Concepts and empirics of the formation of a post-capitalist «creative class» (class of professionals)

The author proposes a revision of the Marxist concept of an advanced social class that will lead the formation transition from capitalist (industrial) to post-capitalist (post-industrial) society. Even at the end of the twentieth century, the question of the social
actor of inter-formation shifts became extremely debatable: the drift towards a “society on the other side of material production” was intensifying, but the working class, that is supposed to be the main anti-capitalist actor, began to shrink in the most economically developed countries. Retrospectively, we can see that the preceding inter-formation revolutions (particularly the bourgeois revolutions) were also carried out not by the main exploited class of the preceding epoch, but by a qualitatively new class beyond the old class antagonism. In this regard, it is necessary to replace the concept of “proletarian revolution” with the concept of “creative revolution” (“revolution of professionals”). The author considers professionals (in modern Western social science – the “creative class”), i.e. highly qualified specialists, workers of creative labor, as a new advanced class with anti -capitalist potentials who not only play a key role in the production of economic benefi ts but also generate new “post-monetary” (primarily focused on self-development and self-actualization) cultural and motivational values. This thesis is a development of the ideas of A.V. Buzgalin and A.I. Kolganov about “socialitat”. The article provides empirical information about Russian professionals, as a proto-class, based on sociological research. Although, due to Russia's socio-economic backwardness, Russian professionals are in many ways “behind” Western “creators”, they still manifest certain post-capitalist characteristics. In particular, they are more focused on self-realization in work than the representatives of other professional groups; this is the “germ” of post-capitalist labor motivation which replaces the motivation for high income typical of capitalist society.