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LUCIEN GOLDMANN
legal and cultural spheres within the dominant class. Its authoritarian
structure, however, extended beyond the factory to other institutions,
and, mainly in the middle layers of society, to the family. The
independent burgher was head of both factory and family. This
meant that in liberal society the transition between childhood and
adulthood was difficult: as children, future "directors" had to obey
the father (and later, the schoolmaster as well); as adults, they
had to be egalitarian, democratic and critical in their relations to
their peers. Their adult role was authoritarian only in the sense that
it involved the exercise of responsibility and authority, and not that
of obedience within their profession or business. To effect the shift,
the university, reserved for the sons of the managerial class, was
called upon to inculcate the critical spirit and independence of
judgment, and to assure the progression from obedience to autonomy,
from submissiveness to responsibility and equality. And in order to
fulfill these functions, the university had to be largely liberal and
critical.
In
the transition to postwar corporate capitalism, the extension
of managerialism and authoritarianism had an odd effect on society
as a whole. The state, virtually separated from the economy during
the liberal phase, now became the most important economic agent.
In
place of the opposition between the authoritarian organization
of production and the democratic organization of social and political
life characteristic of liberalism, a closer relation between the state
and the economy developed, encouraged by the intervention of the
state in the economy and the compliance of people whose standard
of living had been rising. Hence formal constraints or institutional
change were almost superfluous. The natural evolution toward a
technocratic society widened the gap between the "technocrats"
who make decisions, and the specialists and technicians who execute
them.
The old independent burghers have also been gradually re–
placed by "the new intermediate salaried classes" - what Mallet
calls "the new working class" - made up of more or less qualified
specialists living at least at the level of the old directors, but no
longer having the same status or the same responsibilities. These
new specialists are busy executing as well as they can decisions
made elsewhere, in which they have no hand.
As
a result, the struc-
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