ABSTRACT
The modern world is the world of the professional expert. Just as preindustrial society was dominated by landlords and industrial society by capitalists, so post-industrial society is dominated by professionals. Their power, prestige, influence, and incomes stem from their possession of specialized knowledge, based on education, competitive merit, and experience on the job-in a word, on their human capital. Just as pre-industrial society was dominated by landlords who controlled the scarce resource of land for agriculture, and industrial society by capitalists who controlled the scarce resource of physical investment in factories and machines, so post-industrial society is dominated by those who control the scarce resource of expertise in its manifold forms.
