Their World and Ours

A decade ago only a few dozen Americans, most of them actively committed pro-or anti-Communists, were seriously concerned with Communism and the Soviet Union. Today the production of articles, monographs and books on things Communist is a booming national industry, with thousands on its payroll.

This industry, like others, has been quantified and standardized according to the norms of mass production technology. Its economic function is to absorb institutional (foundation and government) funds through the manufacture, by the most efficient (i-e., most costly) methods, of Ph.D.’s and scholarly publications. To carry out this function on a mass basis, the IQ level for personnel recruitment is reduced to about 110. Publication criteria are so conceived that routine training, without any need for special talent, will be sufficient qualification for manning the assembly lines that must turn out units according to the production plan. This can be readily done by devising lengthy programs for collating texts and collecting “depth interviews,” each variant of which (often done largely by computer) constitutes a book or monograph.

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James Burnham

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A decade ago only a few dozen Americans, most of them actively committed pro-or anti-Communists, were seriously concerned with Communism and the Soviet Union. Today the production of articles, monographs and books on things Communist is a booming national industry, with thousands on its payroll.

This industry, like others, has been quantified and standardized according to the norms of mass production technology. Its economic function is to absorb institutional (foundation and government) funds through the manufacture, by the most efficient (i-e., most costly) methods, of Ph.D.’s and scholarly publications. To carry out this function on a mass basis, the IQ level for personnel recruitment is reduced to about 110. Publication criteria are so conceived that routine training, without any need for special talent, will be sufficient qualification for manning the assembly lines that must turn out units according to the production plan. This can be readily done by devising lengthy programs for collating texts and collecting “depth interviews,” each variant of which (often done largely by computer) constitutes a book or monograph.