12 Facts About James Burnham

James Burnham was an American philosopher and political theorist.

James Burnham chaired the New York University Department of Philosophy; his first book was An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis.

James Burnham later rejected Marxism and became an even more influential theorist of the political right as a leader of the American conservative movement.

James Burnham rejected containment of the Soviet Union and called for the rollback of communism worldwide.

James Burnham supported the 1934 merger with the Communist League of America which formed the US Workers Party.

In 1941, James Burnham wrote a book analyzing the development of economics and society as he saw it, called The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World.

James Burnham thought in terms of a hegemonic world, instead of a balance of power:.

James Burnham died of kidney and liver cancer at home in Kent, Connecticut, on July 28,1987.

James Burnham was buried in Kent on August 1,1987.

James Burnham weighed three possibilities: that capitalism was a permanent form of social and economic organization and would continue indefinitely; that it was temporary and destined by its nature to collapse and be replaced by socialism; that it was currently being transformed into some non-socialist future form of society.

James Burnham expanded this concept, arguing that whether ownership was corporate and private or statist and governmental, the essential demarcation between the ruling elite and the mass of society was not ownership so much as control of the means of production.

James Burnham defined political ideologies as syndromes afflicting their proponents with various internal contradictions.