yeah, i went and found the thread and someone to what end he’s quoting it, and he was like “why does there need to be an end?”. trolly juvenile horseshit.
for additional context, Burnham believed that the phantom of liberals and liberalism could not contain the ruthless behavior and truly clever machinations of the "managerial/professional elite"
he believed that businessmen would rule and run the world in its entirety, always outwitting any others
Orwell had a similar feeling about him. Saw that Burnham had *something* right with how power was being consolidated, but the underlying analysis was bonkers ridiculous.
Burnham saw, but did not understand
Orwell's biggest criticism of Burnham was that he worshipped power - always welcoming Our New Overlords. Burnham went through a lot of ideological changes to try to be on the winning side.
A lot of the conservative thinking can be explained by "which side their bread was buttered on", like Milton Friedman's views on the deregulation of derivatives trading.
Hamid is simply against secular liberalism because he's a Muslim Brotherhood supporter.
Apparently it doesn't matter what kind of authoritarian someone is - Hamid will support them to destroy liberalism.
Also like a lot of tankies.
Hamid worked for Brookings - which takes so much Qatari money they have a Doha campus. So much respectable discourse about the ME is just plain paid for, but in this case the money amplifies a weirdo ideologue.
