- 01 Dec 2017 03:08
#14867091
Modern ideologies have moved to a point where this is quite viable, depending on how you define it.
Totalitarian, thus far, we are using as an umbrella term that includes fascism, communism, capitalism, and liberal democracy.
If we are to use these definitions. Which seem acceptable enough to me.
And then it mentions:
While true, this does very little to define the term. Between these two instances, it had already been old news that the communists thought of fascism and capitalism as the same kind of totalitarianism; capitalists thought communists and fascists were the same kind of totalitarianism; and fascists thought that communists and capitalists were the same kind of totalitarianism. For instance:
I see no reason to presume this. The citation I provided, from the same source Wiki pulls from, goes into more detail.
Nor do I see any reason to cxatorgize any of the mentioned ideologies as totalitarian and exclude the Juche.
1. Certainly every system with a guiding ideology has a guiding ideology. If we accept that capitalism is an elaborate guiding ideology, than I agree.
2. Capitalism historically has only allowed a mass capitalist party that does not veer from capitalist form, manner, and ideology. If not in funding and support, than by outright lies and assassination by the government. If we accept capitalism as totalitarian in this respect, then I agree.
3. As mentioned earlier, the US has a higher percentage of imprisoned citizens than anywhere else on the planet; and the UK are remembered as vile butchers in every place they've been (shown in pink and with the exception of most of the British Island itself). So if we accept that capitalism uses terror, such as violence and a secret police (see above) than I accept this definition.
4. Since the Soviet Union was heavily armed in order to fight the Russian Civil War, its best marksman in WWII were people that had practiced with rifles their entire lives, and even by the 80s 90% of the population outside of cities hunted, I'm not sure it would be accurate to say that the Soviet State had a monopoly on weapons. Hitler loosened gun restriction laws in Nazi Germany when taking powers, so it's difficult to give the fascists a monopoly on weapons; and with the exception of the US, every capitalist state keeps enforcing more and more control over weapons. This said, I don't think this is a worthwhile criteria.
5. In a capitalist country, the capitalists have the monopoly on the media.
the Capitalist Business Insider mostly agrees.
The other two I'll concede as well. This is not a particularly good system to measure this by.
6. The fascists had as much directions and control of the economy during war time as the capitalist powers did. Arguably, the British had more (being something on the initial losing end).
Further, even if we go back to any ancient society, the state reserved there right to meddle with the economy in anyway it so pleased.
I do not think that this makes a good part of a definition for totalitarianism.
Alis Volat Propriis; Tiocfaidh ár lá; Proletarier Aller Länder, Vereinigt Euch!
SolarCross wrote:@The Immortal Goon
So everyone is totalitarian? "Capitalism" and "liberal democracy" are also totalitarian?
Modern ideologies have moved to a point where this is quite viable, depending on how you define it.
Maybe the former is a kind of fascism or fascism is a kind of capitalism whichever suits your narrative. And maybe liberal democracy is a kind of communism and therefore also totalitarian. Is this what you are saying?
Totalitarian, thus far, we are using as an umbrella term that includes fascism, communism, capitalism, and liberal democracy.
If so then isn't that kind of answering my earlier question? That when talking with communists and fascists (on pofo for example) it always seems to devolve into the assumption that the only choice is between communism and fascism both of which are totalitarian by anyone's definition. So you are essentially affirming my speculation that totalitarianism is the only thing on the menu.
If we are to use these definitions. Which seem acceptable enough to me.
From the wiki article it is clear the concept was first used by nazis or fascists to describe fascism. Then later your mate Carr is using it to describe the Soviet system.
And then it mentions:
Wiki wrote:The concept became prominent in Western political discourse as a concept that highlights similarities between Fascist states and the Soviet Union.
While true, this does very little to define the term. Between these two instances, it had already been old news that the communists thought of fascism and capitalism as the same kind of totalitarianism; capitalists thought communists and fascists were the same kind of totalitarianism; and fascists thought that communists and capitalists were the same kind of totalitarianism. For instance:
Trotsky, in 1938, wrote:A moralizing Philistine’s favorite method is the lumping of reaction’s conduct with that of revolution. He achieves success in this device through recourse to formal analogies. To him czarism and Bolshevism are twins. Twins are likewise discovered in fascism and communism. An inventory is compiled of the common features in Catholicism – or more specifically, Jesuitism – and Bolshevism. Hitler and Mussolini, utilizing from their side exactly the same method, disclose that liberalism, democracy, and Bolshevism represent merely different manifestations of one and the same evil. The conception that Stalinism and Trotskyism are “essentially” one and the same now enjoys the joint approval of liberals, democrats, devout Catholics, idealists, pragmatists, and anarchists. If the Stalinists are unable to adhere to this “People’s Front”, then it is only because they are accidentally occupied with the extermination of Trotskyists.
The fundamental feature of these approchements and similitudes lies in their completely ignoring the material foundation of the various currents, that is, their class nature and by that token their objective historical role. Instead they evaluate and classify different currents according to some external and secondary manifestation, most often according to their relation to one or another abstract principle which for the given classifier has a special professional value. Thus to the Roman pope Freemasons and Darwinists, Marxists and anarchists are twins because all of them sacrilegiously deny the immaculate conception. To Hitler, liberalism and Marxism are twins because they ignore “blood and honor”. To a democrat, fascism and Bolshevism are twins because they do not bow before universal suffrage. And so forth.
It seems Carr is exulting in the triumph of one kind of totalitarianism over another kind of totalitarianism. I guess if he were alive today he would be exulting in the success of Juche which is still pluckily defying "western imperialism" while the Soviets are dead and buried?
I see no reason to presume this. The citation I provided, from the same source Wiki pulls from, goes into more detail.
Nor do I see any reason to cxatorgize any of the mentioned ideologies as totalitarian and exclude the Juche.
What do you think of the 6 point anatomy of totalitarianism as given by Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski?
Elaborate guiding ideology.Single mass party, typically led by a dictator.
System of terror, using such instruments as violence and secret police.
Monopoly on weapons.
Monopoly on the means of communication.
Central direction and control of the economy through state planning.
Does this more detailed and specific breakdown not at least create the possibility of non-totalitarian societies existing at least in theory?
1. Certainly every system with a guiding ideology has a guiding ideology. If we accept that capitalism is an elaborate guiding ideology, than I agree.
2. Capitalism historically has only allowed a mass capitalist party that does not veer from capitalist form, manner, and ideology. If not in funding and support, than by outright lies and assassination by the government. If we accept capitalism as totalitarian in this respect, then I agree.
3. As mentioned earlier, the US has a higher percentage of imprisoned citizens than anywhere else on the planet; and the UK are remembered as vile butchers in every place they've been (shown in pink and with the exception of most of the British Island itself). So if we accept that capitalism uses terror, such as violence and a secret police (see above) than I accept this definition.
4. Since the Soviet Union was heavily armed in order to fight the Russian Civil War, its best marksman in WWII were people that had practiced with rifles their entire lives, and even by the 80s 90% of the population outside of cities hunted, I'm not sure it would be accurate to say that the Soviet State had a monopoly on weapons. Hitler loosened gun restriction laws in Nazi Germany when taking powers, so it's difficult to give the fascists a monopoly on weapons; and with the exception of the US, every capitalist state keeps enforcing more and more control over weapons. This said, I don't think this is a worthwhile criteria.
5. In a capitalist country, the capitalists have the monopoly on the media.
Lenin wrote:Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich--that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the “petty”--supposedly petty--details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for “paupers”!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc.,--we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been inclose contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.
the Capitalist Business Insider mostly agrees.
The other two I'll concede as well. This is not a particularly good system to measure this by.
6. The fascists had as much directions and control of the economy during war time as the capitalist powers did. Arguably, the British had more (being something on the initial losing end).
Further, even if we go back to any ancient society, the state reserved there right to meddle with the economy in anyway it so pleased.
I do not think that this makes a good part of a definition for totalitarianism.
Alis Volat Propriis; Tiocfaidh ár lá; Proletarier Aller Länder, Vereinigt Euch!