{"id":{"repo_id":"cambridge","oai_identifier":"oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/387389"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/cambridge/oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/387389","repository":{"repo_id":"cambridge","name":"Cambridge University","base_url":"https://api.repository.cam.ac.uk/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Anti-Imperialism and the Critique of Managerialism in Post- War American Thought, 1939–1995","abstract":"This thesis is a collective intellectual biography that reconsiders the relationship between anti- statism and social thought in post-war America. I look at a cluster of intellectuals who were critics of the Cold War, empire, and the managerial state, charting debates around these controversial topics from the late-1930s to the mid-1990s. Managerialism created a triad of new political dilemmas in post-war America. These can be condensed into three leading questions: a) are economic or non-economic factors behind elite formation? (b) has the rule of the expert created a new form of government? (c) was the world creeping faceless bureaucratic superstate? These questions concern agency, governance and international order respectively. The dissertation examines three groups of thinkers from 1939 onwards who were animated by the dilemmas posed by the managerial state through three respective preoccupations. For Post- Trotskyites Max Shachtman (1904–1972), C. L. R. James (1901–1989) and Murray Bookchin (1921–2006) the rise of statism led them to question whether it would be enough to abolish capitalism to achieve socialism. The Old Right, whom I examine through journalists Garret Garrett (1878–1954) and Felix Morley (1894–1982), interrogated whether the ‘old republic’ – which they reconstructed as sceptical of empire, the masses, and a champion of the market – could survive the coming of the New Deal. Finally, two of the main the protagonists of the thesis I look at, Murray Bookchin and Murray Rothbard, were the inheritors of these milieus. I follow Bookchin and Rothbard to the ‘end of history’ as they shape the emerging ecology and libertarian movements towards what I call a politics of limits. The conventional story of anti-statism in post-war America views it as undermining notions of community leading to an era of depoliticization, neoliberalism and fracture. I offer an alternative analysis that emphasises a politics of limits which looked to overcome managerialism by reducing the scale of politics: rejecting globalisation, delegation, and public debt. This rejection of modernity offers a road back to community and collective categories that have shaped ‘populism’, an ideal type embraced by Rothbard and Bookchin.","abstract_html":"This thesis is a collective intellectual biography that reconsiders the relationship between anti- statism and social thought in post-war America. I look at a cluster of intellectuals who were critics of the Cold War, empire, and the managerial state, charting debates around these controversial topics from the late-1930s to the mid-1990s. Managerialism created a triad of new political dilemmas in post-war America. These can be condensed into three leading questions: a) are economic or non-economic factors behind elite formation? (b) has the rule of the expert created a new form of government? (c) was the world creeping faceless bureaucratic superstate? These questions concern agency, governance and international order respectively. The dissertation examines three groups of thinkers from 1939 onwards who were animated by the dilemmas posed by the managerial state through three respective preoccupations. For Post- Trotskyites Max Shachtman (1904–1972), C. L. R. James (1901–1989) and Murray Bookchin (1921–2006) the rise of statism led them to question whether it would be enough to abolish capitalism to achieve socialism. The Old Right, whom I examine through journalists Garret Garrett (1878–1954) and Felix Morley (1894–1982), interrogated whether the ‘old republic’ – which they reconstructed as sceptical of empire, the masses, and a champion of the market – could survive the coming of the New Deal. Finally, two of the main the protagonists of the thesis I look at, Murray Bookchin and Murray Rothbard, were the inheritors of these milieus. I follow Bookchin and Rothbard to the ‘end of history’ as they shape the emerging ecology and libertarian movements towards what I call a politics of limits. The conventional story of anti-statism in post-war America views it as undermining notions of community leading to an era of depoliticization, neoliberalism and fracture. I offer an alternative analysis that emphasises a politics of limits which looked to overcome managerialism by reducing the scale of politics: rejecting globalisation, delegation, and public debt. This rejection of modernity offers a road back to community and collective categories that have shaped ‘populism’, an ideal type embraced by Rothbard and Bookchin.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Pallis, Sam"],"institution":"University of Cambridge","degree_name":"Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)","degree_level":"Doctoral","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Bourke, Richard"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2024,"date_issued":"2024-08-16","date_published":"2024-08-16","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:13Z","subjects":["American History","History of Political Thought"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/71691e9f-0026-43d5-94e8-3e51b856abe2/download","http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved"],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.120193","outbound_label":"DOI","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.doi"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Bourke, Richard"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Pallis, Sam"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2024-08-16"]},{"key":"dc:publisher.institution","label":"Dc Publisher Institution","values":["University of Cambridge"]},{"key":"dc:relation.isreferencedby.uri","label":"Dc Relation Isreferencedby URI","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/387389"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationlevel","label":"Dc Type Qualificationlevel","values":["Doctoral"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationname","label":"Dc Type Qualificationname","values":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["American History","History of Political Thought"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/71691e9f-0026-43d5-94e8-3e51b856abe2/download","http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargodate","label":"Dc Rights Embargodate","values":["2026-07-28"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargotype","label":"Dc Rights Embargotype","values":["embargo"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.doi","label":"DOI","values":["https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.120193"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/d819b010-6ae6-4576-894c-19fc90896b03/download"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This thesis is a collective intellectual biography that reconsiders the relationship between anti- statism and social thought in post-war America. 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