Latov Yu.V., Latova N.V. Proletariat, Managers, or "Creative Class"? In Search of the Social Vanguard of the Post-Industrial Shift. Journal of Economic History & History of Economics. 2025. Vol. 26. No. 4. P. 651–673.

Abstract

An analytical review is given of more than 200 years of evolution and competition of scientific discourses related to the search for an avant-garde social class that is called upon to lead the transition from a capitalist (industrial) to a post-capitalist (post-industrial) society. The first discourse — orthodox Marxism, which designated the industrial proletariat, the largest class of workers in nineteenth-century Western Europe, as the revolutionary vanguard—has by now largely lost its relevance, as the “classical” working class under conditions of the post-industrial shift has been declining both in size and in economic significance. In the public consciousness of the early twenty-first century, two alternative discourses compete, combining liberal and post-Marxist approaches. One, associated primarily with theories of the “managerial revolution,” identifies the social vanguard with a new elite (technocrats, managers, influencers). The other, linked to the concept of the “creative class,” proposes that professionals engaged in knowledge-intensive and creative labor constitute the social vanguard. This social stratum is not only rapidly expanding but also demonstrates the capacity to “absorb” other groups of workers. Although institutional barriers to the creative transformation of labor persist, this perspective nonetheless points to the contemporary possibility of the mass overcoming of alienated labor and the formation of a classless society.