ABSTRACT
On one very popular view, professionalism and professional ethics are fading into the past, and with good reason. This is not because we have entered an era in which anything goes. If anything the reverse is true. It is because we have supposedly come to realise that professions and professionals tend to create ‘club’ cultures. While ostensibly serving their clients, they actually serve themselves. Professional cosiness and producer capture can corrupt professional practice, and the only way to eliminate them, it is said, is to impose legal and regulatory constraints that make professionals properly accountable.
