In Mastery and Drift: Professional-Class Liberals Since the 1960s, Brent Cebul and Lily Geismer compile a collection of essays examining the development and practice of the so-called “professional class liberalism” that replaced the New Deal Order after its collapse in the 1960s. 

Though the articles span from discussing the rise of political consulting to the challenges of Temporary Protected Status, Geismer and Cebul’s selections speak to the emergence of an elite, technocratic class of liberals educated in law, economics, and politics who attempted to maintain core liberal ideas around equality, opportunity, and social support systems but became increasingly focused on emphasizing technical expertise and pragmatic solutions over policies rooted in ideology. Throughout many of the pieces, these professional class liberals are framed as approaching politics from a neoliberal perspective. 

David Stein’s analysis of the Democratic obsession with deficit reduction, traced from Carter to Clinton to Obama, indicates a shift in liberal ideology. The economy was increasingly seen as the marker of successful governance, and liberals were increasingly open to private sector encroachment on formerly public responsibilities. To some extent, this celebration of the free market economy and its ethos can be understood as an extension of the values of the professional elite. This class of liberals benefited from succeeding within a meritocracy (or at least the semblance of one) and were inculcated with a reverence for evidence-based education and expertise.

These foundations lend themselves to the celebration of neoliberal ideals. The neoliberal embrace of radical individualism directly maps onto the hard work and ambition needed to succeed in the professional meritocracy.  Meanwhile, a neoliberal faith in the market as the ultimate source of truth can be correlated with the new professional liberal’s respect for data and evidence. The free market itself can be understood as the ultimate testing ground for ideas, policies, and products. According to neoliberal principles, the most innovative, profitable, and beneficial succeed in the free market, where the conglomerate opinions of individual actors distinguish the best from the good.

The professional liberal’s trust in hard data and evidence can thus be understood as a primer for neoliberalism because the free market acts as a model entirely governed by natural and economic principles, removed from the bias of an individual or a small group of elites. The neoliberal market can be interpreted as reliable, reasonable, and unbiased, and can thus be aligned with and even a source for the data professional class liberals rely on. 

Cebul and Geismer divide their collection into two parts. The first of which, entitled “Generational Change and Continuity,” focuses on the development of professional-class liberals. In this section, Sarah Milov and Reuel Schiller’s description of the “wealthy Ivy-League students” who assisted Ralph Nader in his investigation of the FTC provides insight into how liberalism became increasingly dominated by well-educated professionals. In Lila Corwin Berman’s opening piece, she argues that philanthropy has masqueraded as resolving the tension between private rights and the public good that has both fueled and challenged liberalism throughout the 20th century.  By resolving the public-private tension by placing increasing power and trust into private philanthropists, philanthropy has ultimately worked to degrade faith in the liberal public government.

Ultimately, to Berman, the increasing power of philanthropy as both a governing philosophy and resolution to liberal tensions between the public and private placed more money and power into the hands of unregulated and unelected individuals while making the liberal government “obsolete.” Berman’s essay encapsulates many of the themes that run through the first half of the collection, with the emergence of philanthropic organizations and professionals carrying out the role of liberal government being representative of a shift towards a more elite, well-educated, and well-connected class dominating liberalism. The privatization of social services and foreign aid through philanthropic foundations is further indicative of the underlying neoliberal ideologies Cebul and Geismer find central to the rising professional class of liberals. 

The second part of the collection, “New Governance,” examines the specific “technocratic, high-tech, pragmatic, and purportedly nonideological” policies professional class liberals instituted as a result of their distinct perspectives. Marc Aidinoff aptly depicts the technocratic and high-tech aspects of these new liberals’ policies in his piece on the development of computerized welfare and child support enforcement, while Nicole Hemmer’s analysis of Barack Obama uncovers a president dedicated to bipartisanship, data-based policy, moderate (if at times frustratingly so) reform, and broad appeal. Karen M. Tani’s essay on the encroachment of cost-benefit analysis into disability rights is a highlight of the section. In her piece, Tani argues that liberalism evolved to prioritize the economics and efficiency of policies over the more ideologically based desire for equal opportunity and inclusion, exemplifying a turn towards a neoliberal agenda in which economic thought such as cost-benefit analysis pervaded realms of policy making that had once been deemed immune to such reductionist thinking. 

Overall, Cebul and Geismer’s compilation of essays provides a thorough analysis of the growth and implementation of a new type of late-20th and early-21st-century liberalism characterized by an elite, technocratic, and pragmatic professional inspired by a neoliberal view of the economy and society. Their emphasis on the professional backgrounds of the liberals discussed throughout the volume adds a fresh interpretive perspective that moves away from the focus on the moderate and neoliberal understandings of late 20th century liberals. Cebul and Geismer are also especially excellent in their editing and choice of articles, as each piece has a clear focus that directly connects with further developing the aforementioned characteristics of the new liberal class. After reviewing the book, though, there does seem to be a dearth in references to how this rise in professionalism and technocracy may not have been exclusive to liberals.

A brief discussion of reform conservatives focused on bipartisanship and technocracy can be found in Hemmer’s chapter on Obama, but a longer and chronologically expanded analysis of why the professional elite gravitated towards liberalism and whether similar developments could be characterized in the Republican Party would help clarify just how unique (or perhaps in line with broader political trends) professional class liberalism is.

Edited by: Evan Kim

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