The End of Class Society - an Introduction

The discussion on constant change and its effects on our societies has hardly started. It’s a discussion we will have before this year is over simply because circumstances will bring us there. To shed some light on what is going on in our societies I want to introduce you to a concept I’ve been playing with for some time now: the end of class society.

Class society for me is a situation where certain groups of people - I don’t want to call them the elites because that would give them too much credit - organize themselves in the institutions of our ancestors and exclusively control an important part of our society by making their organizations exclusive. Some examples: doctors, architects and engineers, journalists, notaries and lawyers, prosecutors and judges, accountants, civil servants, police officers, politicians, … .

These professionals organize themselves in institutions that for all practical purposes stand above people that don’t belong to a professional class. There’s nothing wrong with their notional occupations - their actual professions - but the way they organize themselves in institutions and the totality of how they interact with others - anybody - is what creates these classes. My position is that these classes will soon no longer exist for one simple reason: their most important defense mechanism will no longer work.

Whenever a class of professionals comes under scrutiny they fall back on a trusted friend with a trusted tactic: spreading their side of the story through the media. Chances are very good that any class has much better relationships with key people in the media than their assailants of the hour. So, after everything is said and done, and after an official complaint made by the assailants disappears in the very slow engine of either some civil servant body or the justice system everything goes back to normal, and the media brings us what’s new yet another day while conveniently forgetting about the whole incident.

A professional class is identified by three characteristics. When they are present one can be sure of dealing with a professional class. They are:

1. An accredited institution, often given special privileges by either laws or customs that are recognized by the courts.
2. A special and exclusive accreditation given to professionals which is controlled by the institution and which is recognized by the courts. Practice of the profession by non-accredited individuals is a felony which can under normal circumstances be brought before the courts.
3. A regular and significant flow of money to which only accredited professionals that respect the institution have access.

Some examples of these institutions are: hospitals for doctors, governments for prosecutors, judges, civil servants, police officers and politicians, newspapers for journalists. Each professional class is also organized in an institution that defends their interests, much like a guild. These institutions also often have special privileges in society.

Obtaining the accreditation of a professional class almost always requires individuals to have a specific degree plus taking an official or officious vow of allegiance to the institution or institutions, usually in the form of an oath. This vow often requires respecting unwritten rules that are core to the execution of the accredited profession and when not respected often results in expulsion and loss of accreditation.

Entering the profession for young members is often tedious and requires many years of underpaid and unappreciated work before actually being accepted. The acceptance usually takes the form of a promotion, or of ending a period of probation.

The institutions themselves often have cozy relationships with the institutions of other classes in society, making them all the more embedded and unavoidable. The rights they have been granted are almost always successfully enforced through the courts. This makes successfully assailing these institutions nearly impossible.

I’m predicting the end not of these notational professions but of these embedded institutions in our societies. The single event that will make this possible will be the imminent demise of the class and institutions of journalism. To explain how this will work I have to tell something about the history of journalism and newspaper.

Modern journalism was born at the start of the 19th century with the birth of the modern newspaper. Journalists in other media have taken over the newspaper model. Before I describe what causes the demise of journalism as a profession I first want to describe the fundamentals of a newspaper. Newspapers today still function as they did in the 19th century. Any newspaper is defined by three motives:

1. Capitalist motive: raise capital and make money.
2. Political motive: channel information through a well-developed and exclusive channel, then leverage.
3. Democratic motive: protect the democracy through reporting.

Of these three motives only one serves the public: protect the democracy. The best possible outcome for the political motive is that it does not harm the public but more often than not it does. The demise of the journalism is immediately triggered by the end of the Gutenberg revolution, and the start of the post-Gutenberg revolution.

The Gutenberg revolution is of course defined by the printing press, but more important by the “filter, then publish” model. This model can be found in all media, except for the Internet. The assumption behind the model is that its not economically viable to publish all possible information. Hence, before publishing the publisher - newspaper - has to filter. This is essentially what journalists do: they filter and select information they believe the public has to be aware about.

In the early 90’s the “filter, then publish” model has been challenged successfully by the post-Gutenberg model: “publish, then filter”. This is of course exemplified by the Internet. What makes the Internet even more disruptive next to undoing to Gutenberg model is that it can carry any kind of content: text, audio, video, phone calls, conference calls, chat, messages, protocols, applications, data, … .

The Internet effectively makes unmitigated collaboration between individuals possible, without the intervention or approval of any institutions. This collaboration is defined by two principles:

1. Option to participation at will.
2. Option for immediate feedback.

One disturbing effect for institutional models based on the principles of the Gutenberg revolution is that when the effects of any particular collaboration become visible for non-participants the goals of the collaboration in question have already been reached. This is very similar to millions of people reading the newspaper in the morning: reacting is possible yet is generally expected to be unfruitful. The important difference today is of course that the same effect - being influenced without being heard - is now available for everybody, not just journalists.

This renders the democratic motive of journalism and newspapers void: one amateur video can have more effect than months of investigative reporting. The capitalist and political motives have no meaning without the democratic motive and so journalists and their newspapers are heading for the exit. This has two important consequence for the other classes:

1. The trusted conditions for communicating with the public will no longer be there.
2. They become sitting ducks for their assailants.

The professional classes have never communicated with the public in an honest way, always trusting that their voice will be heard by the public much louder than the voices of their assailants. The essence of a professional class is to concentrate power with a small group of people and unavoidably treat the large majority of the population disrespectfully. They will soon find themselves in a situation where they will desperately look for channels to talk to the public while finding none. People are not interested to hear from other people that do not treat them with respect. The Internet is a very powerful user-controlled filter where any published material can be either completely ignored or turned into a farce.

The professional classes will have no answer to this, and their assailants will quickly gain the upper hand in the unmitigated medium. These classes will never be able to deal with the people that subvert them. The professional classes will fight a painful but loosing battle where ultimately they will have to accept that the only value they provide to society is the nominal value of their profession. A lot of power will be lost, and a lot of money will no longer flow through the gatekeepers.

The unwinding of the Gutenberg revolution will redefine our societies beyond recognition. We can’t start to imagine what all the consequence will be, but we can try. More on this in a next post.

But if journalism and newspapers are so important for other classes in society, why don’t other classes invest in them? That should be a lot cheaper than going through the pain of letting them fail. What’s hidden in this question is the desire for nothing to change, for things to remain the way they are. And this luxury cannot be bought which is exemplified by the fact that journalists don’t believe in their future anymore. Journalists understand it’s over because they’ve seen their business in decline for many years now.

Newspapers and by extension journalism cannot be saved, but not for the reason journalists themselves seem to assume. Based on the recent essay on the imminent end of newspapers by journalists the problem are assumed to be these:

1. Problems with capitalist motive: the old business models are broken.
2. Problems with political motive: the leverage of newspapers has all but disappeared.

While these problems are certainly real they are less problematic and more fixable than assumed. What journalists are never talking about is the real problem which is the problem with the democratic motive: democracies will prevail when newspapers fail. Or in other words: the disappearance of newspapers will not mean the end of democracies.

This can of course be interpreted in two ways: either democracies have disappeared a long time ago, or democracies will continue to exist despite the disappearance of newspapers. Either way, investing in newspapers will only delay the unavoidable continuation of the process as long as the real problem is not taken seriously. Never say never, but also long as journalists continue to be a class with their proper institutions they will never stop find relevance in what they do.

Classes like institutions have as their first goal self-preservation. So journalists and newspapers just like any other classes and institutions will do whatever it takes to maintain their status in society. The nominal value of their profession - reporting - is not under threat. The existence of the class is and prolonging the life of newspapers will no undo this. It will shift the problem and in doing so will make it more acute.

But then again, journalists have already proven that classes under threat do silly and dumb things and do not hesitate to fear-monger society into submission. No doubt coalitions can be formed, and not doubt some kind of money can be raised in the heat of the moment. But it won’t matter. It will only turn class society in a bigger farce and problem than it already is.

Professional classes want to keep the world and society as it is. Citizens are ready to move on. But people in the classes are citizens too. No matter what happens, the only thing we can do to move on it to listen to everybody who has something to say, regardless how much off the mark we think they are. We can’t let people behind. The end of class society will transform our societies for the simple reason that it will require extra-ordinary amounts of leadership to get through it.

‘bravery & your own path’ from Nic Askew on Vimeo.