The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World

If you're looking for an intelligent breakdown of how societies became as totalitarian as they are today and in the unique form they took to get there, this is the book for you. It's purposefully ironic that the book opens with a review by George Orwell about why he thought the original release was lacking in predictive power because Burnham was bad at predicting the outcome of WW2, but after you read this book you'll realize its arguments served as the direct inspiration for 1984, which is basically Orwell's tacit admission that Burnham might've been right after all.A must read for anyone who wants to step outside of the official narratives that'll tell you why it's just fine that you currently have less freedom, less opportunity, and less happiness than your great-grandfather did 100 years ago.

The year is 1940. The USSR is under Stalin and a Third Reich seems to be absorbing Europe. China, rocked by inner conflict, looks like it may become just another enslaved region of the Empire of Japan. The New Deal in the USA is showing just how anti-business a government can be. Everywhere Burnham looks, even within the USA, Capitalism seems to be failing. But Socialism is NOT gaining any ground. It is not replacing Capitalism. Who is replacing the Capitalists? Bureaucrats and managers seem to be organizing, controlling, combining the factories, businesses, and nations into... what?And that is what the book is about. Burnham was socialist who lost trust in his fellow Marxists but not in Marxism. He believed that Capitalism was on the way out but it seemed to him it was NOT going to be replaced by Socialism. As he watched and studied the very events happening in Europe, Asia, and within the USA, he came to the answer. Managers would become the next class. Neither owners nor producers, they would nevertheless, take reins in hand to control the nations, forming super-states and gaining power over the other classes.He does a great job of tracing his logic, using history and current events (well, events that was current at the time), building up his predictions. In fact, some of the pages could be used, word for word, to describe events and movements happening now. For example, when talking about the youth of England, who no longer believe in the system they are living in and are showing a lack of willingness to support it, I could not help but think about the Occupy movement! On the other hand, he seems to have totally dismissed banks and other factors that we know would shape our future, for better or for worse.Much of the events he talked about did not happen and may never happen, but his book did influence such authors as Orwell, who used Burnham's idea of three super-states always in conflict for the setting of Nineteen Eighty-Four. I plan to get  The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom  and read it to help understand more of his thoughts of political theory.

Burnham begins seemingly in a rational, fair, and balanced way. He explores the rise of managers as a group of skilled individuals, meeting the growing need for organization in a complex society as well as in increasingly complex businesses. It seems perfectly appropriate that people specially trained to organize business and government, should have access to information that lets them do the job well, and also should be paid enough to attract additional people to that difficult set of tasks: the tasks of guiding, administering, managing, directing and organizing the processes of production or service delivery.Soon, however, Burnham's voice becomes more sincere: In the "drive for social dominance, for power and privilege, for the position of ruling class, by the social group or class of the managers.... This drive will be successful ... against the masses, who, obscurely, are a social force tending against oppression and class rule of any kind." [The mechanism is] "propaganda and ideologies, all under a bewildering variety of slogans and ostensible motivations" (Burnham, p. 166, 1941):"The managers, the ruling class of the new society, will for their own purposes require at least a limited democracy. When the ruling group becomes more and more liable to miscalculate, a certain measure of democracy makes it easier for the ruling class to get more, and more accurate, information. Second, experience shows that a certain measure of democracy is an excellent way to enable opponents and the masses to let off steam without endangering the foundations of the social fabric. Democracy, freedom for public minority political expression within a class society, must be so limited as not to interfere with the basic social relations whereby the ruling class maintains its position of power and privilege."When the vote has been extended to wide sections of the population, including a majority that is not members of the ruling class, that problem is more difficult. In spite of the wider democracy, however, control by the ruling class can be assured ... when major social institutions upholding the position of the ruling class are firmly consolidated, when ideologies contributing to the maintenance of these institutions are generally accepted, when the instruments of education and propaganda are primarily available to the ruling class...." (Burnham, p. 168, 1941).This is an important book to read and share because it reveals, plainly spoken, the contempt business managers have, and are taught to have, for the citizens of our nation and the world, as well as the strategies they use to control our actions and even our thoughts.

The quality of the book is ok for a reprint. This title is from 1940 and is quite interesting. This is my first experience with James Burnham. His prose is clear and his ideas are very well argued. Most polemics of this sort become quickly dated. Burnham's comments on the emerging managerial class are still of great interest. His arguments on the post industrial world turned out to be very prescient.

I like that the author took a swing at trying to propose a third way between socialism and capitalism. I also liked his explanation of why socialism fails. As a former Trotskyite turned so-called conservative, he showed some keen insight. I also liked his analysis of why capitalism must fail even though history has proven him wrong. I also liked his point that Marx failed to predict the rise of the importance of the technocrats as a middle ground force between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and that this ruined Marx’s position.

This book changed the way I look at the modern world. We are in the grip of managerialism.

Très bon état

It’s baffling how this book and the social theory it contains have not become mainstream. The Managerial Revolution is what we’re living though. Begun through super-organisms like the European Union and United Nation, and expedited as of 2020 through the Covid pandemic. It’s important to remember that the author admits his personal opposition to this future, yet, as a true scientist which is also proclaims himself to be, he cannot but state what appears to be most in accordance with the current (1940s) facts, and the most probable theory against all others.

it gives an accurate screenshot of the past 75 years would love if it would forecast the next 25 years....

A politically technical subject covered with great clarity. Hard to believe it was written as long ago as 1940. Well worth a read.