Principalities & Powersrnbv Samuel FrancisrnLooking BackwardrnA man from Mars visiting the UnitedrnStates at the beginning of 1997 mightrnhave thought that the country was wobblingrnon the brink of political crisis. Hernwould have learned that the WhiternHouse was occupied by a gentleman immersedrnin so many scandals that even supermarketrntabloids could not keep trackrnof them and that this same gentleman,rnhaving been reelected without a majorityrnof voters behind him, faced a Congressrncontrolled by an opposition party swornrnto working a revolution in government.rnSurely the Martian would have lost whateverrnpasses for money on the Red Planetrnby wagering that the President wouldrnsoon be thrown out of office, if not intornjail, and that his opponents wouldrnmount a coup d’etat that would deliverrnthe state into their hands.rnThe Martian would have lost his moneyrnbecause nowhere else in the galaxyrncould he have experienced any politicalrnforce as inept, incompetent, and worthlessrnas the Republican Party. Throughoutrnthe year Republicans in both housesrnof Congress have lurched and wobbledrnlike a drunken acrobat, ignoring opportunitiesrnfor weakening the Clinton administrationrnstill further and again andrnagain allowing the President to score politicalrnpoints. They allowed major issuesrnlike immigration, affirmative action, andrnactivist judges to flop out of their handsrnand had nothing important to say in criticismrnof Mr. Clinton’s foreign policy—rnhis locking the nation into a continuingrnand expanded commitment to NATO,rnhis pursuit of global government in onernguise or another, or his support for extendingrnMost Favored Nation Statusrnwith China. By the end of June, thernMartian would have been pining to leavernthe planet and take himself off to somernother, more politically dynamic vistarnsuch as the craters of the Moon.rnTo be fair, the death of politics in thernUnited States—not only this year but forrnthe last several years, despite the “RepublicanrnRevolution” of 1994—is notrnentirely the fault of the Crand Old Partyrnitself. There are few real political issuesrnin the L’nited States today because therernare few real political divisions within thernRuling Class, of which the leaders ofrnboth political parties are members inrngood standing, and there are few politicalrndivisions within the Ruling Class becausernat last that class has consolidatedrnits power to the point that there is veryrnlittle left for its members to argue about.rnRepublicans and Democrats may bickerrnover the budget and quibble over nominationsrnand electoral questions, but onrnthe main architecture of the leviathanrnstate and the functions and services itrnprovides they have no quarrel. Thatrnmuch was evident in the presidentialrnelection last year, when both candidatesrnhad to puff and wheeze to fabricaternsomething to debate over, but the ensuingrntedium of the presidential race wasrnnot simply the result of the lacklusterrnpersonalities involved but rather of arnmore far-reaching and underlying crystallizationrnof the national power structurernthat they both represent.rnAs 1 have often indicated before, elitesrnare not bad things in themselves, andrnwhether you like them or not, they happenrnto be inevitable in human society.rnThe relevant issue for people who don’trnlike a particular elite or ruling class is notrnhow to get rid of it and get along withoutrnany social and political hierarchy, butrnrather how to get yourself another eliternthat is more suited to your preferences—rnthat is, to your social interests. With thernemergence of the Populist Right in thernlast few years and its Middle Americanrnfollowing, there is the prospect, remoternas it may seem, that an alternative elite isrnalready beginning to form that will eventuallyrnbe able to challenge and replacernthe incumbent dominant class.rn1 have also indicated before that thernmost accurate analysis of the incumbentrnruling class remains James Burnham’srntheory of the managerial revolution, arntheory formulated in 1941 and often pulverizedrnby academic sociologists andrneconomists, but a theory also whichrnkeeps coming back, in one form or another,rnto provide—after a dozen otherrnanalyses and theories—the most reliablerndepiction of the realities of power inrn20th-century America. Just last year,rnBurnham’s theory of the managerial revolutionrncame back yet again in a newrnbook that reives and restates it.rnThe book, America’s New EconomicrnOrder by neo-Marxist economist DonaldrnClark Hodges, is dedicated to Burnham,rnwho was Hodges’ teacher at New YorkrnUniversity in the 1940’s, and, despite certainrnflawed assumptions and analyses inrnProfessor Hodges’ Marxist formulations,rnit is of some importance not only as a reminderrnof the enduring truths that Burnhamrndiscovered about American societyrnbut also for certain new insights that Mr.rnHodges brings to it.rnThe Burnham theory, crafted just asrnBurnham was defecting from Trotskyism,rnheld that a new kind of economyrnand society was evolving in the UnitedrnStates, as well as in Nazi Cermany andrnCommunist Russia, that was neitherrncapitalist nor socialist. The new societyrnwas what he called “managerial,” and itrnconsisted essentially in the seizure ofrncontrol of the largest corporations byrntheir managers from their stockholders.rnThe argument was that the managers—rnmeaning those professionals equippedrnwith the technical and managerial skillsrnto run the advanced economy that therncorporations dominated—were evolvingrninto a new class that would replace thern”capitalists” or stockholders because therncapitalists simply did not have the skillsrnto run their own companies.rnAs an ex-Marxist himself, Burnhamrnthen believed that control of the economicrnpower of the corporations was byrnitself sufficient to determine the structurernof a new ruling class, but he also extendedrnthe concept of “manager” tornstate bureaucrats. Like corporate managers,rnthe munchkins of the emergingrnleviathan state did not hold formal rightsrnof ownership to their offices, but theyrndid have the technical skills to make theirrnoffices function. Those who did have arnformal “right” to their offices—the citizensrnwho “own” the government and thernofficeholders they periodically elect tornoffice—in reality exercised no more realrncontrol of the state than petty stockholdersrndid over corporate assets and operations.rnThus, the managers in the economyrnjoined with their cousins, thernmanagers of the state, to coalesce into arnnew ruling class. Unlike the old capitalistrnor bourgeois class, the new class didrnnot depend for its power and position onrnrights of property and ownership or onrnclassical democratic-republican and con-rnSEPTEMBER 1997/39rnrnrn