The Managerial Class on Trial: - Book Review

Ollie

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The Mindmatters’ episode on the eve of 2022 discussed this book, The Managerial Class on Trial (Biological Realist Publications, Vancouver, B.C., Canada, 2021, 1st Edition) of Michael McConkey’s, on the managerial revolution in the West, and its relevancy for ponerology, as well discussing other of his works.

According to the author, this book came about because of the madness of 2020: the covid nonsense, (and in the author’s own words) ‘resulting in an historically unprecedented, almost inconceivable shutdown of the world economy, …’ [by the] ‘mass protests, ostensibly in response to a man killed by the police, which rapidly transformed … into … nightly riots, looting, arson and attacks on people and property, private and public. All this has been framed as a demanded cultural revolution in the name of antiracism.’
What was most striking about all this to me though was the complete and utter pervasiveness of the super-legality that saturated every moment of this entire experience of 2020. … in which there has been a deterioration of organic norms and the state and the law has been weaponized by a coalition of interests as a means to advance their own interests under the guise of legitimate legality. …’

Rather than chapters the book is organized into a series of sections, ‘parsing the information in more bite-sized pieces, making it easier for the reader to read and cross reference.’ Consider them as ‘blog posts’. In this review, in order to give a flavour of the book, the sections are given below, some with a few comments in the author’s own words, others not.

Moving on to the sections, the first up is: Right wing Marxism explained. This is followed by - The meaning of sovereign and aristocracy. And some of the following sections, as well as this one, are ‘a tad dry, but is I believe important to set the context for the key points about the nature and implications of the myth of popular sovereignty’ (a discovery that it is a transmutation of Christian theology). Sovereignty is about ruling over. The term aristocracy is clarified as ‘the strong influence of the best or most fit. … aristocracy does not dictate any specific form of governance, nor even presumes a fixed or defined ruler; it is more an observation of influence than a recipe for rule.’ In a sense, the aristocracy are pivotal, as historically, the ‘rulers and the ‘serfs’ both wanted to get rid of them.

The following section is: The political theology of popular sovereignty. ‘There are three distinct phases to be considered in the historical processes by which the myth of popular sovereignty triumphed. These are 1) the period of voluntary rulership (or the first among equals); 2) … the sovereignty pact, which includes the emergence of personal sovereignty; and 3) the transition to an ostensibly impersonal sovereignty. While it is the last of the three that constitutes an identifiable basis for the claims of popular sovereignty, the groundwork is laid amid the second phase. To fully grasp the process, though, it is the transition from phase one to two that needs to be initially understood. And understanding this part of the process, as noted, takes us way back into the dawn of the human story. …’ This section is in two parts: Way back in the beginning, and the Human household (a distinctive and ancient feature of the human evolutionary legacy has been inclination to hierarchy).
This section concludes with: ‘So finally, … we’ve arrived at a point at which we have the background to start discussing the three stages in the rise of the myth of popular sovereignty. I did want to be sure we understood, both, how deeply grounded all this was in our human nature, but also the degree to which such foundations could have led us into very different directions. Understanding how what followed happened isn’t the same as assuming either that it was simply inevitable or surely that it remains unchangeable.

Further sections: Voluntary rulership.
The Sovereignty Pact. ‘Earlier theologians had proposed that Christ was composed of two bodies. One was the physical body of the human, … a second body. This was called the mystical body of Christ. … embodying Christendom as a religious society. … The medieval jurist and canonists then adopted the ‘two bodies’ doctrine, smuggling it into medieval and political theory, as a legitimisation of enhanced kingly power. … the king became a true monarch, a sovereign who could rule uncontested. …’
Impersonal sovereignty. The theological mythology of popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty as an empty hand-puppet.

Introducing the new, managerial class. In the following sections, starting with is one, two sources, James Burnham and Alvin Gouldner, are used as they are especially insightful and their background in Marxist theory brings an acute awareness of class analysis: ‘what could be described as a Marxist class analysis of Marxism.‘
Defining the managerial class. ‘The concise thumbnail definition of the managerial class is that they are symbolic workers, who manipulate symbols – numeric or alphabetic – to create narratives or systems that contribute to production. … or facilitate production.
Class ideology. It is interesting to note that, historically, none of the influential socialists or communists were born into the working class or had any proletariat connection at all. ‘… revolutions were fought on behalf of the working class in anything other than name. they were fought on behalf of a new class, a managerial class.
History of the new managerial revolution. ‘… of their stealth revolution which gained considerable momentum since the late 19th century and has increasingly consolidated power since then. … this history focuses on developments in the United States. … Under the auspices of the managerial revolution in the U.S. has risen to be the dominant hegemon in the world. So, everyone’s interested in what happens in Washington, Wall Street and Hollywood. … While their increasing control of the private sector laid the foundation for the managerial class’ revolution, the completion of that revolution only was achieved with capture of the government. …
The managerial revolution in government. The managerial class is not monolithic.

The technical intelligentsia and the human intellectuals. ‘The focus on the corporation is an expression of intra-class animosity and jockeying for position within the hegemonic managerial revolution. … Additionally, … the humanist intellectuals operate the institutions that cultivate and consolidate class consciousness and inculcate class ideology: the universities. … finishing schools of the managerial class. … excessive of eligible elites. … those inevitably excluded are sufficiently numerous and motivated to challenge the ruling faction of their class. … use their ventriloquist skills to cleverly express their challenge through the words and mouths of aggrieved non-members of their class.
Managerial class strategies diverge. ‘... in all the managerial strategies, four strategies are necessary to realize the managerial revolution. The first of these is the shifting of power away from bourgeois representative institutes to the bureaus of the administrative state. … The second transition … is the smashing of the capitalist regime …. The third transition … is channelling the disaffection of the working class … into the sails of the managerial class: ideologically stigmatizing incompatible bourgeois class values and inculcating managerial class values. … the fourth transition is the challenge of competing leadership … by providing a more successful model.
The communist strategy.
The Nazi strategy. ‘... it was the working class which was initially channelled into supporting the managerial revolution … Within a few years of the Nazi coming into office … unemployment had been nearly eradicated. … Virtually all economic enterprise was subject to rigid state control.
The Fascist strategy. ‘Fascism was the least effective, probably because it exercised the least power.

The managerial liberalism strategy. ‘... the idea of liberalism in the U.S. has transformed from an ideal based upon individual self-reliance to one in which state intervention is perceived as essential to ensure conditions for individual liberty and wellbeing. … it made no pretence of disposing of electoral, representative democracy. … The practical triumph of managerial liberalisation came with the consolidation of the managerial revolutions of both the private and public sphere: the effective merging of the managerial state with the managerial corporations. … managerial liberalism actively compensated for its predisposition to administratively streamline and bulldoze organic opposition.
Cutting off at the pass standard criticisms of managerial class theory. This is considered in four parts: idealist generalization misses the mark; class consciousness is irrelevant; the red herring of post-capitalism; and misnaming the managerial class.
The interregnum points to the core popular sovereign paradigm.

Managerial liberal democracy. ‘The first clue that such a line of reasoning is not on as firm ground as its advocates might imagine is when that managerial liberalism hardly has a monopoly on wrapping its strategy in the banner of democracy. By what mysterious formula does majority rule magically turn from the tyranny of the majority over the minority to the idea that the voice of the people has spoken? Certainly, one can at least moderate such tyranny by having opportunity to appeal to separate arbitrators, such as a supreme court. … But such are most definitely nor democratic. The real source of sovereignty is the administrative estate. ... ’democracy’ and its suffrage machinery is now just a component of the larger managerial revolution, which by instituting the administrative state has consolidated … ‘the other great social forces’: the army, education, labour, law, bureaucracy, art, and science. ... The idea of the consolidation of the social instruments of persuasion under the control of the ruling class has been characterised … progressivism [a dimension of managerial liberalism] is in fact [taken as an analogy] a form of protestant religion [when compared to the medieval Catholic church, [in terms of persuasive power]]. ... by insisting that new parties and leaders are elected; policies really do not change; the people do have a say; [there is a] need to look more closely. … [with] two (or more) parties battling for victory. Much allegedly sits in the balance. … [This] doesn’t look like such an accurate description of reality. In fact, there appears to be an inner party and an outer party. The primary purpose of the outer party is to create the impression of genuine opposition. … The managerial party does in fact have its own left and right wing. What [is kept] out of the democratic arena, though, is discussion of matters too important to the managerial class for the [public] to have a say on. [For example] what the Federal reserve is, [and] what it does.
Canada’s immigration policy as a case study in the operation of the Cathedral [progressivism].

Antiracism as a managerial class ideology. ‘Human rights has the dual benefits of cloaking managerial liberalism in a universalizing mission of advancing good around the world, while legitimizing the administrative state’s paternalism and super-legality in social engineering humans and their communities. … To call managerial liberalism’s antiracism an ideology, of course, is to say nothing at all about racism. … managerial liberalism itself has decoupled antiracism from any traditional understanding of racism, or even race – which, often, under managerial antiracism, is denied to even exist. … The major corporations are the breeding ground of managerial liberalism, antiracism is an essential tenet of managerial liberalism’s ideology, and the self-anointed antiracists burning and looting American cities in the summer of 2020 are managerial liberalism’s stormtroopers. …

Further sections include: The verdict in the trial of the managerial class. The sentence in the trial of the managerial class. The anarchy options (and the two Murrays). The reactionary options, (new and old). The reactionary solution. The neo-reactionary solution (this has four options: Sovereign primogeniture, Porous polyarchy, Market-based land transactions, and Weapons cryptographic authorisation). The benefits of the neo-reactionary alternative. But is it possible? And Beyond artificial negativity.
There is much, much more. It is one of those books that needs to be read first to get an overview of the message, and then reread to appreciate the abundance of details.

For completeness, paraphrasing the back cover of the book:
The Managerial Class on Trial shows how the rise of the myth of popular sovereignty provided the perfect opportunity for an ascendant class of intelligentsia to gain political and economic power through acts of cultural and ideological ventriloquism. It is about managerial revolution, of how an apparently new class stealthily manoeuvred itself into power over the last century or so and achieved hegemony in the form of managerial liberalism. A path that is strewn with brutal intraclass war, which has resulted in a century of bloodshed, atrocity, smashed communities and gutted nations. However, the book concludes with a modest optimism that its lessons may point in the direction of a solution to the relentless managerial revolution.

Well worth the read, highly recommended.
 
What was most striking about all this to me though was the complete and utter pervasiveness of the super-legality that saturated every moment of this entire experience of 2020. …
I think you can include the utter stealing of the election, and the way it was handled by all the courts of the land. A reminder that law is in the hands of those that can give or take at their pleasure.
 
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