The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World

by James Burnham

Yet, only a century thereafter (and change is more rapid now) the social heirs of those merchants and traders and moneylenders were, with their ducats, deciding the succession to thrones, the elections of emperors and popes, the winning of wars, the signing of peace. Within a century their social domination, though not yet consolidated, was assured. Yes, even the broad lands of the barons were passing into their hands as mortgages were foreclosed or as desperate lords strove hopelessly for the money they did not have and without which in the new age they could not even feed their children. We must not anticipate. A process which is in midcourse is not finished. The big bourgeoisie, the finance-capitalists, are still the ruling class in the United States; the final control is still in their hands. But we must not view the world too narrowly nor limit our eyes to the surface. For it is a world process with which we are dealing, since capitalism is a world system: the United States is linked economically, socially, culturally, and, most dramatically of all (how well we know this today!), strategically with all the world. And the process goes all the way to the roots of society; it does not remain merely on the outer layers.