ABSTRACT
Between 1945 and the early 1970s professional society reached a plateau of attainment. This did not mean a utopia based entirely on merit, social efficiency and social justice. It meant, rather, a society which accepted in principle that ability and expertise were the only respectable justification for recruitment to positions of authority and responsibility and in which every citizen had the right to a minimum income in times of distress, to medical treatment during sickness, decent housing in a healthy environment, and an education appropriate to his or her abilities. No society has ever lived up to its ideal-neither the aristocratic society of preindustrial England to its ideal of the leisured gentleman practising paternalism nor the industrial society of Victorian England to its ideal of the self-made man practising fair competition-and professional society was no exception. Selection by merit was still distorted by inherited wealth and privileged education for the few. Social security was eroded by inflation and the failure of national insurance to prevent an unfortunate minority from falling into poverty. There remained gross disparities in medical treatment between different classes and different regions under the National Health Service. Decent housing and a healthy environment were limited by scarce resources and the obstruction of vested property and industrial interests. And education remained the main source of unequal life chances between those who could pay for it or obtain the best of state education and those who could not.
