1. Very interesting @IChotiner interview with Michael Lind about Lind's attempt to craft a high-brow Trumpism (although that's perhaps not how Lind would describe it).
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2. One of Lind's moves is to draw a contrast between the managerial elite and the working class. He defines the managerial elite broadly as a matter of college education or higher. He cites mid-century theorist James Burnham as source for this concept.pic.twitter.com/BU9mtFYybZ
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3. Not to pull a Marshal McLuhan in Annie Hall, but as it happens I'm one of the few people alive who has read everything James Burnham wrote. And I can assure you he explicitly rejected the Lind idea that the managerial elite was defined by culture & education.
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4. Here's Burnham in 1978 (reviewing Alfred Chandler's great Visible Hand) arguing that the managerial elite are the people who actually run the large corporations, notpic.twitter.com/UFSPbRrPoP
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5. Lind: cultural shapers & post-college are managerial elite. Burnham: “Who hires and fires whom? How many men can Norman Mailer or Walter Cronkite set in motion when he picks up the telephone , compared to Harold Geneen or What’s-His-Name at the top of IBM? Come now.”
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6. Burnham, as befits an ex-Marxist admired by Trotsky himself, had a far more materialist & economic understanding of managerial elite power than Lind. Lind's ideas aren't from Burnham but reheated 1970s neo-con "New Class" discourse.
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7. So why is Lind wrongly citing Burnham rather than the 1970s neo-cons (Kristol, Moynihan) who theorized New Class Because Lind wants to jump on Trump bandwagon & Burnham is (via Samuel Francis) much admired by paleo-con Trumpists. It's all marketing, not intellectual history
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8. Anyways, you can read the Lind interview here and keep in mind that what Lind is saying about Burnham is -- to use the politest possible term -- bullshit.https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/michael-lind-on-populism-racism-and-restoring-democracy …
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4. (Revised) 4. Here's Burnham in 1978 (reviewing Alfred Chandler's great Visible Hand) arguing that the managerial elite are the people who actually run the large corporations, not novelists and media people!pic.twitter.com/7rZawlUrJB
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Jeet Heer Retweeted Mike Konczal
9. One way to think about all this is that a lot of New Class theory (and, on the left, PMC theory) is about blaming the ills of oligarchy on a subset of the junior partners of oligarchy. It's the socialism of foolish pundits.https://twitter.com/rortybomb/status/1225509036659007488 …
Jeet Heer added,
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Replying to @HeerJeet

How Mr. Choitner did his homework of Mr. Lind is fascinating here...0 replies 0 retweets 0 likesThanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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