In an interview this morning, a man asked me what I foresee as the dominant forms of social and political organization in the years ahead, in light of the failure of dominant orthodoxies of the very recent past.
I found myself at a bit of a loss to give an answer, but I was intrigued by the question. It presumes that we are living through a huge upheaval, a transition from one paradigm to another. That much is certainly true. The loss of public trust in nearly everything is more than obvious. The fallout from this has been not only the election of President Donald Trump, but also the real effect of what has already happened in only 30 days.
One only needs to look at the dramatic tumble in real estate valuations in the District of Columbia and northern Virginia. Every source shows them having fallen 25 percent or more in an extremely short period of time. Many people with secure jobs in the extended network of government financing are finding themselves out of work, either because they have elected to go or because they have received termination notices.
This is some empirical evidence that we are doing more today than talking about change. The change is here, and it might have only just begun. If the Trump administration is really serious about cleaning up the public sector, more huge changes are coming. Much that we have taken for granted will be brought into question. If the revelations from the Department of Government Efficiency are just the tip of the iceberg, the public mind needs to prepare itself for years of nonstop amazement at how their tax dollars have been used.
Back to the question of where we are headed. My top-of-the-head answer is that the target is something like the life and culture we experienced before World War I, with small communities, intact families, a robust culture of faith and creativity, and a close connection between the people and their political leadership, minus the thick layer of bureaucracy that separates us from them today.
Burnham was a bit of a dark figure, a person sometimes called a realist, although others would describe him as a cynic. He saw politics as nothing but the struggle to gain and secure power, nothing more. All the ideals of every period of history, in his view, were so much blather to cover up what was really a power grab. He passed no judgment on whether this was good or bad, but merely assumed this to be the case, a reality with which we must grapple.
What he saw taking place in 1940 was a dramatic solidification in the structure of the social order. He regarded all talk of “socialism” and “capitalism” as outdated and irrelevant to the world that was being born mid-century. Gone were the days of yeoman farmers and landed gentry plus an infinity of small shops. They were being replaced by huge businesses run by a managerial class that had very little stake in ownership and control. It was the same in universities, media companies, and government bureaucracies. The professional managers, sporting credentials of various sorts, were assuming control.
As for socialism, Burnham would have nothing of it. He believed in the iron law of oligarchy: Some one group would always be in control. All the talk of a classless society and collective ownership was ideological dreaming that had nothing to do with reality. Looking to the Soviet case as an example, he believed that the language of socialism was nothing but a useful rhetorical tool for a gang of thugs to deploy to seize power from an older order.
Burnham’s book is a bitter pill for anyone in any age simply because it contains no idealism. That said, it strikes me as an accurate presentation of where the world was headed in 1940. We went through the war, the postwar “liberal” order was born, and the Cold War began soon after. The rhetorical apparatus of that period that lasted 40 years was that freedom was battling tyranny. From the Burnham point of view, that was not a fully accurate description of what was taking place.
Following the Cold War, many Americans on the left and right were expecting something of a peace dividend and a return to normalcy. But events did not turn out that way. The managers grew. Government grew. Finance grew. Debt grew. The dependence of the universities and the media on government backing grew. The entire network fanned out from Washington not only domestically, but also internationally, in ever deepening layers, to the point that Burnham’s 1940 prediction seemed fully realized.
As I read through this book, I noticed a big difference between the world of 80 years ago and the world of today, namely the confidence of the public in expertise. It was very high in those days and is very low today. This directly affects public understanding of the competence of the managerial class. For most of my life, the professional class has enjoyed enormous political, social, and economic standing, and everyone has sought to join it and build it further.
In the 21st century, corporate life has become saddled with human resources divisions and financial houses have grown bigger and bigger, while the middle class and household income have continued to shrink in real terms. Bureaucracy in both the public and private sectors has only grown and become more complex. Compliance has replaced creativity. Regulations have displaced innovations.
All that said, change is suddenly in the air, and the turning point seems to have been the remarkable science experiment conducted on the public from 2020 to 2023 in the name of infectious disease control. The managerial revolution met us where we live, in our own communities, in the most coercive way imaginable. It shut the churches, businesses, and schools while restricting travel, mandating masks, and ultimately forcing shots on multitudes that did not want them or need them. None of it made sense and the devastation was without precedent.
This is precisely what triggered the push against the managerial class. This is because the war on the COVID-19 virus involved more than just governments at all levels. Rather, it was inclusive of the whole of civil society, including academia, science, most corporations, and nonprofits. The big picture is of a professional managerial class enlisting a working class in a servile position.
The revolt came from below—remember the truckers’ revolt in Canada—and took the form of an election that brought Trump back to power with enormous public support. The polling data is in upheaval now, with working classes voting for the new messaging and members of the Republican party who are themselves renegades against the old party establishment.
We are still waiting to see the consequences. The new administration in the United States has a very long way to go to consolidate control over the executive branch, which is resisting at every step right now. We shall see, but it might not be too early to entertain a possible understanding of the meaning of our times. What Burnham called the managerial revolution might be in a state of reversal, restoring normal life, private life, and a more traditional understanding of the meaning of freedom.
I like to think that if Burnham were around today, he would celebrate this. But in actual fact, he would simply observe it and, given his realistic outlook, declare it to be a new regime taking the place of an old regime, and nothing more. Maybe he would be right, but I would like to believe that certain high ideals are driving this dramatic change in history.
