The Theory of the Managerial
Revolution*
James Burnham
EDITORIAL NoTE:
For reasons beyond our control,
we are unable to present in this issue the articles, already
announced in this series, by Paul Mattick
and
Guenter
Reimann. We plan to present their point of view in the
next issue.
IT
IS REMARKABLE
that the catastrophic events of the past
decade
have not stimulated a positive and systematic revision of our gen–
eral ideas about what is happening in the world. Surely no pre–
vious decade has ever crowded within its brief limits developments
of such magnitude as the consolidation of Stalinism, the rise of
Nazism, the New Deal, the invasion of China, and the second
world war.
If
we are honest, we must recognize that no one antici–
pated, with any plausible concreteness, these events. In any field
of scientific inquiry other than history, such a lack of correspond–
ence between expectation and fact would have led to the conclusion
that the theories upon which expectations had been founded were
false or at the least inadequate. But, apparently, we are not very
anxious to be scientific about history. We seek from history salva–
tion rather than knowledge, forgetting that genuine salvation can
be based only on knowledge.
Orthodox bourgeois and orthodoY. Marxist thinkers alike take
note of events-after they have happened-and are content to
"reaffirm" principles which have failed to meet the test of actual
experience. We ought to begin to suspect that orthodox bourgeois
and Marxist thinkers have been driven together into a corner where
their only remaining effort is to escape from reality.
It is true that during recent years a number of ex-Marxists-
*This article states
in
condenaed form part of the thesis which is elaborated in a
book published this Spring by John Day Company under the title of
The Mana1Jerial
Ret10lution.
In a short space I cannot pretend even to formulate the theory completely,
mnch
less to present adequately the argument and evidence. I shall hope, however, to
make the general point of view intelligible.
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