MANAGERS, BANKERS, AND VAMPIRES

A BRIEF REFRESHER FOR RECENT SUBS

The benefit of this platform is that it provides the opportunity for us to flesh out our thinking in an intellectual community: e.g., I can benefit from your suggestions and critiques. The drawback is though that as a sustained conversation, those who join mid-conversation are at a clear disadvantage. Unless of course they’re willing to make the considerable investment in going back to the earliest posts and bringing themselves up to speed on how we/I got here. But of course the longer this conversation continues, the more prohibitively costly such an investment becomes. So we come to a point where newer subs may not be speaking the same language as the older ones.

So, in light of some comments I’ve received, it seemed it may be a wise investment on my part to delay the conversation a moment and provide a brief refresher on one of the key concepts used here. And one that I concede is subject to misunderstanding. That is the idea of the managerial class. A while back, someone left a comment, which I can’t find. (And, incidentally, if anyone reading this knows how to search all past comments, please let me know how its done.) But it was something to the effect that it is really bankers who run the world, and the managers just work for them. Then, back on my “culture industry” post, ultradarkmaga wrote:

but who does the managerial class serve? the uberrich like those in WEF or Bilderbergers?

I think the managerial class as a label really distracts from the real powers .... managers are toddies for vampires.

I think these comments are getting at a similar problem. And maybe the key idea is the emphasis upon the word “label.” I concede the term “managerial class” can be misleading to those who don’t know its history. I use it for two reasons. First, because in my estimation the most important theorist (though not the first) of this class used that term (i.e., James Burnham); and second, and more importantly, it was precisely as managers that this class first began its hegemonic capture of modern, western societies through the mass scaled, capital and science/engineering intensive industries of the second industrial revolution.¹ All this would be clear to anyone who either read my (must read!) book, The Managerial Class on Trial; have been reading along with this substack from early on; or had made the considerable (and much appreciated) investment of going back to the earlier posts (which I do try to regularly link) that lays all this out — admittedly somewhat more cursorily than in the book.

But, there has been considerable growth of this substack, with subs doubling since the beginning of the summer, so perhaps a quick refresher in what I mean by “managerial class” may be of value to some. And it would be nice to have a handy post to link back to if the issue arises again in the future. I do use the concept of class in a Marxian sense. Though in a sense I go well beyond Marx. These are themes I’ve touched on numerous times, in numerous ways, and won’t try to recount in this post (for examples: here, here and here). Suffice it so say for purposes here that I define a class by its objective relation to the mode of production, and the managerial class (quite distinct from the bourgeoise capitalist class) is characterized by its manipulation of symbols.

A brief quotation from my (must read!) book, The Managerial Class on Trial, might help clarify these points:

Unlike the other two classes, focused on in Marxist theory – the owners of productive capital, and the workers who sell their labor power to the owners and operate the machinery of productive capital – this new class is a class of managers that manipulate symbols (numeric or phonemic) to create narratives or systems that facilitate the productive process. In the private sector, these might be production schedules, marketing plans, human resource policies, corporate indemnity plans, etc. This constitutes a third set of relations to the mode of production, quite distinct from start-up investment and dividend return or manual operation of productive machinery.

So, this focus on symbol manipulation is key to identifying the operation and nature of what is being called here, for the reasons mentioned above, the managerial class. Obviously, the manipulation of symbols is ancient, and integral to, the evolutionary development of homo sapiens. But, so too are the practices of saving, investing, craftmanship and brute labor: traits characterizing other class’s relation to the mode of production. The point of class analysis under modern capitalism (for lack of a better word, and it’s not really a great one) has been the specialization in these skill realms. The managerial class is then a class with both skills and aptitude for symbol manipulation that distinguishes them from others.

And such aptitude, incidentally, distinguishes them phenotypically, which is why I claim such class analysis is really rooted in biology — not as Marx would have it, in economics. Economics is just one distinct evolutionary path toward heightened fitness, alongside politics and mating, to form the three key pillars of fitness enhancement. But that is a much more elaborate discussion than we can follow through here.

So, as should be clear by now, the managerial class (confusing as I concede the name might be for those not steeped in the relevant intellectual tradition) does not refer specifically to managers in some technical, organizational sense: mid-level functionaries, for instance. On the definition of the class, I also observe in the book:

In addition to explicitly trained managers, increasingly from business schools, it includes economists, engineers, psychologists, accountants, chemists, lawyers, journalists, professors, among many others.

And, as I’ve also discussed earlier on this substack, this symbol manipulating class eventually — in the U.S., escalating with the Wilson administration, and increasingly consolidated through the New Deal, then Great Society — captured control of government, where its intellectual conceit and verbal dexterity has increasingly given rise to the hegemony of managerial liberalism and its associated ethos of bureaucratic paternalism and social engineering. These are all topics covered in the book and past posts.

So when someone says the world is not run by managers, but by bankers, they’re missing the point. Banking today is largely a synthesis of economics, financial administration and advanced computing: managerial class skills to the core. Look at the background, education, and skill set of Jamie Dimon or Jerome Powell; how are they not the epitome of the managerial class? Likewise, I’m not sure who exactly ultradarkmaga has in mind as vampires (assuming the latter term is metaphorical). Would it be reasonable though to assume that for someone self-associated with MAGA, that Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab and George Soros might fit the bill? Same thing, look at the families in which they grew up, look at their formal education, look at the work they undertook: lawyers, bankers, economists, engineers, and the occasional computer programmer, everywhere you look. Again, all managerial class to the core.

So, if the objection is that the term “managerial class” is potentially misleading, I’ll concede that point. But I’m going to persist in using it both for the reasons cited above and because it maintains a resonance with the audience I am trying to reach.

In the last couple months I’ve zoomed tightly into analysis of what I’ve called the new populism. This is both because populism is the one and only true and native mass protest movement which is organic to North America (unlike socialism, syndicalism, or fascism), with a long, distinguished history. Yes, it has at times and places exhibited attitudes (e.g., bigotry, anti-intellectualism, and demagoguery) that many of us would not support. However, it has a much richer history than this common caricature, and the less salutary aspects have been exaggerated and misrepresented precisely because it is the organic political vehicle most threatening to the ruling class. And that is not only because of its history as the only native North American mass political movement challenging established power, but also, as I’ve been noting in earlier posts, under the hegemony of managerial liberalism and the ethos of the administrative state, populism today is inexorably locked into an existential, zero-sum, conflict with the very logic of the rule of the managerial class (see, here, here, and here).

I like to think that what I’m doing is helping to clarify these issues, and related considerations, in ways which might be beneficial to the best of the new populism. At the same time, I have no delusions that there are a lot of truckers, electricians, hair dressers, farmers, or miners reading this substack. Though, I’d like to think there are some. I certainly though make no pretense of speaking to or for that populist movement. Indeed, I hope I am managing to make a valuable contribution, as an obvious member of the managerial class, without succumbing to the dishonest ventriloquism characteristic of the rule of that class — also discussed elsewhere on this substack (here, here and here) and especially in my book.

I’m well aware though that I’m primarily speaking to other members of the managerial class, who like me find themselves, one way or another, within the broad categories of dissident or surplus class members. Perhaps, like me, they’ve simply always cheered for the underdog. Perhaps, they are perfectly content with managerial class rule, but find the globalist path of the current ruling faction simply too dangerous and destructive. Perhaps, they have more idealist visions of a society with a balance of class power, which would prevent the deformities arising from one class dominance. Perhaps, they’re motivated by nationalism. Or a commitment to reviving communal life, and its traditions.

Whatever the case, I appreciate that my audience is primarily (if not exclusively) other members of the managerial class and as such are well enough steeped in the traditions I’m drawing upon to either understand, or soon enough able to figure out, what I’m referring to by the designation of managerial class. And, again, there are posts (including this one) to which they can refer, as well of course as the book.

So, while I concede the limitations of the term, I’ll keep using it. Yes, hoping that the basic analysis and understanding of who the ruling class is and how it operates, some way or another, will circulate out to the men and women who are the lifeblood of the new populism. It’s not my job though to execute that circulation. It simply isn’t my strength.

If that’s not a satisfactory explanation, I hope that it is at least a clearly stated one.

In any event, if you’d like to follow along in this extended intellectual endeavor of unpacking the communitarian project of the new populism, and haven’t yet, please…

1. Though, of course, as I’ve observed elsewhere on this substack, the current iteration is not the first time that the symbol manipulating class has gained hegemonic power (see here). In fact, any time that a society makes a major technological advancement for its age, that class likely gains a hegemonic advantage.