The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World

by James Burnham

This struggle among the three strategic centers for world control will be the fundamental theme of the coming wars of managerial society. Naturally, the fundamental theme will be obscured and complicated, and will be played with variations. The theme only begins to emerge during the present war—though it is daily clearer. Capitalism is not yet dead, and the wars of the present are not “pure” managerial wars. They are also completing the destruction of capitalism, not merely by the effects of military defeat, but also by the internal consequences of war regimes under modern conditions. And the consolidation of the three super-states, even within their immediate strategic areas, is not by any means finished. In Europe, for example, even if Germany is fully victorious in the present war, there still remain Russia and Italy; and Russia is also in Asia along with Japan. Everyone knows, however, that Italy is a subordinate, incapable of a really independent sovereign policy. There is every reason to believe (as we shall discuss in Chapter XIV) that Russia will split apart, with the western half gravitating toward the European base and the eastern toward the Asiatic. But even if a coalition of the future, combined with internal disturbances, should overthrow the Germany of the present, this would be secondary to the main scheme. The result of such a development would not alter the political system toward which managerial society tends. It would merely change the name and some of ...