Occasionally, we must admit we belong to an older generation with worldviews shaped by our specific generational experiences. This, at least, was what crossed my mind while reading the text of a young Swedish writer considering the question of whether our present-day culture wars could be the result of an elite overproduction in the form of an educational glut from a flawed educational system; often leading its actors into the fiercest battles, not infrequently unfairly waged, for the remaining high-status jobs. The most interesting thing about this reflection is its tribute to the forgotten American political scientist James Burnham, who’d analyzed an emerging new ruling class in the forties with the publication of his Managerial Revolution – incidentally, which significantly influenced George Orwell’s writing of 1984. In his referencing of this thinker, who was a Trotskyist that metamorphosed into a staunch conservative, Malcom Kyeyune finds a diagnosis for the present as something quite comparable: an emerging new Woke elite class that distinguishes themselves morally rather than economically while teaching the world of its possibility. He notices that they are engaging in a moral economy that can be used for career advancement, social status, and economic advantage, often at the economic and career expense of the disadvantage they supposedly represent. And because Malcolm still considers himself a Marxist, our conversation (even if it lightly crosses different eras, cultures, and continents) revolves around questioning what drives this strange moral economy.
Malcolm Kyeyune is a fearlessly provocative blogger and writer living in Uppsala, Sweden. He shouts for Aftonbladet but primarily for English-language venues like UnHerd, American Affair, and Compact Magazine.
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