The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World

by James Burnham

If the old and wealthiest capitalists are slipping, then, it would seem, the newer managers will utilize their growing power to become the new members of the big bourgeoisie. However, in spite of the fact that many of the managers doubtless have such an aim as their personal motivation, it will not happen. In the first place, with the rarest exceptions, it is no longer possible for the managers to realize such an aim, even if they have it. The chance to build up vast aggregates of wealth of the kind held by the big bourgeois families no longer exists under the conditions of contemporary capitalism. Lundberg shows that since the end of the first world war there has been only a single change in the listing of the first Sixty Families in this country; only a single newcomer has penetrated that stratum (and this closing of the doors to the top rank occurred much later in the United States than in the other great capitalist nations). The inability of a ruling class to assimilate fresh and vigorous new blood into its ranks is correctly recognized by many sociologists as an important symptom of the decadence of that class and its approaching downfall.