This article offers a critical reflection on the theses of Perkin (The Rise of Professional Society: England Since 1880, London: Routledge, 1989) and Abbott (The System of Professions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), and compares these with empirical observations conducted by the author (Dezalay, 1991, Modem Law Review; 1992, Marchands de droit, la restructuration de l'ordre juridique international par les multinationales du droit, Paris: Fayard) on the international market for business law. As a way of illuminating the world of the professionals, the article begins by emphasizing how macro-history and micro-sociology complement and compete with each other; in the first, the professional society appears as the motor and product of the Welfare State; in the second, it is the permanent confrontations between savoirs which contributes to a continual redefinition of these fields of practices. These two dimensions are inherent in, if not exacerbated by, the opening of frontiers. However, both approaches neglect the effects of class: the recruitment practices and social authority of these different groups of professionals. These fields symbolic power are also one of the principal sites of reproduction - and of hierarchization - of the different forms of social capital. It is perhaps there that one should seek the explanation for the paradox noted by Perkin: that the shattering of a professional society coincides with its triumph, or at least its generalization.
