"IF THEY WANT PEACE AND PLENTY AND FREEDOM, THEY WILL SWEEP ASIDE YOUR MANAGERS AND MANAGERIAL INSTITUTIONS AND ANYTHING AND EVERYONE ELSE THAT STAND IN THEIR WAY"

BURNHAM, James. The Managerial Revolutions. What Is Happening in the World. New York: John Day, (1941). Octavo, original orange cloth, original dust jacket. $3600.

First edition of this work warning about the end of the capitalism and the rise of bureaucracy in the form of despotic rule by managers.

This book is a warning about managers, framing World War II not as a war about fascism, but rather as a war about the managerial society. The question Burnham presents is whether the United States has reached the end of capitalism and whether the United States will ultimately succumb to rule by managers. The threat, he argues, is that control is becoming divorced from access—in other words, property rights increasingly are being divided between owners and management. Capitalism cannot survive in a world in which owners are functionally unable to use that which they own. Burnham intends this volume to warn, but offers no solutions, other than a total realignment of thought.

Book fine, scarce dust jacket nearly so.