122
PARTISAN
~EVIEW
augmented by all sorts of psychological and moral discontents. Recent
studies have indicated that factory workers are troubled by the mean–
inglessness of their work as much, as by low pay, and that unions are
important not only as they improve working conditions but also be–
cause they give the individual member a sense of purpose. The dis–
satisfactions of the German middle class, which played so large a part
in the rise of Nazism, can be attributed to frustrations that were in
considerable degree noneconomic. To many persons, probably includ–
ing most of the readers of this article, the values of capitalism are
morally unacceptable even when the capitalist system is economically
at its peak. In short, the revolutionary forces in the contemporary
world do not grow exclusively out of economic exploitation, and it
cannot be assumed that the proletariat is the only revolutionary class
or even that the proletariat as a whole is a revolutionary class.
The proletariat is not certain or even likely to come to power as
capitalism collapses. Observation shows that the usual consequence
of the breakdown of capitalism is the strengthening of the state. But
where, in the strengthened state, does power reside? "The politically
dominant class," wrote de Man, "is the one whose members exercise
the functions of political domination"- in other words, the bureau–
crats and the politicians.
In
The Managerial Revolution
James Burnham recognized the
growing power of the bureaucrats and politicians in the post-capitalist
world, but both he and de Man, who in some ways anticipated him,
tried to fit this phenomenon into a modified Marxist system. Burn–
ham's acceptance of the Marxist ideology leads him to speak of the
managerial class, but the managers are not a class in the Marxist
sense. It is better to discard the whole Marxist terminology and to
admit that the collapse of capitalism has brought consequences unfor–
seen by Marx.
As
Toynbee points out, the rise of nationalism is no
less important in the history of Western civilization than the rise of
capitalism.
As
capitalism has failed to keep its promises, people have
turned to the national state, with the consequent rise of the dema–
gogue and the manipulator. It is instructive that the leader of one
of the two great totalitarian powers was a demagogue par excellence
while the leader of the other is the adroitest of political bosses.
In the face of these facts, talk of the inevitability of the classless
society becomes nonsense. Even if such a thing as a thoroughly
class~
conscious and united proletariat could exist,
it
would have to admin–
ister the state through the medium of bureaucrats and politicians.
("Persons who do not wish to have any bureaucrats," de Man wrote,
