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More On The Roots Of Elon Musk's Neoreactionarism. The "Managerial Class" Must Be Swept From Power. [1]
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Date: 2022-12-15
I’m a believer that Elon Musk has embraced a stale, old ideology called neoreactionirism, and his political belief about taking on what he calls “The Cathedral” (a group composed of the liberal media, intelligence agencies, and government employees who supposedly thrawt the creative genius and power of people like Musk) is what drove him to buy Twitter. Turns out that adherents of neoreactionarism have a book they swear by. It was written by political theorist James Burnham: The Managerial Revolution: What Is Happening in the World. The book was written back in 1941, and it states that capitalism was in decline and a “managerial class” was poised to take over and control all industries and the national government. And Musk and his ilk believe that day has already happened, and brave people from the investor class like Musk need to lead a counter-revolution.
The punch line is that James Burnham’s book PREDICTED that Nazi Germany was going to win World War II.
HUH? WTF? Musk is buying into a book that was WRONG!
Yes.
Who is James Burnham, and what is the managerial revolution? Burnham, born in 1905, began political life as a Marxist of the Trotskyite persuasion — but would decisively break with this tradition and become a stalwart of the American right. After Burnham’s death in 1987, then-President Ronald Reagan said that he was “one of those principally responsible for the great intellectual odyssey of our century — the journey away from totalitarian statism and toward the uplifting doctrines of freedom.” The Managerial Revolution, one of Burnham’s earliest and most influential works, shows signs of both his youthful Marxism and his later turn toward anti-communist conservatism. It begins with the very Marxist idea that history is, at root, a story of conflicting social groups struggling for control over a society’s wealth and means of production… Burnham also concurred with Marxists that the capitalist class would inevitably lose the contemporary iteration of this struggle — but disagreed about who would win it. In his view, the working class was too weak and disorganized to overthrow the capitalists in the way that Marxist theory predicted. Instead, he argues, a new group was rising: the managerial class. Managers, in Burnham’s definition, are the people responsible for “the tasks of the technical direction and coordination of the process of production.” This does not mean technical experts, like chemists or architects, but the people that direct these technical experts: “operating executives, superintendents, administrative engineers, supervisory technicians; or, in government...administrators, commissioners, bureau heads, and so on.”
The technology of the 20th Century was too complex for anyone one person to run industries or the government, so this is where there had to be a large number of people skilled in the new technologies and ways to run large companies or the government. Business owners and government politicians had become dependent upon this new managerial class to run things. Eventually, this system would lead to nationalization of businesses because the managerial class was the most efficient way to manage methods of production.
And according to Burnham, the most efficient state at the time of his book was Nazi Germany. It is why Nazi Germany would win WW2. The other possible winner would be the Soviet Union because it has also nationalized it’s industries to produce an efficient state apparatus.
And guess who else besides Reagan and Musk think that this is a great book?
Burnham’s predictions were wildly wrong, in ways that should cast significant doubt on the viability of his entire theory of “the managerial revolution.” But his conceptualization of an unaccountable managerial class has nonetheless been extremely influential in the right-leaning tech world and in the broader conservative intellectual firmament. Marc Andreessen, a leading tech venture capitalist, called Burnham’s work “the best explanation for the current structure of our society and politics.” Julius Krein, a leading conservative policy intellectual, wrote that Burnham was “enjoying something of a revival” because “David Brooks, Ross Douthat, and Matthew Continetti, among others, have recently pointed to his work as essential to understanding the current political moment.” So, while Burnham’s work got some big things wrong, it’s still worth taking seriously. In many ways, he’s the progenitor of the right’s current cultural obsessions with so-called “woke managers” — and the godfather of the approach to politics that Musk has spent $44 billion advancing.
David Brooks and Ross Douthat of the NYT. The “Oh So Fuckin’ Wrong” Twins. But it is Burnham’s work that came up with the target of the managerial class that is now “woke managers” at Twitter, at least according to Musk.
And look at what Musk has done to the management of Twitter. Mass layoffs. Firing the lawyers. A “Moderation Panel” where Musk has the final say. In other words, it’s a sham. And idiotic Tweets about “woke mind virus” and “woke managers.” Musk is at war with his his employees.
And why would an employer be at war with the people he can just order to do things because they need a paycheck? It’s because the “managerial class” is considered a social class by Musk and other neoreactionaries. And this new social class has supposedly imposed “wokeness” on the rest of America.
You really cannot make this shit up.
And to my earlier point, Burnham was WRONG! And not only because his prediction about Nazi Germany sucked. Neoliberalism of the 80’s and 90’s has shifted wealth to people like Musk. Economic inequality has risen sharply since neoliberalism was enacted. This has lead to a concentration of political power to the Musk’s of the world, who can bribe politicians to do their bidding.
But Musk sees himself as besieged by some mythical managerial class who is “woke.” And it is why he bought Twitter for that outrageous price. Before he bought Twitter, it was part of “The Cathedral.” It was a haven of of “wokeness,” and only by buying Twitter and firing the “woke managers” could Musk and his group of fanatics begin the counter-revolution. It’s just the first step in a larger plan by a group of billionaires who have amassed too much money and power.
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