Managerialism: The Archenemy of Freedom

What can be done in the face of this pernicious ideology?

Last week, N.S. Lyons at The Upheaval wrote what might be the most important substack post of the year. It’s certainly one of the most comprehensive. Its title was “The China Convergence” and its topic was the convergence of American and Chinese institutions into similar systems aimed at total social control. Lyons (following James Burnham) calls this system “managerialism” and his article neatly updates Burnham’s take for the 21st century. I’ve already re-stacked “The China Convergence” here at Tree of Woe; if you haven’t read it, stop reading this post now and go read that one first.

Lyons ends his essay with this powerful paragraph:

Humanity’s great task of the 21st century remains fundamentally the same as that left unfinished in the battles of the 20th: to reawaken and reassert the flame of the human spirt and reclaim its tradition of and natural right to self-governance. And then with that spirit, wielding the fire and sword of true human love and freedom, truth and right reason, to rise up in counter-revolution against the evil of its archenemy and tear the false order of managerialism and all its poisonous ideological spawn root and branch from the world forever.

Amen. Lyons has told us what must be done. But how can, and how ought, we do what must be done? This, Lyons leaves unanswered. He has probably spoken of it in private — because no one can say it in public.

Nor can I, which is why you should…

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