a specific social stratum of modern capitalist society, including hired professional managers (enterprise directors and directors of separate subdivisions of concerns, trusts, syndicates, and so on). Even in the mid-19th century K. Marx noted the importance of the professional manager, whose very existence proves the parasitism of the capitalist proprietor, who is removed from participation in the production process. The increasing number of corporations has significantly strengthened the role of managers.

Under conditions of modern state-monopoly capitalism there has been a sharp increase in the monopolies’ need for skilled specialists in the area of enterprise organization and management. Managers have received broad independence in administration and in the resolution of highly important financial and economic questions. In many developed capitalist countries (including the USA and France) special schools for skilled administrators have been organized, usually at the major universities.

Certain bourgeois scholars (for example, G. Means and A. Berle of the USA) argue that the enhanced role of professional managers in contemporary capitalist society and the transfer of management functions to professional managers prove that owners of capital have lost control over production and that capitalism itself has been saved from its inherent defects and contradictions. The flimsiness of bourgeois theories about the separation of power from the right of capital ownership becomes apparent in analyzing the actual functioning of capitalist enterprises. Managers do not have power in relation to owners of capital, who continue to exercise decisive influence on the management process.