https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/james-burnhams-manageriali…

Like everybody who has studied Marxism from a relatively young age I encountered many quotes of, or comments on, James Burnham's “The Managerial Revolution”. I was quite familiar with Burnham’s ideas but I have not read the book. I don't think that I would have read it, now in 2024, eight-four years after its publications, were it not for the fact that his ideas have been to some extent resuscitated recently. I will mention it in more detail further in the article.
The ideas that Burnham expounded in his 1940 book were to a large extent contradicted by the events which took place during the Second World War. His predictions were entirely wrong. But the predictions are only a secondary, and I think rather unimportant, part of the book. Burnham’s key idea is that the capitalist system is being gradually replaced by “managerialism”, a new social system where private property is nationalized and the real ruling class is composed of state-appointed or state-approved managers of companies. Capitalists, if they still exist, play a purely passive role. The ideology of sanctity of private property disappears.
Burnham’s thesis was revived in a somewhat different form in the 1960s when the idea of convergence between capitalism and socialism became popular. John Kenneth Galbraith’s “The new industrial state” could be seen as an extension or elaboration of Burnham’s original thesis. Raymond Aron at the same time also wrote about the industrial societies where the type of ownership (state or private) was less important, and managers run the system, determine prices and quantities, and eventually take full control. Industrial societies, whether of the Soviet or American type, required the same type of management, Aron thought. Andrei Sakharov, the famous physicist in the Soviet Union, expressed the same ideas. Technocracy, in the language of the 1960s, would rule. But before I discuss Burnham revival or “revival” I think it is important to summarize his key arguments since they …