new classn.adj.
/ˌnjuː ˈklɑːs/, /ˌnjuː ˈklas/, U.S. /ˌn(j)u ˈklæs/ Chiefly Politics.
A. n.
1. In the Soviet Union and other communist countries: a privileged elite of Party bureaucrats. Cf. nomenklatura n. Also in extended use.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > political philosophy > communism > [noun] > adherent of > privileged class in communist state
priviligentsia1953
new class1957
nomenklatura1975
1957 M. Djilas (title) The new class: an analysis of the communist system.
1957 M. Djilas New Class 38 This new class, the bureaucracy, or more accurately the political bureaucracy, has all the characteristics of earlier ones as well as some new characteristics of its own.
1975 G. V. Daniels tr. A. D. Sakharov My Country i. 25 As early as the 1920's and 30's..a special Party-bureaucratic stratum was formed... This is the nomenklatura, as its members call themselves; or the ‘new class’ as Milovan Djilas has named them.
1992 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 28 May 55/1 It is the Cuban ‘New Class’ and the military, which consume a large part of the island's resources, that suffer most from the embargo.
2. A class of well-educated professionals, esp. when politically liberal and considered to be in contention with the (conservative) business class for power and status.
ΚΠ
1958 J. K. Galbraith Affluent Society xxiv. 340 The leisure class has been replaced by another and much larger class to which work has none of the older connotation of pain, fatigue, or other mental or physical discomfort. We have failed to appreciate the emergence of this New Class, as it may be simply called.
1958 J. K. Galbraith Affluent Society xxiv. 343 The college professor..is more securely a member of the New Class than the schoolteacher... The New Class is not exclusive. While virtually no one leaves it, thousands join it every year. Overwhelmingly the qualification is education.
1979 A. W. Gouldner (title) The future of intellectuals and the rise of the new class.
1989 B. Ehrenreich Fear of Falling iv. 164 As he saw it, the liberal elite, or New Class, had thrown in its lot with the poor.
1995 M. Lind Next Amer. Nation vi. 249 The so-called new class (this infinitely elastic term comes from ex-Trotskyite neoconservatives, and means any college-educated group that does not share Republican views).
B. adj. (attributive).
Of, belonging to, or characteristic of any newly identified or emerging social or socio-economic class.
ΚΠ
1966 Jrnl. Politics 28 153 The new Republicans are not counterparts of their conservative contemporaries in the North and East who vote Republican... The medical and dental professions found the new-class demand for stripped-down government a magnet.
1975 World Politics 28 83 The new Leninist political managers..contrast with the rather hedonistic apparatchik new-class cadre.
1988 Weekend Austral. 9 Apr. 20/2 The New Class Roundheads of this latest Cromwellian Puritan revolution are on a roll.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, September 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.adj.1957