ABSTRACT
The transformation of property relations which is expressed in the modern corporate form has been widely assumed to involve the disappearance of the class of capitalist property owners whose wealth and power arose from the conditions of nineteenth-century capitalism. Though eschewing the language of class, Berle felt that ‘the transformation of property from an active role to passive wealth has so operated that the wealthy stratum no longer has power’ (Berle 1963, p. 53). This judgement from the initiator of the debate on the modern corporation is in accord with the views of those advocates of the theory of industrial society who have attempted to explore the contours of the modern stratification system. Bell, for example, has argued that the decline of the ‘finance capitalism’ created by the turn-of-the-century investment bankers has led to a consolidation of the power of the salaried professional managers. Family inheritance and control over capital become less important, while technical skills increase in importance. The result of these trends is the ‘break-up’ of the old ruling class of family proprietors, as the mere possession of wealth no longer gives access to economic power (Bell 1957, pp. 40–1; 1958, p. 50ff.). Parsons has argued that the capitalist propertied class has been replaced by a managerial stratum which is ‘broad and diffuse . . . with several loosely integrated components’, and which is based not on property ownership but on ‘occupational status and occupational earnings’ (Parsons 1954a, p. 431).
