individualist ideas and belief patterns of premanagerialnsociety have been all but forgotten or have been convenientlynreinterpreted to suit the new social, political, and economicnrealities. Regardless of Burnham’s errors, then, it ought tonbe obvious that he was essentially correct in the substance ofnhis prophecies.nIt is possible, of course, to argue that Burnham’s analysisn— his explanahon of various historical trends towards bureaucratization,ncollectivism, globalism, etc., in terms of theninterests of an emerging managerial elite — is either wrongnor irrelevant to his correct perceptions and predictions of thentrends themselves. Acceptance of the connection betweennhis analysis and his predictions depends in part on thendegree to which the analysis itself can be empiricallynsubstantiated and in part on the extent to which elite theorynin general is a persuasive framework for explaining, predicting,nand evaluating social reality. Nevertheless, while Burnhamnwas correct to abandon the crude economic determinismnof his original formulation, the core of his theorynremains a powerfully suggestive conceptual tool for understandingnnot only what was happening in the world in 1941nbut indeed what is happening now. Retaining this core, it isnpossible to reformulate the theory of the managerial revolutionnwith the necessary modifications to make it a usefulnframework for interpreting contemporary as well as historicalnevents.nFirst, there is considerable empirical confirmation ofnBurnham’s view of the bureaucratization of the economy innthe work of Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., whose The VisiblenHand: The Managerial Revolution in American Businessn(1978) is a massive documentation of the elements of thenBerle-Means-Burnham thesis with reference to the displacementnof entrepreneurial owner-operators and stockholdersnby professional, technically skilled managers as the dominantnleadership stratum in the American corporate economy.nSecond, Burnham’s extension of the concept of “manager”nto include not only corporate executives in Berle andnMeans’ legalistic and formalistic sense but also any technicallynskilled professional operating in large-scale organizations,neconomic or political (or indeed cultural) offers anunifying concept around which a theory of a managerialnelite may be built.nAs organizations grow in size, assets, the number ofnpersonnel, and the number and complexity of their operations,nthey cannot be operated or controlled apart fromntechnical skills in the form of scientific, engineering, administrative,neconomic, or legal expertise. Legal ownership ofnproperty or formal occupancy of political office is irrelevantnto the acquisition and application of such skills, so thatnproperty owners and officeholders per se cannot by virtue ofnownership and officeholding exercise the technical skillsnnecessary for the operation of mass organizations. Thosenwho acquire technical skills relevant to organizational activitiesnthus also acquire effective control of the organization.nThere is no reason, of course, why stockholders or owneroperators,nfor example, cannot acquire technical skills themselvesnand thereby perpetuate their own control of thencorporations, but, as Burnham predicted and as Chandlernshows, the entrepreneurial upper class for the most partnsimply did not do so. Its members continued to own largenamounts of stock and to derive considerable wealth from it,nbut they did not take part in the actual management of thencorporate organization. As Galbraith says, “The dividendsnstill came; the power had gone.” And, in the extended sensenof manager that Burnham used, a similar displacement ofnelites took place in the state, where technically skillednprofessional bureaucrats and staffs rather than the formalnofficeholders they ostensibly served, actually planned andnimplemented the functions of the managerial state.nBut the separation of ownership and control in thencorporation and the separation of formal office and actualncontrol in the state does not mean merely a division ofninterests between owners and officeholders on the one handnand managers on the other. It is the interest of the managersnto preserve and enhance those features of the corporationnand state that require technical and managerial skills andntherefore to encourage the further enlargement, centraliza- “ntion, and bureaucratization of these institutions. Moreover,ninsofar as these features come into conflict with thensmall-scale, localized, and personal framework of traditionalninstitutions and beliefs, it is the common interest of thenThe managerial interests are served byncollectivist and social-rationalist ideologiesnthat de-emphasize the individual, thenpersonal, the local, and the particular andnchampion the collective, the impersonal,nand the universal.nmanagerial elites in state and corporation to abolish, diminish,nor delegitimize them.nHence, the managerial revolution is not merely thenreplacement of one set of leaders, the “Ins,” by another, then”Outs.” It is the basis for an organizational revolution in thensize and scale of the economy and the state and for a culturalnrevolution in the normative belief-patterns of society as well.nThe traditional political, social, and ethical ideologies thatnserved premanagerial society — individualism, classical liberalism,nconstitutionalism, states’ rights, personal moral responsibility,netc.—will not serve managerial elites. Thenmanagerial interests are served by collectivist and socialrationalistnideologies that de-emphasize the individual, thenpersonal, the local, and the particular and champion thencollective, the impersonal, and the universal. Since largescalenorganizations (what Pitirim Sorokin called “colossalism”)nmust operate in many different subcultural environmentsnand political jurisdictions, they tend to dissolve andnhomogenize local cultural variations and local politicalnautonomy into a uniform, centralized, and collective mass,nand the ideologies they promote reflect this tendency in thenform of political and social egalitarianism, democratism, andnuniversalism. The triumph of such managerial ideologies isndue not to the decadence of traditional beliefs and thosenwho adhere to them but to the rise of a new social group innthe form of a managerial elite that sponsors and promotesnthem in its own interests.nnnJANUARY 1992/17n