The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World

by James Burnham

Scientific theories are always controlled by the facts: they must be able to explain the relevant evidence already at hand, and on their basis it must be possible to make verifiable predictions about the future. Ideologies are not controlled by facts, even though they may incorporate some scientific elements and are ordinarily considered scientific by those who believe in them. The primary function of ideologies—whether moral or religious or metaphysical or social—is to express human interests, needs, desires, hopes, fears, not to cover the facts. A dispute about scientific theories can always be settled, sooner or later, by experiment and observation. A dispute between rival ideologies can never be thus settled. Arguments about ideologies can, and do, continue as long as the interests embodied by them are felt to be of any significance.