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In an age of high—even galloping—expectations of better working and living conditions, higher status, and an active role in a ‘knowledge-intensive society’, it is hardly surprising that many employees and occupational groups want to advance their positions. They want to have the status, attractive working conditions, and influence that they feel they deserve. There are participants in various fields—researchers, popular authors, teachers, trade unions, and representatives of various professions—who are keen to launch ideas about the importance of their specific occupation or field of knowledge, and what the general public, organizations, and clients would gain if that occupation or field of knowledge had greater influence and status. Many of these attempts to advance positions take the form of launching and reinforcing such occupations by turning them into professions. Increased professionalization is broadly viewed as a good thing, in the interest of the specific occupation concerned as well as for society as a whole. This applies particularly to occupations in the public sector, where the achievements are often hard to determine, as previously mentioned. The absence or weakness of the market as a disciplinary mechanism—showing often more interest in what is delivered (or believed to be delivered) than in formal qualification and authorization of groups—also leads to a direction of energy into professionalization projects. Scoring high on signs of being a ‘profession’ becomes an indicator of success. Exceptions include such occupations as engineers, managers, consultants, and advertising experts are in most countries not certified or professionalized in any strict sense—and when they are targeted for certification efforts this is attributed little significance (Alexius, 2007). (Chartered accountants are a somewhat different matter.) However, generally, there is an increasing focus on regulating which occupational groups are to be entitled to do what, by applying statutory provisions and formal requirements for education and training. As is the case with many other popular concepts, the term ‘profession’ is used in different ways. But the general notion is that a profession is better than a ‘non-profession’ and professionalization is typically viewed as a way to bring an occupation forwards and upwards in the battle for status, respect, influence, and attractive job positions.

Having addressed the three broad subject matters in Chapters 2–9—consumption, higher education, and working life/organizations—it is now time to connect these themes, to formulate additional ideas, insights, and results based on synthesis as well as summaries and conclusions. This will be done here and in the final chapter. Below I address further the significance of expectations and desire. The title of Kovel’s (1981) by now somewhat dated book, The Age of Desire, is probably much more appropriate today than 30 years ago. Recession and financial crises in some countries can temporarily attenuate the rampage of desire for some groups—with reduction in the material standard of living, concerns other than desire may require attention—but this does not disturb the overall picture of the dominant inclinations in post-affluent society. I start the chapter by addressing post-affluence and, in particular, how expectations of the good consumption and working life are gradually raised so that reality, when salient, may be a source of frustration and disappointment more often than delivering what it should. People in ads are always happier and more beautiful than the consumers trying to imitate them. The institution recruiting students seldom undersells the quality of its teaching, or the employment that may follow for graduates. The job title increasingly promises something better than the actual job tasks. Having pointed at the misfortunes of reality—or ‘shit happens’—I then make some specific links between education, work, and consumption, before moving quickly over to how statistics often support competitions in showing the right numbers to make things appear to be good, sometimes at the expense of the quality of the phenomena the numbers are supposed to say something about. I also address how the understanding of grandiosity and illusion tricks can be further developed through the use of Kundera’s concept imagology. Here, in particular, I draw upon Kundera’s claim that people occupied by imagology constitute a broad, diverse, but rapidly expanding set of occupations leading the road to grandiosity.