Word: burnham
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...answer, says Author Burnham softly, and the common factor in all these paradoxes, is to be found in the character of what he calls the managerial revolution. He says...
Their immediate drive, says Burnham, is to control the instruments of production. They do not want to own them. The managers prefer to control them through their control of the state. "The state-that is, the institutions which comprise the state-will ... be the 'property' of the managers. And that will be quite enough to place them in the position of ruling class...
...managers, Author Burnham means the men who organize and coordinate the various elements of production "so that the different materials, tools, machines, plants, workers are all available at the proper place and moment and in the proper numbers." In business, managers are sometimes called " 'production managers,' operating executives, superintendents, administrative engineers, supervisory technicians." In government they are called administrators, commissioners, bureau heads. "I mean by managers, in short, those who . . . are actually managing, on its technical side, the actual process of production, no matter what the legal and financial form-individual, corporate, governmental...
...relative strength of the two groups in a period of social change, Burnham implies in two casually grim sentences: "The position, role and function of the managers are in no way dependent upon the maintenance of capitalist property and economic relations (even if many of the managers themselves think so); they depend upon the technical nature of ... modern production." "The position, role and function of the most privileged of all groups, the finance-capitalists, are, however, entirely bound up with capitalist property and economic relations...
There are excellent chapters in The Managerial Revolution on Russia (the most developed managerial society); on Germany (a somewhat less developed managerial society). But U.S. readers will easily understand what Burnham is driving at from his account of the New Deal...