The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World (James Burnham)

The good, the bad, and the ugly about James Burnham's famous 1941 book.
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"Who rules? That’s what we all want to know. The Managerial Revolution, James Burnham’s still-influential 1941 book (the subject, for example, of recent pieces by Aaron Renn and Julius Krein), gave that eternal question a fresh answer. Broadly speaking his was, we can see eighty years later, indisputably the correct analysis. Burnham agreed that capitalism, private enterprise as the engine of the ruling class, was dying, the usual opinion in that tumultuous time, but made the entirely new claim that what would replace it was not, as most assumed, socialism, but a new thing. Namely, the ascent of managers, a new ruling class, who would hugely expand government and use it to mold society into new forms for their own benefit." . . .

[@elosougui5264]

Many thanks for reviewing this book, Charles!
All of the works written by Burnham and especially this one should be mandatory readings for us people in the political right.

[@Oda__Nobunaga]

I have read the Machiavellians, would you recommend this as well or would it be somewhat redundant?

[@elosougui5264]

@@Oda__Nobunaga you usually begin by reading The Managerial Revolution, then The Macchiavellians, and at last, Suicide of the West.

[@Oda__Nobunaga]

@@elosougui5264 Oops. I read Atlas Shrugged before Fountainhead too, which is apparently also incorrect.

[@skylinefever]

@@Oda__Nobunaga I put it this way:
AM radio right: Hayek and Rand
Alt Right: Burnham

[@eldragon4076]

Thanks for reviewing this very important book. I am sure it would be a brutal reading of Samuel Francis's Leviathan and his Enemies. Francis accepted Burnham’s social vision, but he rejected its political fatalism and sought, in effect, to rewrite the book from another perspective.

[@CharlesHaywood]

That book is on the list too . . . .

[@saw700]

Kindly add "Everybody Lies, Big Data..." it seems off despite the insistence of fact based everything

[@saw700]

I needed all that context and commentary... thank you Charles ❤

[@fabreezethefaintinggoat5484]

thanks

[@fabreezethefaintinggoat5484]

the current border war in Ukraine seems to be a war of western managers vs eastern rulers(I put India and China as well) The first are obsessed with PR victories and solving problems by throwing money (not theirs) as well as a level of grift that would make the Afghanistan era Pentagon milind contractors blush. OFC the neocons and their ideology started it but i mean the actual war.
I hope you get the chance to talk to the lovely people on the Duran or even Gonzalo lira or the new atlas..you have a lot to add to the discussion.

[@danielhanna9742]

I think: What mainly matters are ownership, management, production, control, self interest, and hierarchies/systems. It has always been that way. Ideologies and ideals are never important e.g. communism and socialism. Only functionally given to those stupid, dependent (or wanting to be dependent) and those outside the upper classes. Like how low forms of religion are given to low forms of people. Or how popular culture and music is offered to everyone. What is available to owners and managers is what is used with what works best at that point of time. The same managerial mindset has always existed throughout all of history. To control, to maintain order and to maintain position. I do not think that is difficult to understand. Like how understanding individuals and their individual circumstances help understand why many (not all) individuals are in crowds and are engaged in collective causes. They do not like what they see in the mirror - both literally and figuratively.
A serious question needs to be asked: The individuals who are associated with the origination of certain ideologies and ideals and which are propagated throughout society and history, are they fanatical adherents of these ideas? Or is it only given for others and is another 'what works best?'

[@DJK-cq2uy]

Fat deal!!! No one asked what think?? 😂🎉😂

[@DJK-cq2uy]

Pfffft