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.

The written version of this article can be found here: https://theworthyhouse.com/2022/05/01/the-managerial-revolution-what-is-happening-in-the-world-james-burnham/

We strongly encourage, in these days of censorship and deplatforming, all readers to bookmark our main site:

https://www.theworthyhouse.com

and to subscribe for email notifications of new posts. The Worthy House does not solicit donations or other support, or have ads. You can subscribe for email notifications here:

https://theworthyhouse.com/subscribe-by-email

This and all Worthy House narrations are offered with accurate closed captions (not auto-generated).

"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." . . .