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34-401: Pro is an abbreviation meaning " professional ". Pro , PRO or variants thereof might also refer to: Professional In some cultures, the term is used as shorthand to describe a particular social stratum of well-educated workers who enjoy considerable work autonomy and who are commonly engaged in creative and intellectually challenging work. In narrow usage, not all expertise

68-627: A body of knowledge , actual behavior in terms of actions and decisions, and expectations held by societal stakeholders. The etymology and historical meaning of the term professional is from Middle English, from profes , adjective, having professed one's vows, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin professus , from Latin, past participle of profitēri to profess, confess, from pro- before + fatēri to acknowledge; in other senses, from Latin professus , past participle. Thus, as people became more and more specialized in their trade, they began to 'profess' their skill to others, and 'vow' to perform their trade to

102-487: A friendly debate in print with his doctoral supervisor Hayek, and a perhaps less friendly though entertaining rapportage with the conservative columnist William F. Buckley Jr. He continued to make contributions to libertarian think tanks and journals throughout his career, including The Independent Institute , Institute for Humane Studies , The Cato Institute , Rampart College , the Journal of Libertarian Studies , and

136-476: A hospital before the issuance of a diploma, and professional participation in some licensing scheme for physicians. Indeed, the issue of education was considered so important by the AMA that one of its first acts was the establishment of a Committee on Medical Education..." As technology progressed throughout the twentieth century, the successful professionalization of a given field was increasingly made possible through

170-406: A key element of what constitutes any profession. Others have argued that strict codes of conduct and the professional associations that maintain them are merely a consequence of 'successful' professionalization, rather than an intrinsic element of the definition of professional (ism); this implies that a profession arises from the alignment between a shared purpose (connected to a 'greater good'),

204-555: A modern form of feudalism. Although professional training appears to be ideologically neutral, it may be biased towards those with higher class backgrounds and a formal education. In his 2000 book, Disciplined Minds : A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-Battering System that Shapes Their Lives , Jeff Schmidt observes that qualified professionals are less creative and diverse in their opinions and habits than non-professionals, which he attributes to

238-544: A trade (i.e. the successful professionalization of a trade) had to be achieved via other means such as licensing practices, of which might begin as an informal process established by voluntary professional associations, but then eventually become law due to lobbying efforts. Paralleling or soon after the fall of guilds, professional associations began to form in Britain and the US. In the US, several interested parties sought to emulate

272-472: Is considered a profession. Occupations such as skilled construction and maintenance work are more generally thought of as trades or crafts . The completion of an apprenticeship is generally associated with skilled labour, or trades such as carpenter , electrician , mason , painter , plumber and other similar occupations. In his study The Rise of Professional Society historian Harold Perkin characterizes professional society; "Where pre-industrial society

306-470: The 20th century whereas in British English it started in the 1930s and grew fastest in the 1960s and 1970s. The notion of a professional can be traced to medieval European guilds, most of which died off by the middle of the nineteenth century, except the scholars guild or university. With most guilds formally abolished outside of the realm of academia, establishing exclusivity and standards in

340-549: The American Medical Association (AMA). According to Miller et al., "Lazzaroni opposed reforms for no apparent reason other than that scientists outside of their tight-knit group proposed them.". In his seminal work The Transformation of American Medicine (1982) Paul Starr argues that a significant motivation in the development of the AMA was to gain authority over unlicensed practitioners to minimize competition among medical practitioners, thereby enhancing

374-729: The History of Western Civilization Program at Stanford University . In 1969, he accepted a position as assistant professor in the History Department at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Western Canada's largest university. He taught there until 1975, when he took a position in the Department of Political Science at Simon Fraser University , Burnaby , British Columbia ; after two years at Simon Fraser, he returned to

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408-579: The Middle Ages flourished when guilds were abolished and that there is much evidence to support the notion that individuals prefer a wide variety of products of varying quality and price to be granted protections which they did not ask for, and which artificially constrain consumer options. Concerning modern forms of professional specialization, does specialization that accompanies technological advances naturally result in exclusivity, or have our licensing systems and laws been artificially engineered to limit

442-1102: The United States from the 1930s to the 1950s. The best of the scholars gravitated to three American universities: the New School for Social Research in New York City ; the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana ; and most importantly, a cluster of these scholars formed at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, where Hamowy had done his doctoral work in the 1960s. The continental émigrés who most directly influenced his intellectual development were Hans Kohn , Ludwig von Mises , and Hayek. That influence predated Hamowy's arrival in Chicago and began in New York City while he

476-463: The University of Alberta where he remained until his retirement from active teaching in 1998. He lived near Washington, DC . Hamowy adopted a multidisciplinary approach to teaching and scholarship. His seminar discussions moved freely across the breadth of the humanities and social sciences, including history , philosophy , law , political theory , social theory , pure economic theory, literature , medicine , and psychiatry . Although he shared

510-746: The age of 68. After he arrived at the University of Chicago in the fall of 1960, one year after Raico, who had departed New York for Chicago the previous year, Hamowy was appointed book review editor of the seminal libertarian student publication, the New Individualist Review . Soon after he joined Raico as co‑Editor in Chief. The Review, though only a student publication, received important scholarly contributions from numerous famous scholars including future Nobel Prize winners Hayek, Milton Friedman , George Stigler , and Ronald Coase . In addition to his editing responsibilities, Hamowy engaged in

544-445: The areas of emphasis and interest in his scholarship is the theory of " spontaneous order ." That refers to the notion that important and complex social arrangements can arise through the spontaneous actions of countless individuals rather than from deliberate choice or central planning. Hamowy is considered an expert on the theory of spontaneous order, unafraid to criticize even his mentor Hayek. Hamowy's first brush with libertarianism

578-407: The controversial libertarian Austrian economist Von Mises, who had also arrived to America in the 1940s. Mises greatly influenced a generation of American thinkers in addition to Hamowy including Ralph Raico , Leonard Liggio , George Reisman , Israel Kirzner , and Rothbard. Hamowy first met Hayek when Hamowy arrived to Chicago in the fall of 1960 to do doctoral work under Hayek's supervision. At

612-433: The country, and the facility with which the degree is obtained, have exerted a most pernicious influence" on the profession. With the object of alleviating this situation, recommendations were carried out calling for a specified minimum preliminary education as a prerequisite for admission to a medical college, a lengthening of the period of study for graduation from a medical school, including compulsory clinical instruction at

646-406: The earning power and prestige of medical professionals. The licensing process Starr argues, was unnecessarily prolonged and the costs were artificially enhanced with the specific aim of deterring potential practitioners from entering the field. In his book, The Early Development of Medical Licensing Laws in the United States, 1875–1900 , Ronald Hamowy wrote: "The American Medical Association (AMA)

680-478: The highest known standard. With a reputation to uphold, trusted workers of a society who have a specific trade are considered professionals. Ironically, the usage of the word 'profess' declined from the late 1800s to the 1950s, just as the term 'professional' was gaining popularity from 1900 to 2010. Notably, in American English the rise in popularity of the term 'professional' started at the beginning of

714-500: The idea of specialization. As was the case with guilds who claimed to establish exclusivity in a trade in the name of serving the public good, there are often subtle dichotomies present in the idea of professionalizing a field, whether in the name of serving some notion of the public good or as a result of specialization. For example, while defenders of guilds have argued that they allowed markets to function by ensuring quality standards, Sheilagh Ogilvie had instead argued that markets of

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748-664: The model of apprenticeship that European guilds of the Middle Ages had honed to achieve their ends of establishing exclusivity in trades as well as the English concept of a gentleman which had come to be associated with higher income and craftsmanship. Examples are the Lazzaroni who lobbied to create the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and professional associations who lobbied to create

782-528: The multidisciplinary approach with Rothbard, ten years his senior, on that point, one might too quickly overemphasize Rothbard's influence or Hamowy's time spent that was doing postgraduate work in Europe. Hamowy is best understood as the product of a unique scholarly era in America that was heavily influenced by thinkers immersed in the continental style, many of whom arrived, directly or indirectly, from Europe to

816-669: The number of individuals who reach the point of specialization? In certain cases, the want to specialize can adversely and negatively affect an industry. In his seminal work From Poor Law to Welfare State: A History of Social Welfare in America (1994) Walter Trattner argues that social workers began to emphasize individualized casework at the expense of alternative methods which utilize holistic approaches to address social issues. In many cases, granting degrees through universities serves as one major component of licensing practices. Still, numerous legal stipulations and, in some cases, even informal social norms act in this capacity. Nevertheless,

850-598: The political ideology of libertarianism and his writings and scholarship place particular emphasis on individual liberty and the limits of state action in a free society. He is associated with a number of prominent American libertarian organizations. Hamowy was born in Shanghai , China . His family was Jewish; his father was from Syria and his mother was from Egypt . He was raised in New York City . He did his undergraduate studies in economics and history at Cornell University and at City College of New York . In 1960 he

884-603: The subtle indoctrination and filtering which accompanies the process of professional training. His evidence is both qualitative and quantitative, including professional examinations, industry statistics and personal accounts of trainees and professionals. A key theoretical dispute arises from the observation that established professions (e.g. lawyers, medical doctors, accountants, architects, civil engineers, surveyors) are subject to strict codes of conduct. Some have thus argued that these codes of conduct, agreed upon and maintained through widely recognized professional associations, are

918-474: The time, Hayek had been at the University of Chicago for ten years and remained there for another two years before he returned to Europe. Hayek had a substantial impact on the Committee on Social Thought and on Hamowy's intellectual development as a free market scholar. Despite the breadth of Hamowy's political and social thought, there were streams of particular emphasis that were discernible to his students at Alberta and are emphasized in his scholarship. One of

952-527: The university system constitutes one of the last remaining widely spread guild (or quasi-guild) and continues to serve as an indispensable means for the professionalization of fields of work. While it is true that most guilds disappeared by the middle of the nineteenth century, the scholars guild persisted due to its peripheral standing in an industrialized economy. In the words of Elliot Krause, "The university and scholars' guilds held onto their power over membership, training, and workplace because early capitalism

986-559: Was admitted to the doctoral program at the Committee on Social Thought , University of Chicago , and did his doctorate under the supervision of professor Friedrich Hayek . He did postgraduate work at Balliol College, Oxford , where he studied under Sir Isaiah Berlin and did further postgraduate work at the University of Paris . He returned to the United States in 1968 to become an instructor in and later assistant director of

1020-430: Was an undergraduate. He admired his City College intellectual history professor Kohn, who had arrived to America in the 1930s and later taught at City College for many years, beginning in the late 1940s. Indeed, it was Kohn who first interested him in intellectual history after he returned to New York City from Ithaca, New York , in 1956. At about the same time, he also began to attend open seminars and lectures offered by

1054-431: Was based on passive property in land and industrial society on actively managed capital, professional society is based on human capital created by education and enhanced by strategies of closure, that is, the exclusion of the unqualified." Specifically, it is the management of human capital, and not just specialized skill which Perkin argues is a mark of the professional classes, at one point going so far as to compare it to

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1088-456: Was established as a permanent national organization at Philadelphia in 1847 at a convention attended by some 230 delegates representing more than forty medical societies and twenty-eight schools. From its inception, one of its primary aims was upgrading medical education and a concomitant reduction in the number of physicians. Its committee on raising medical standards reported at its first meeting that "the large number of Medical Colleges throughout

1122-467: Was not interested in it...". Ronald Hamowy Ronald Hamowy ( / h ə ˈ m aʊ i / ; April 17, 1937 – September 8, 2012) was a Canadian academic, known primarily for his contributions to political and social academic fields. At the time of his death, he was professor emeritus of intellectual history at the University of Alberta in Edmonton , Canada . Hamowy was closely associated with

1156-812: Was through George Reisman who was an early classmate. By the mid-1950s Hamowy was associated with Ralph Raico and Murray Rothbard . The group of younger libertarians that formed around Rothbard in the 1950s began to call themselves the Circle Bastiat, so named after the French classical liberal Frédéric Bastiat . The group's core included Hamowy, Rothbard, Raico, Reisman, Leonard Liggio, and Robert Hessen . Regular meetings and all night discussions at Rothbard's Manhattan apartment were routine. The close association and friendship between Hamowy and Rothbard continued unabated until Rothbard's death in January 1995, at

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