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The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World New edition
| James Burnham (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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- ISBN-100837156785
- ISBN-13978-0837156781
- EditionNew edition
- PublisherPraeger
- Publication dateApril 24, 1972
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.69 x 8.5 inches
- Print length285 pages
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- Publisher : Praeger; New edition (April 24, 1972)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 285 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0837156785
- ISBN-13 : 978-0837156781
- Item Weight : 1.03 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.69 x 8.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #686,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #116 in Political Ideologies
- #810 in Theory of Economics
- #5,888 in Business Management (Books)
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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.
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.

