwald H. : The Call Girl: A Social and Psychological Study, pp. 8–23, Ballantine Books, New York, 1958.

Kisch A. I. Reeder L. G. : ‘Client Evaluation of Physician Performance’, Journal of Health and Social Behaviour, 10 (March), pp. 51–58, 1969.

Bidwell C. E. : ‘Students and Schools: Some Observations on Client Trust in Client-Serving Organizations’, in Rosengren W. R. Lefton M. (editors): Organizations and Clients, pp. 37–69, C. E. Merill, Ohio, 1970.

Freidson E. : ‘The Impurity of Professional Authority’, in Becker H. S. , (editors): Institutions and the Person, pp. 25–34, Aldine Publishing Co., Chicago, 1968.

Bidwell C. E. : ‘Students and Schools: Some Observations on Client Trust in client-Serving Organizations’, p. 40, 1970.

Haug M. Sussman M. B. : ‘Professional Autonomy and the Revolt of the client’, Social Problems, 17 (Fall), pp. 153–160, 1969.

Illustrative of several features of this process are Garfinkel H. : ‘Conditions of Successful Degradation Ceremonies’, American Journal of Sociology, 61 (March), pp. 420–424, 1956; Cumming E. Systems of Social Regulation, Atherton, New York, 1968; Scott R. A. , The Making of Blind Men, Russell Sage, New York, 1969.

Probably the best analysis in this respect is in Wheeler S. (editor): On Record: Files and Dossiers in American Life, Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 1969. See also Westin A. : Privacy and Freedom, Atheneum, New York, 1967; Wilensky H. : Organizational Intelligence: Knowledge and Policy in Government and Industry, Basic Books; New York, 1967; and Miller A. R. : The Assault on Privacy, Signet, New York, 1972.

Many excellent studies of this and related activities appear in Dinitz S. (editors): Deviance, Oxford University Press, New York, 1969; and Rubington E. Weinberg M. S. (editors): Deviance: The Interactionist Perspective, Macmillan Co., New York, 1968.

Freidson E. : Professional Dominance, p. 117, 1970.

Durkheim was probably the first to discuss the impermeability of professional groups to outside attempts to control them. See Durkheim E. : De la division du travail social, Préface à la deuxième édition, Félix Alcan, Paris, ‘Quelques Remarques sur les groupements professionels’. 1902. Also relevant to this regard are Gouldner A. W. : ‘Organizational Analysis’, in Merton R. K. : (editors), Sociology Today, Basic Books, New York, 1959; and Coser R. L. : ‘Insulation from Observability and Types of Social Conformity’, American Sociological Review, 25 (February), pp. 28–39, 1961. Of more practical interest would be a study of the inexplicable assymetric backstage negotiations between the American Medical Association and Aetna Life and Casualty Company (the largest independent health insurance company in the United States). See Kramer B. Meyer P. : 'Doctors Gain More Control from Aetna Life over Disputed Payments on Medical Claims, Wall Street Journal, 24th August, 1972. See also Gilb C. L. Hidden Hierarchies: The Professions and Government, Harper and Row, New York, 1966.

Many of Simmel's ideas relating to the nature and uses of secrecy can be found in Wolff K. H. (editor): The Sociology of George Simmel, Free Press, Glencoe, 1950.

For a telling critique of professional ethics see Daniels A. K. : ‘Profesionalism in Formal Organizations’, 1973; in McKinlay J. B. (editor): Processing People-Studies of Organizational Behavior, 1973. Note also Roth J. A. : Letter to the editor, The American Sociologist 4, (May), p. 159, 1969.

Freidson E. : ‘Client Control and Medical Practice’, American Jouranl of Sociology, 65 (January), pp. 374–382, 1960. This process has some empirical support in Coleman J. : Medical Innovation, A Diffusion Study, The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis, 1966; and McKinlay J. B. : ‘Social Networks, Lay Consultation and Help Seeking Behavior’, Social Forces, 52 (March), 1973.

McClung L. A. : ‘The Social Dynamics of the Physician's Status’, Psychiatry, 7, p. 372, 1964.

A number of these difficulties are discussed in Bachrach P. Baratz M. S. : Power and Poverty, Oxford University Press, New York, 1970; Mills C. W. : The Power Elite, Oxford University Press, New York, 1956; Domhoff G. W. : The Higher Circles, Vintage, New York, 1970.

Horowitz D. : ‘Billion Dollar Brains: How Wealth Puts Knowledge in Its Pocket’, Ramparts, (May) pp. 36–44, 1969. A somewhat similar case is argued by Connar J. O. : ‘The University and the Political Economy’, Leviathan, 1 (March), pp. 14–15, 1969.

Parsons T. : ‘The Professions and Social Structure’, in Essays in Sociological Theory, Free Press, Glencoe, pp. 34–49, 1954.

Parsons T. : ‘The Professions and Social Structure’, 38, 1954.

Report of the Royal Commission on Medical Education, 1965–1968, H.M.S.O., London; Lepawsky A. : ‘Medical Science and Political Science’, Journal of Medical Education, 43, No. 10, pp. 905–917) 1967; Butler J. R. : ‘Sociology and Medical Education’, The Sociological Review, 15, pp. 87–96, 1969.

Hughes E. C. : ‘Licence and Mandate’, Chapt. 6, in Hughes E. C. : Men and Their Work, pp. 78–87, Free Press, Glencoe, 1958.

Hughes E. C. : ‘Licence and Mandate’, p. 79, 1958.

In his discussion of the ‘clinical mentality’, Freidson depicts physicians as particularistic, pragmatic in the use of scientific knowledge, and inclined to employ personal first-hand experiences over scientific theory. See Freidson E. : The Professions of Medicine, Chpt. 8. There is no reason to assume that other dominant and related occupations do not have a comparable orientation, 1970.

Myerhoff B. G. Larson W. R. : ‘The Doctor as Culture Hero: The Routinization of Charisma’, Human Organizations, 17, 1958.

Weber M. : The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, Henderson A. M. Parson T. (trans.), Free Press, Glencoe, 1947.

See for example Klapp O : ‘Creation of Popular Heroes’, American Journal of Sociology, 54 (September), pp. 135–141, 1948; Duncan H. D. : Language and Literature in Society, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1953. Most of the research in this area to date concerns the position of the psychiatrist. See Ross H. A. : ‘Commitment of the Mentally Ill: Problems of Laws and Policy’, Michigan Law Review, 57 (May), pp. 945–1018, 1959; Wegner D. L. Fletcher C. R. : ‘The Effects of Legal Counsel on Admissions to a State Mental Hospital: A Confrontation of Professions’, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 10 (March) pp. 66–72, 1969; Steadman H. J. : ‘The Psychiatrist as a Conservative Agent of Social Control’, Social Problems, 20, No. 2 (Fall), pp. 263–271, 1972.

Meyerhoff B. G. Larson W. R. : ‘The Doctor as Culture Hero: The Routinization of Charisma’, p. 189, 1958.

One recent example of the use of this alternative as a method of self preservation is discussed by Waldman H. B. : ‘The Response of the Dental Profession to Change in the Organization of Health Care—A Commentary’, American Journal of Public Health, 63, No. 1, pp. 17–29. 1973.

Many indicting illustrations from the field of medicine appear in Ehrenreich B. Ehrenreich J. : The American Health Empire, Random House, New York, 1970.