Burnham's Laws

Back almost 20 years ago, I used to have posted on my refrigerator an intriguing little list called "Burnham's Laws," brainchild of James Burnham:

1. Everybody knows everything.
   
2. Who says A must say B.
   
3. Just as good, isn't.
   
4. You cannot invest in retrospect.
   
5. Wherever there is prohibition there's a bootlegger.
   
6. In every project there's a Schlamm.
   
7. You can't divorce yourself.
   
8. Every member must pay his dues.
   
9. No excuse, sir.
   
10. If there's no alternative, there's no problem.

Burnham was a senior editor at National Review, and I hate to admit I'm old enough that I remember reading him— if I remember correctly, he was a Trotskyite-turned-conservative. His books The Managerial Revolution (1941) and The Suicide of the West (1964) are still worth a read. George Orwell based his threefold division of the world into Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, in 1984, on Burnham's analysis in The Managerial Revolution.