Professional Jealousy Explains An Awful Lot, You Know?

We all know why lawyers hate harlots but this goes further

One of my little vices - I assure you it’s only a little one - is flicking through, as one of those smallest room books, old versions of dictionaries and other reference books. For the joy of them is that we find out what was, back then at publication date, simply the accepted wisdom. It was standard enough to pass edit as the received wisdom of the day. That received wisdom changes over time, as we know. But - with physical copies at least - what they thought was “true” back then can be seen.

This is, of course, why those who would truly rule us insist upon rewriting those reference books - Winston Smith’s job.

From one such, A Dictionary of Politics in the Penguin Reference Books series. From 1957. Macmillan was still only Chancellor as they went to press (Eden was still PM).

Managerial Revolution: The passing of control from capitalists into the hands of administrators in business and government. James Burnham (a New York University lecturer) in his book, The Managerial Revolution, published in 1941, says that this process is taking place at the present day. He said that the future governing class would be the possessors not of wealth but of technical or administrative skill. They would control the instruments of production and receive preferential treatment in the distribution of the product of those instruments. The capitalists once had the benefits because they held property rights in the instruments of production. The managers would gain those benefits indirectly by control of the state which in turn would own and control the instruments of production. The state would be, in effect, the “property” of the managers, and that would be enough to place them in the position of a ruling class.

This, rather joyously, explains a lot about the modern world. We could go back to the mid-1980s and the bloke who ran the ‘baccy company written up in Barbarians at the Gates. In which he, as CEO, had a fleet of private planes, the company paid for his 11 country club memberships and so on. His salary was decent, sure, but the corporation rented him all the trappings of a Gatsbyesque - and successful - capitalist. Until the actual capitalists - the barbarians - turned up at those gates and started demanding shareholder returns.

Or we can think of the bureaucratic classes in the UK in more recent decades. Moving effortlessly between this NGO, that quasi-governmental body and a little light sitting on the right government inquiry. All at £1500 a day and a damn good pension to follow.

Or, you know, adapt the base idea to taste. There really is a bureaucratic and managerial class that gains the incomes and power of the capitalists of the past without having to do anything quite so grubby as either risk their own money or, actually, do anything. They, umm, administer, and the entire class is wholly and absolutely convinced that everything must be administered and they’re the right people to be doing that.

You know, basically David Cameron. Met him once, when he was just down from uni. At a political meeting - drinkies for the Tory activists in a particular council ward, possibly a little wider than that. Hated him on sight which I agree has saved me much time over the decades. And I was right too. There is nothing to Cameroonism other than that the right sort of people should be administering - the managerial revolution.

Sure, sure, we used to have the aristocracy which assumed the same thing but we did used to insist that they could chop someone’s head off first - show they had the capability. Also, they didn’t complain nor demand a pension when we did that to them if they lost office.

But the bit that really strikes me. France - and thereby the European Union - seems to me to be where this Managerial Revolution has gone furthest. Get through the right training (the “enarques”) and you’re the right guy to be a Minister, run a political party, manage the oil company, sort out the railways etc. You don’t have to succeed or fail at any of them, you’re one of the gilded class that runs the place. Because, you know, everything needs to be run and one of this class should do so.

Everyone might well hate the convicted felon Christine Lagarde, everyone might well fight for her job, or to backstab her. But absolutely no one at all in that class would allow anyone from outside it to replace her.

And it’s fun to contemplate current events with this in mind. Thierry Breton for example, boasting about how wondrous EU regulation of social media, the internet, AI, is. Actually, the whole class insisting that it must be regulated and they’re the people to do it. Despite their regulation meaning that no one can actually build such a company in Europe.

OK, OK, so that’s just standard bureaucracy. Now consider the red faced spitting rage with which they contemplate Zucks, Musk and so on. But, but, this is the capitalists coming back! People actually starting, directly, benefitting from, their own large corporation. How could this be? Why are we, the managerials, not running it?

We suffer Brussels regulation so that the managerials get to puff up their egos against the capitalists actually doin’ stuff.

Readin’ old books can be fun, you know?