Professional–managerial class

[5] The Ehrenreichs defined the PMC as educated professionals who historically did not work in corporate environments, such as scientists, lawyers, academics, artists, and journalists.

[7] In that same essay, they argued that the notion of the PMC as a collective grouping was "in ruins" due to economic shifts in the 1990s and 2000s which changed their professional prospects.

[7] By the late 2010s, the term was more broadly used in American political discourse as a shorthand reference to technocratic liberals or wealthy Democratic voters.

[4] Catherine Liu, in Virtue Hoarders (2021), characterized the PMC as white-collar left liberals afflicted with a superiority complex in relation to ordinary members of the working class.

[9][10][11] Hans Magnus Enzensberger had previously written of the "characterless opportunism" of its members, in reference to its constant shifting of allegiances, not only between the leisured and working classes but also among themselves.