I enjoyed the piece immensely, especially that quote of the old colonial solider (if I ever heard anything could explain the Taliban's victory it was that).
Good breakdown of the evolution of this group through the different economic systems.
As to the current as is PMC, my feelings on that are I'm beyond exhausted of the group with three car garages telling me that I'm the asshole while they lift the ladder up for themselves.
All the while hiding behind performative platitudes and sneering at those who don't behave per high court protocols.
If your thesis is correct, depressingly I shouldn't be hopeful of them evolving or changing for the better.
I have a theory about "woke"/idpol and the PMC and why it is such a thing. Yes, some managers are necessary in the world we inhabit, but by and large, they are a bloated, self-serving, and self-sustaining class. You need workers. In a capitalist system, you need owners. But you do not *need* managers, at least not in the numbers we have them or at least not "professional" and "educated to be" managers. There was a time when you worked your way up the employment rung *to* the managerial class. Think of the person working the factory line that eventually runs the whole factories simply by dint of "people" skills and knowing the factory and process. But that doesn't happen anymore. You bring in an outside person who has theories and book learning but little practical knowledge. The PMC class could be whittled down to nothing and everything would still run smoothly, perhaps more smoothly. And I have a feeling the PMC class, at its heart, *knows* this.
Idpol or "wokeness" falls along the same lines. It is a self-serving and self-sustaining ideology (some might say religion) of no practical use whatsoever. In fact, it often is used to obscure the *real* problems. So that the two would attract each other is no great surprise.
One of the best meta analyses I’ve read in a while. Very illuminating in that it brings clarity and historical context to a phenomenon that I’m sure most of your readers have intuited to some extent by now. Well done.
I'm of the opinion that on most issues of substance the Dems and the Republicans behave almost as a uniparty, with Republicans playing the role of the controlled opposition. But I think you're right when you claim that the Dems are more aligned with PMC interests, which, in turn, makes me think Republicans align more with the capitalist class.
Still, I agree with the general thrust of the piece. In their opposition to the workers and the middle class, the two ruling classes seems to molding into some new, unholy behemoth. God help us.
Great article. I am reminded of my distant relative and similar thoughts he had on the subject:
“It is the bureaucratic socializers—if I may devise that label for the champions of a lawyer-manager-politician-intellectual revolution—who constitute a real and subtle threat to America’s democracy.”
Please do not ever defend quoting or referencing anyone. Just do it and let readers react as they will.
I hope I shall not be the first person to ever note that Marx was a fucked-up loser who lived off the baffling forbearance of his wealthy friends towards his ravings and his ill-temper and his greed. It's a sad lesson about the intellectual capacity of the literate class that he became the means of destroying so many lives in so many ways.
That New Englander was right, and I'll say what he didn't articulate in a lengthy dissertational retort to a silly question: Philosophers make a living by telling everyone else what they ought to do, and normal people are motivated by practical responses to the actual problems in front of them.
I spent all my full-time working life as a typical office indentured servant, and I've no love anywhere for the oppressive class, but I got to go home after my specified daily term of labor and the fate of the business (or mostly the persistence of the nonprofit entity) wasn't my headache. Owners have a right to profit because they take on so much risk; they shouldn't be allowed to abuse the workforce but they ain't all and entirely Snidely Whiplashes.
Civilization's eternal conundrum is that the hamlet is too small to survive in isolation and once you start growing communities, every ill enters with each good. An eternal battle between stasis and change. It's not so complicated as those who make a living from thinking all the time will try to convince you.
Another really excellent piece! More good reading recommendations, also. I look forward to your analysis, which is getting better and better. But I do agree with another poster that this was missing the lynchpin issue of chattel slavery, which malformed America's economy, culture and history, in deep structural ways that we are now paying the price for.
One of the amazing things hinted at in this excellent piece is how if you know any upscale urban PMC members (which is basically my tribe), they all fervently believe that they are loyal devoted defenders of the downtrodden and that they've dedicated a large chunk of their lives to fighting oppression.
My friends are all mostly middle-aged, settled deep into their careers and relatively well-off (and of course I love them all), they vote in every election for Team Blue or even DSA, they want open borders and Trans rights and obey every BLM demand, and of course they passionately loathe anyone even remotely right-coded (Deplorables of course are beyond the pale).
But since I am an annoying contrary skeptic, I occasionally remind them that illegal immigration may have negative effects on working-class wages, that gender theory is blatant nonsense, and that not every demand for "Diversity" or "Representation" may be valid or in good faith, and that perhaps (for my friends in arts/culture) segregation of the imagination may have some negative consequences. To which of course they respond to by putting their hands over their ears and yelling RACIST!! until I shut up.
I guess my point is that not only have the PMC hoovered up all the loot, they've also managed to craft and exalt a morality that basks them in holy righteous light and makes any dissenter feel vaguely shameful, as if questioning any item on the Social Justice agenda is like stealing change from a blind beggar.
Hey, almost anyone can do well and almost anyone can do good, but doing well while doing good (or at least looking like it) may just be the real American Dream.
Incisive and persuasive. Easily worth the annual subscription on its own.
I wonder at your thoughts about the new (well, probably not really new) groups within the intra-elite battles. For people like me (and probably many other readers), we are a part of the PMC, but we reject its current dominant ethos. We are not members of the ownership class (except insofar as most PMC members are through the complex ownership relationships in contemporary capitalism), and yet we oppose the PMC's dominant ideology. I doubt we (I, at least) could claim to be champions of the working class, nor tremendously more moral than the PMC. Perhaps we're merely small-c conservative and rebel against the new power structures of the PMC in favor of existing classical liberal enlightenment values, indirectly aligning ourselves with the ownership class.
I enjoyed the piece immensely, especially that quote of the old colonial solider (if I ever heard anything could explain the Taliban's victory it was that).
Good breakdown of the evolution of this group through the different economic systems.
As to the current as is PMC, my feelings on that are I'm beyond exhausted of the group with three car garages telling me that I'm the asshole while they lift the ladder up for themselves.
All the while hiding behind performative platitudes and sneering at those who don't behave per high court protocols.
If your thesis is correct, depressingly I shouldn't be hopeful of them evolving or changing for the better.
You always write the most thoughtful articles.
I have a theory about "woke"/idpol and the PMC and why it is such a thing. Yes, some managers are necessary in the world we inhabit, but by and large, they are a bloated, self-serving, and self-sustaining class. You need workers. In a capitalist system, you need owners. But you do not *need* managers, at least not in the numbers we have them or at least not "professional" and "educated to be" managers. There was a time when you worked your way up the employment rung *to* the managerial class. Think of the person working the factory line that eventually runs the whole factories simply by dint of "people" skills and knowing the factory and process. But that doesn't happen anymore. You bring in an outside person who has theories and book learning but little practical knowledge. The PMC class could be whittled down to nothing and everything would still run smoothly, perhaps more smoothly. And I have a feeling the PMC class, at its heart, *knows* this.
Idpol or "wokeness" falls along the same lines. It is a self-serving and self-sustaining ideology (some might say religion) of no practical use whatsoever. In fact, it often is used to obscure the *real* problems. So that the two would attract each other is no great surprise.
One of the best meta analyses I’ve read in a while. Very illuminating in that it brings clarity and historical context to a phenomenon that I’m sure most of your readers have intuited to some extent by now. Well done.
Awesome piece, congrats. Very thought provoking.
I'm of the opinion that on most issues of substance the Dems and the Republicans behave almost as a uniparty, with Republicans playing the role of the controlled opposition. But I think you're right when you claim that the Dems are more aligned with PMC interests, which, in turn, makes me think Republicans align more with the capitalist class.
Still, I agree with the general thrust of the piece. In their opposition to the workers and the middle class, the two ruling classes seems to molding into some new, unholy behemoth. God help us.
Great article. I am reminded of my distant relative and similar thoughts he had on the subject:
“It is the bureaucratic socializers—if I may devise that label for the champions of a lawyer-manager-politician-intellectual revolution—who constitute a real and subtle threat to America’s democracy.”
~ Max Eastman
Reflections on the Failure of Socialism
Please do not ever defend quoting or referencing anyone. Just do it and let readers react as they will.
I hope I shall not be the first person to ever note that Marx was a fucked-up loser who lived off the baffling forbearance of his wealthy friends towards his ravings and his ill-temper and his greed. It's a sad lesson about the intellectual capacity of the literate class that he became the means of destroying so many lives in so many ways.
That New Englander was right, and I'll say what he didn't articulate in a lengthy dissertational retort to a silly question: Philosophers make a living by telling everyone else what they ought to do, and normal people are motivated by practical responses to the actual problems in front of them.
I spent all my full-time working life as a typical office indentured servant, and I've no love anywhere for the oppressive class, but I got to go home after my specified daily term of labor and the fate of the business (or mostly the persistence of the nonprofit entity) wasn't my headache. Owners have a right to profit because they take on so much risk; they shouldn't be allowed to abuse the workforce but they ain't all and entirely Snidely Whiplashes.
Civilization's eternal conundrum is that the hamlet is too small to survive in isolation and once you start growing communities, every ill enters with each good. An eternal battle between stasis and change. It's not so complicated as those who make a living from thinking all the time will try to convince you.
Excellent piece. Subscribed.
Damn it, Leighton. Blowing my mind again! The second post by you that requires killing trees (aka printing hard copy).
Brilliant! Have you seen better, have you read better? Not me.
Another really excellent piece! More good reading recommendations, also. I look forward to your analysis, which is getting better and better. But I do agree with another poster that this was missing the lynchpin issue of chattel slavery, which malformed America's economy, culture and history, in deep structural ways that we are now paying the price for.
Absolutely fascinating
One of the amazing things hinted at in this excellent piece is how if you know any upscale urban PMC members (which is basically my tribe), they all fervently believe that they are loyal devoted defenders of the downtrodden and that they've dedicated a large chunk of their lives to fighting oppression.
My friends are all mostly middle-aged, settled deep into their careers and relatively well-off (and of course I love them all), they vote in every election for Team Blue or even DSA, they want open borders and Trans rights and obey every BLM demand, and of course they passionately loathe anyone even remotely right-coded (Deplorables of course are beyond the pale).
But since I am an annoying contrary skeptic, I occasionally remind them that illegal immigration may have negative effects on working-class wages, that gender theory is blatant nonsense, and that not every demand for "Diversity" or "Representation" may be valid or in good faith, and that perhaps (for my friends in arts/culture) segregation of the imagination may have some negative consequences. To which of course they respond to by putting their hands over their ears and yelling RACIST!! until I shut up.
I guess my point is that not only have the PMC hoovered up all the loot, they've also managed to craft and exalt a morality that basks them in holy righteous light and makes any dissenter feel vaguely shameful, as if questioning any item on the Social Justice agenda is like stealing change from a blind beggar.
Hey, almost anyone can do well and almost anyone can do good, but doing well while doing good (or at least looking like it) may just be the real American Dream.
Great article.
Have you read any of Joel Kotkin's work? "The Coming of Neo-feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class", or "The New Class Conflict"?
The answer to your penultimate paragraph is explained pretty well in Sam Francis' update on Burnham, "Leviathan and its Enemies".
Incisive and persuasive. Easily worth the annual subscription on its own.
I wonder at your thoughts about the new (well, probably not really new) groups within the intra-elite battles. For people like me (and probably many other readers), we are a part of the PMC, but we reject its current dominant ethos. We are not members of the ownership class (except insofar as most PMC members are through the complex ownership relationships in contemporary capitalism), and yet we oppose the PMC's dominant ideology. I doubt we (I, at least) could claim to be champions of the working class, nor tremendously more moral than the PMC. Perhaps we're merely small-c conservative and rebel against the new power structures of the PMC in favor of existing classical liberal enlightenment values, indirectly aligning ourselves with the ownership class.
Piketty has updated Burnheim.
https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/137/1/1/6383014?login=false