Acta Sociologica 1982 (25), 4:455-467 Review Essay The Intelligentsia as a Class under Capitalism and Socialism Bengt Furdker Department of Sociology, University of Umea George Konréd & Ivan Szelényi: The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power, Harvester Press, 1979. Alvin W. Gouldner: The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class, The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1979. ‘There is a growing literature dealing with the relationship between modern industrial society, capitalist or socialist, and the rise of a new class of bureaucratic, technical, and intellectual experts. The works by, for example, Thorstein Veblen, Waclaw Machajski, Adolph A. Berle Jr., Gardner C. Means, Leon Trotsky, Bruno Rizzi, James Burnham, and Milovan Djilas have been followed by others, and there are certainly further analyses to come. In this review article I will present and discuss two recent contributions, both published in English in 1979. The first, The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power, has been written by two Hungarians, the well-known novelist George Konrad and the sociologist Ivan Szelényi. They wrote the manuscript as early as in 1973-74 but had to hide it from the Hungarian police. They were arrested and received a so-called ‘prosecutor's warning’. In 1975 Szelényi went into exile in the West, where he eventually got a copy of the manuscript smuggled to him, so he could prepare its publication. Konrdd also went to the West but later returned to Hungary, where he now lives and works, although under restrictions. The other book has been written by the late Alvin W. Gouldner and is entitled The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class. As an American sociologist Gouldner had a different background and outlook from Konrad and Szelényi, but nevertheless the two analyses show obvious similarities. I will start by presenting their main themes and then discuss some of their fundamental points of departure. Konrad and Szelényi Konréd and Szelényi reject the idea that the working class is in power in East European socialist societies. Not only are other groups better off materially, the workers are also denied control over the means of production and the surplus 455product. Others make the central decisions, and the direct producers have a subordinate position no better than their class brothers and sisters in capitalist factories, The working class under now existing socialism is not even allowed to organize itself independently — in that respect it is really disadvantaged compared to the proletariat of modern Western capitalism. The structure of socialist society Socialism is regarded by Konrad and Szelényi as a system of rational redistribution. Inspired by the theories of the Hungarian economic historian and anthropologist Karl Polanyi, they make a distinction between traditional redistribution (exempli- fied by the so-called Asiatic mode of production), free-market economies, and rational-redistributive systems. These three types of societies have certain similar- ities and differences. Both traditional and rational redistribution are characterized by a coordination of political and economic power. There is a central planning, which under traditional redistribution is largely done in accordance with topo- graphical and other environmental factors (the hydraulic society) and directed towards simple reproduction. In contrast, rational-redistributive systems — like market economies ~ are geared towards economic growth. The difference between the latter two is that in free-market societies the economic and p¢ are separated from each other and economic growth is accomplished through mechanisms of market competition and profit maximization, while under rational redistribution the two spheres mentioned are interweaved and growth is achieved mainly through a political process of planning. Konrad and Szelényi admit that there is an increasing measure of state inter- vention in the market economies they call state monopoly capitalism, i.e. today’s advanced Western capitalism. This state activity is, however, of a different kind from that in socialist societies. it is undertaken to make the market economy work more smoothly and does not change its fundamental character. In modern soci: societies there is a corresponding function of economic reforms which aim at giving more room for the market forces to operate. Such reforms - that have been implemented in Eastern Europe only to a limited extent - do not threaten the basic structure of rational-redistributive societies. They do not imply that the central planning system is abandoned, but do rather provide a solution to some of its problems. There is thus, according to Konréd and Szelényi, no gradual transition between state monopoly capitalism and rational redistribution; the two systems are fundamentally different. Like capitalist market societies, socialism has a polarized class structure. In both types of societies a working class produces the basic material values. At the other pole socialism has no capitalists but what the authors call redistributors of the surplus product. The positions of redistributive power are occupied by members of the intelligentsia, although every intellectual does not belong to this category. The rationality of the redistributors is assumed to make their decisions legitimate. Between the two poles in socialist society there are certain middle strata. These are, in the first place, low-level employees who neither have any redistributive power nor participate directly in productive work. They hold supervisory positions and implement the decisions of the redistributors. Secondly, there is a petty 456bourgeoisie — small entrepreneurs, private peasants, craftsmen, shopkeepers, etc. In both capitalist and socialist societies the existence of these two intermediate strata blurs the class structure, but in neither case is the main character of class division changed. Socialism is thus regarded as a new type of class society with a different way of functioning than capitalism. Instead of profit maximization in individual enterprises, the main principle of rational-redistributive systems is to make the surplus product available for redistribution as large as possible. The positions of redistributive power are filled by members of the intelligentsia, but Konrad and Szelényi do not maintain that the intelligentsia is the ruling class. Their view is that the intelligentsia is a class in statu nascendi, on the road to class power. They regard this road in Eastern Europe as a historical short-cut opened up by the Bolshevik revolution. The short-cut to power According to Konrad and Szelényi the structural position of the intelligentsia has undergone important historical transformations. Corresponding to the typology of traditional redistribution, free-market capitalism, and rational redistribution, there is another typology characterizing the intelligentsia as an estate, stratum, and class. In precapitalist society the intelligentsia was a teleological estate, represented by the priesthood and the canon-law jurists. There was a strict hierarchy of intellectual knowledge based upon the priestly order. The intelligentsia sought, however, to free itself from this feudal situation, and through a process of professionalization it became a stratum in the free market. There it could sell its labour-power or the products of its work. This gave a new freedom but also a new dependence — a dependence on hazardous market forces. Under capitalism the intelligentsia is a stratum between the main classes in society, and its structural position is also determined by the market forces. With the rise of state monopoly capitalism the role of the market was circumscribed, and a number of redistributive mechanisms were introduced. Yet the intellectuals could not really form a class because of two principles of legitimation operating in this type of society. The first one is the system of political representation, which concerns the sphere of state activities and state expenditures. The second one is the right of capitalists to dispose of their property in the field of production. Only with socialism was intellectual knowledge made the fundamental principle legiti- mizing authority, thus rendering it possible for the intellectuals to become a class. In the nineteenth century the Russian market economy was still very weak. It could not offer the intelligentsia much in the way of favourable employment. The more rapidly developing Western Europe became in many respects a challenge to Eastern Europe. To meet this challenge reform-oriented intellectuals could enter the state apparatus and there participate in a modernization from above, or they could become professional revolutionaries working to defeat the absolutist Tsarist regime completely and then establish a new social order. ‘The first strategy meant an alliance between intellectuals and other social forces Tepresented within the state bureaucracy, i.e. the finance capital and the landed aristocracy. After World War I it led to the fascist and authoritarian regimes of 457