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This analysis implies that Marxism's stated goals and actual, secret goals were the same.

Take the Marxist definition of "worker" used by Marxist revolutionaries. We think of a guy with a wrench, but, somehow Trotsky considered himself a "worker" as well. Words used by these people do not mean what we think that they mean.

In short, this implies that Marxism was a mask for something else.

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>the battle lines are not through ownership of the means of production, but through control of the means of production

This is very basic and very important point. I first saw it in Jeffrey Pfeffer's book Power: one's power is measured by how much money one controls, not by how much money one makes.

Interestigly, he speaks almost exclusively about managerial power in the book, despite the generic title (and generic subtitle: "Why some people have it and others don't")

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Sep 1, 2022·edited Sep 1, 2022Liked by The Evolved Psyche

Very insightful. The reality of class conflict is undeniable, as is the urgency of addressing the dangers that the professional and managerial classes pose to organic communities, and we clearly need to understand it without recourse to the dogmatism and partisan posturing of 19th and 20th c. political pamphleteering.

IMO there is a major line of fracture between the oligarchs and the technocrats. The political economy of a re-industrialising society trying to balance the class and sectoral interests at work in a financialised economy has the potential for serious conflict between oligarchs and managers. State-capitalism does not need plutocrats any more than it does small investors, nor is it necessarily comfortable with entrepreneurs.

The regnant ideology (above all the equity agenda, with its support for affirmative action etc) serves to destabilise the professional and managerial classes. The Woke mania, the West's version of the Cultural Revolution, has a Maoist function and disrupts the cohesion and good order of the managers who threaten the ownership class. What, one wonders, will happen once the Woke mania has accomplished the racial and sexual diversification of the technocracy? How soon before the managerial class, highly conscious of it interests and missions, and radicalised by its war against the kulas and the plebs stabilises itself to the point where it is able to turn on its masters?

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Aug 31, 2022Liked by The Evolved Psyche

A great piece of writing here, Michael. I just received my shipment of The Managerial Class on Trial and I’m looking forward to the read. I already appreciate the font size choice; it’s easy on my old eyes without making me feel like I’m reading a child’s storybook. :-)

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