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James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution
Likely the first separate American printing of this essay, which was first published in the May 1946 issue of Polemic. In this critical discussion, Orwell (born Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-50) acknowledges that the general drift has "almost certainly been towards oligarchy" and "an increasing concentration of industrial and financial power" but criticizes the tendency of Burnham's "power-worship" and comments upon the failures in analysis that arise from it. As biographer Michael Shelden observed, "Orwell was always at his best when he was on the attack, and his Polemic essay on Burnham is a brilliant criticism of the whole concept of power worship." Preceded by publisher's remarks by James Robertson of the Berkeley Young Socialist League, the influential leftist campus group.
15 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1946
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About the author
George Orwell
1,258 books50.5k followersEric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to all totalitarianism (both fascism and stalinism), and support of democratic socialism.
Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.
Orwell is best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), although his works also encompass literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working-class life in the industrial north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences soldiering for the Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), are as critically respected as his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.
Orwell's work remains influential in popular culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices—is part of the English language, like many of his neologisms, such as "Big Brother", "Thought Police", "Room 101", "Newspeak", "memory hole", "doublethink", and "thoughtcrime". In 2008, The Times named Orwell the second-greatest British writer since 1945.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 4, 2025
George Orwell’s 1946 essay *Second Thoughts on James Burnham* is a critical response to Burnham’s 1941 book *The Managerial Revolution*. Orwell engages seriously with Burnham's thesis but ultimately challenges both Burnham's analysis and what Orwell sees as an underlying tendency in Burnham's thought.
### **Orwell’s Criticisms:**
* **Tendency to Worship Power:**
Orwell argues Burnham has a habit of identifying the “next rulers” by observing who appears to be winning in the short term. This makes him prone to overestimating the permanence and strength of contemporary power structures (e.g., first fascism, then Stalinism).
* **Misreading of History:**
Burnham sees history as driven by elites and overlooks counter-currents and revolutions that disrupted elite continuity. Orwell suggests this creates a kind of deterministic view that overstates the coherence and inevitability of the "managerial" trend.
* **Overconfident Predictions:**
Orwell points out Burnham’s earlier predictions (e.g., German victory in WWII or the permanent survival of the Nazi regime) were proven wrong. He uses this to illustrate the danger of extrapolating too confidently from current trends.
* **Ethical Neutrality and Amoral Realism:**
Orwell sees Burnham’s writing as too detached from moral judgment, leaning toward a Machiavellian realism that ignores the human costs of authoritarian systems. He warns this could inadvertently promote authoritarianism.
---
* Orwell accepts that Burnham may be correct in identifying a shift in power structures, but insists that:
* The managerial revolution is not inevitable.
* Human freedom, agency, and resistance still matter.
* Ideological systems that seem all-powerful can collapse rapidly (e.g., fascism in 1945).
---
Orwell’s essay critiques James Burnham’s *The Managerial Revolution* for its power-worshipping determinism and moral detachment, warning that such realism risks justifying authoritarian rule under the guise of objective analysis.
GPT
### **Orwell’s Criticisms:**
* **Tendency to Worship Power:**
Orwell argues Burnham has a habit of identifying the “next rulers” by observing who appears to be winning in the short term. This makes him prone to overestimating the permanence and strength of contemporary power structures (e.g., first fascism, then Stalinism).
* **Misreading of History:**
Burnham sees history as driven by elites and overlooks counter-currents and revolutions that disrupted elite continuity. Orwell suggests this creates a kind of deterministic view that overstates the coherence and inevitability of the "managerial" trend.
* **Overconfident Predictions:**
Orwell points out Burnham’s earlier predictions (e.g., German victory in WWII or the permanent survival of the Nazi regime) were proven wrong. He uses this to illustrate the danger of extrapolating too confidently from current trends.
* **Ethical Neutrality and Amoral Realism:**
Orwell sees Burnham’s writing as too detached from moral judgment, leaning toward a Machiavellian realism that ignores the human costs of authoritarian systems. He warns this could inadvertently promote authoritarianism.
---
* Orwell accepts that Burnham may be correct in identifying a shift in power structures, but insists that:
* The managerial revolution is not inevitable.
* Human freedom, agency, and resistance still matter.
* Ideological systems that seem all-powerful can collapse rapidly (e.g., fascism in 1945).
---
Orwell’s essay critiques James Burnham’s *The Managerial Revolution* for its power-worshipping determinism and moral detachment, warning that such realism risks justifying authoritarian rule under the guise of objective analysis.
GPT
August 6, 2025
fav lines:
"Lenin, indeed, is one of those politicians who win an undeserved reputation by dying prematurely."
"There is nothing unexpected in letting a few individuals starve for reasons of state; but to starve, by deliberate decision, several millions, is a type of action attributed ordinarily only to gods."
"I do not think it is fanciful to suggest that the unnecessary capital letters with which this passage is loaded are intended to have a hypnotic effect on the reader. Burnham is trying to build up a picture of terrifying, irresistible power, and to turn a normal political manoeuvre like infiltration into Infiltration adds to the general portentousness."
April 2, 2023
Read based on a recommendation from Marc Andreeesen. Introduces a formal focus on a new ruling class, the manager and bureaucrat. Burnham frames the emergence within the bigger arc of history and makes predictions about the future (the future we now live in). Did the writing of this book help avert some of the more negative predictions the book made? It did popularize the concept of the "managerial elite" and there by brought attention to the potential dangers of concentrating power in the hands of a small group of experts, and perhaps thereby triggered a bigger focus on transparency in government and large organizations to avoid the predictions.
June 19, 2025
I thought this was a really interesting deconstruction of the dichotomisation between capitalism and communism. I liked the critiques he made of Burnham, on the basis of his assumptions and logical fallacies. I also liked the acknowledgement that democracy is better at making sure leaders don’t make massive mistakes which the people would see through had they had input, like Hitler’s poor decision to attack Russia. I also liked how Orwell talked about recency bias and how we tend to assume that the future will be a projection of what is currently occurring in the present.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 2, 2023
The author's thesis is that Marx was correct in predicting the end of feudalism, and the rise of capitalism, but dead wrong about the end of capitalism and its replacement by socialism.
He explains that it's simply logistically impossible to devolve power down to free, classless individuals, which is what Marx envisioned. Instead, power is transferred from capitalisms to the nomenklatura and sticks there.
He backs up this theory with a wide-ranging discussion of the parallels with the earlier transition, and spends a lot of time talking about 'New Dealism' and the 1930s Democrats, as well as the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Some of his specific predictions are clearly wrong: that Hitler would win, for example, but a lot of his thinking was spot on. The quality of the argument and analysis alone makes this a book well worth reading. It certainly helped me understand Marx a lot better than the comic strip caricatures that I'd read previously.
I rank this book close to 'The Dictator's Handbook' as offering a way of understanding the modern world. Both flawed, but both deeply insightful.
Update, eight months later: I keep thinking about this book, as it explains so much.
People who have experienced Marxists revolutions are usually strongly against any sort of socialism or left wing views, because their experience of such a revolution is disruption, poverty, and no benefit whatsover for the proletariat. This book explains why (although it doesn't explain what the alternative is): just muddling through doesn't seem like a compelling answer.
He explains that it's simply logistically impossible to devolve power down to free, classless individuals, which is what Marx envisioned. Instead, power is transferred from capitalisms to the nomenklatura and sticks there.
He backs up this theory with a wide-ranging discussion of the parallels with the earlier transition, and spends a lot of time talking about 'New Dealism' and the 1930s Democrats, as well as the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Some of his specific predictions are clearly wrong: that Hitler would win, for example, but a lot of his thinking was spot on. The quality of the argument and analysis alone makes this a book well worth reading. It certainly helped me understand Marx a lot better than the comic strip caricatures that I'd read previously.
I rank this book close to 'The Dictator's Handbook' as offering a way of understanding the modern world. Both flawed, but both deeply insightful.
Update, eight months later: I keep thinking about this book, as it explains so much.
People who have experienced Marxists revolutions are usually strongly against any sort of socialism or left wing views, because their experience of such a revolution is disruption, poverty, and no benefit whatsover for the proletariat. This book explains why (although it doesn't explain what the alternative is): just muddling through doesn't seem like a compelling answer.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews