You say potato, I say po-tah-tow.

“Technocracy” is a more recent internet labeling of what James Burnham was describing in his seminal (and boring, I own an original copy and slogged through it) 1941 work “The Managerial Revolution”.

Bit of an odd cat himself. JB was a stalwart cold warrior and arch conservative (started National Review), but was also hard corps CIA and in charge of hundreds of millions of dollars directing the “Committee for Cultural Freedom” in France, Germany, Italy, etc pushing anything “anti communist” during the Cold War, co-opting any Western European ideas that didn’t promote US supremacy, even if that meant non-communist leftism. All kinds of illegal stuff going on here.

George Orwell famously authored 1984. Everyone here has been taught that it was an anti-communist polemic. It was probably a warning by Orwell to the West that the post Western world order was not what it seemed. Orwell, who was British intelligence during WW2, refused to go along with CIA fronts to reshape Western thought through covert and extremely well funded mass cultural influence campaigns.

Orwell probably wrote himself as the protagonist Winston in 1984…fighting the good fight for truth, but ultimately saw the futility of it. Burnham was O’Brian…constantly revising history to meet the Party’s needs. The “1984” title wasn’t a future vision: it was a direct attack against the current British PM, Attlee…1948.

One of the famous lines “The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.” Seems ridiculous.

Then remember: western powers were sending troops, money, and experts to fight communism in the Soviet Union to support the White Army during their civil war.

WWII: whoops! Stalin is awesome! Now he’s “Uncle Joe”. He gets unlimited assistance, at the expense of our allies and NOT A PENNY ever paid back (unlike the UK, on the hook until early 2000’s)

Cold War: Soviets Bad!



When it comes to great nations, there is only one constant: POWER.

When it comes to governance, there is only one method: bureaucracy. “Experts”, “technocrats”, or “managerialism”.

(I love James Burnham for his book “Suicide of the West”. I also know he’d consider me grist for the US empire mill and a useful stooge, if he considered me at all. Democracy is a sham.).

TLDR: Recommend “The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters by Francis Sondor Saunders” for a good read in CIA activities in Europe post WWII through 1967 when they got caught and had to retool.