Professions and the State

Book excerpt: Unlike autonomous professionals in Western industrialized democracies, professionals in a socialist, bureaucratic setting operate as employees of the state. The change in environment has important Implications not only for the practice of professions but also for the concept of professionalism itself. This collection of nine essays is the first to survey the major professions In the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. The contributors investigate the implications of professional experience in a socialist economy as well as relating changes in professional organization and power to reform movements in general and perestroika in particular. In the series Labor and Social Change, edited by Paula Rayman and Carmen Sirianni.