182 ANALYSING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
The collective identity of faceless technocrats in Bell’s ideal (1999) typical
post-industrial society, objectively and clinically serving the technical and
planning requirements of the economic, scientific, and political elite, would
seem to be increasingly anachronistic in a market-oriented and consumer-
dominated society. Twenty-first century professionals are much more likely to
define their strategic role in relation to meeting the heterogeneous cognitive,
cultural, and personal needs of a newly empowered and enfranchised con-
sumer democracy in which populist norms and values outweigh any residual
commitment to internalized elitist ideology and control.
Yet, as Bell’s ‘Foreword’ to the 1999 edition ofThe Coming of Post-Industrial
Societymakes clear, this ‘New Service Class’ of market-driven professionals
are likely to be even more ‘conservative’, in ideological and political terms,
than their more technocratically inclined forebears. They will be much more
closely linked to business owners and executives through extensive elite social
networks and intimately aligned with ideological prejudices and political pref-
erences grounded in consumer populism and neo-liberal free-market eco-
nomics. Of course, this is not the only possible outcome. Albeit from a ‘British
social democratic’ perspective, Marquand (2004) holds out the distinct pos-
sibility of a revived and renewed professionalism inextricably linked, ideolog-
ically and institutionally, to a stronger public domain. In turn, he foresees a
strengthening of the core civic values and virtues through which the public
domain and its liberal-independent professional classes can be revitalized and
sustained as central institutional components of twenty-first century socio-
political life. This ‘projected professional future’ is far from impossible, and is
echoed in the works of other, liberal progressive and social democratic writers
such as Hutton (2002) and Sennett (1998). But the structural, political, and
cultural preconditions required to make it a viable possibility as a projected
professional future are very difficult to imagine, given the current ideological
climate and policy context.
As new discursive formations of ‘individualization’, ‘customization’, and
‘personalization’ emerge, a redefinition of professional occupational identities
and work cultures is occurring. The once dependent users or clients become
redefined as ‘commissioners’ or ‘coproducers’ of the expert services that they
receive and evaluate according to predetermined levels of customer service and
care. As coproducers of professional services, the customers now directly par-
ticipate in the decision-making process through which service design, delivery,
and accountability are legitimated. The professionals no longer dominate and
lead the process through which problems are defined, acted on, and outcomes
assessed. They are transformed into ‘honest brokers’, advisors and interme-
diaries who assist ‘coproducers’ in finding the best way to deal with their
problems for themselves (Leadbeater 2003). Professional power, authority,
status, and reward are tamed, or certainly diluted, by the countervailing power
of consumer choice and the ‘personalization’ of expert services made possible