Professionalism, the Third Logic: On the Practice of Knowledge - Softcover

Freidson, Eliot

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226262030 ISBN 13: 9780226262031

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2001

Synopsis

This new work explores the meaning and implications of professionalism as a form of social organization. Eliot Freidson formalizes professionalism by treating it as an ideal type grounded in the political economy; he presents the concept as a third logic, or a more viable alternative to consumerism and bureaucracy. He asks us to imagine a world where workers with specialized knowledge and the ability to provide society with especially important services can organize and control their own work, without directives from management or the influence of free markets.

Freidson then appraises the present status of professionalism, exploring how traditional and national variations in state policy and organization are influencing the power and practice of such professions as medicine and law. Widespread attacks by neoclassical economists and populists, he contends, are obscuring the social value of credentialism and monopolies. The institutions that sustain professionalism in our world are simply too useful to both capital and state to dismiss.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Eliot Freidson has written the first systematic account of professionalism as a method of organizing work. In ideal-typical professionalism, specialized workers control their own work, while in the free market consumers are in command, and in bureaucracy managers dominate. Freidson shows how each method has its own logic requiring different kinds of knowledge, organization, career, education and ideology. He also discusses how historic and national variations in state policy, professional organization, and forms of practice influence the strength of professionalism.

In appraising the embattled position of professions today, Freidson concludes that ideologically inspired attacks pose less danger to professionals' institutional privileges than to their ethical independence to resist use of their specialized knowledge to maximize profit and efficiency without also providing its benefits to all in need.

This timely and original analysis will be of great interest to those in sociology, political science, history, business studies and the various professions.

About the Author

Eliot Freidson is a professor emeritus of sociology at New York University and visiting professor of sociology at the University of California, San Francisco. He is the author of several books, including Professional Powers: A Study of the Institutionalization of Formal Knowledge and Professionalism Reborn: Theory, Prophecy, and Policy.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0226262030
• ISBN 13: 9780226262031
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 250