Political Interest wrote:Can a one party state be benevolent and gentle or must it always consist of psychotic sadists who are willing to hurt people to maintain poewr?
This is for me the biggest issue I have with authoritarian systems, not that they deny freedom but that the maintenance of such forms of government entails hurting innocent people.
Can we have a one party state without this sort of craziness?
Any state where the concept of authority is real, is a state that is hierarchical,thus there is in place a 'controlling power', even in a dictatorship, the structure is hierarchical, 'control & power' are the modus operandi of virtually all state systems.
On a lesser level of organisation, the Israeli Kibbutz is closest to an egalitarian state at the community level & without the burden of ideology behind it.
In a dog eats dog world, I'm not sure that one could survive at a national level as it's like stretching something until it breaks, of course, in principle, people share, as opposed to own the products of their labour thereof, though some variations do exist on that theme of collectivism.
From the economic point of view, I suppose it could expand to satisfy all demands on it,including individual or selfish taste, provided one & all adhere to the fundamental principals of sharing.