11 ms·

Inverted totalitarianism

jpttsn 13y ago
Interesting. I'd question the "totalizing dynamics" part. In my view Wolin couples two arguments unnecessarily tightly: * Today's govt. marketing makes it seem more legitimate than it is. Democracy is vulnerable to a panem-et-circenses strategy. * If citizens' needs are not satisfied by a welfare state, they are rendered helpless enough to be managed by a veiled totalitarian regime. The former is an interesting problem, expressed well. The latter is more concerning. Are opinions (votes) really worthless just because voters are exposed to economic realities? I don't think democracy rests on voters being "secure" (in the welfare state sense) when they make their decision. Classically the line is drawn at secret/anonymous voting. OP suggests voters also need to have their economy guaranteed, if their votes are to give the government any legitimacy. That's very different.
- canadaduane 13y ago
  > I don't think democracy rests on voters being "secure" (in the welfare state sense) when they make their decision. This is a really interesting question/assertion. I lean toward security being necessary for good decision making. For example, people whose time is spent primarily on "getting by" will have far less time and psychological wherewithal to propose new ideas that meet their needs and the group; creative problem solving is less likely[1]. They may be able to voice their opinion on a multiple-choice proposal, however, which could pass as democracy I suppose. A smaller number of people may have a creative ability that is inversely related to stress--necessity is the mother of invention and all that. But I don't think that is a majority, and perhaps unfortunately, democracy depends on the psychological traits of the majority. [1] http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/strsbeta.htm http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/strsbeta.htm
  - jpttsn 13y ago
    Oh, surely. But as democratic thinkers, we don't trust the public by reason of their good decision making.
- 4bpp 13y ago
  The second point does mesh quite well with my observations regarding the system. If you question a fairly randomly sampled member of the populace as to why they would choose to vote for one of the established political parties rather than a new or minor party that may represent their position on most issues much more closely, the answer you will get will invariably be some sort of invocation of a fear of economical downturn or collapse, as only "experienced" or, in a somewhat Kafkaesque turn, outright industry-coddling politicians are trusted to know what is good for the economy. The net effect is that anything that the established parties have a consensus on is effectively impossible to challenge in the political system (and no member of either established party has much of an incentive to break the consensus); it is hard to imagine that this would be the case to the same extent if the majority of voters did not consider their economical situation to be in some sense precarious or unsatisfactory.
  - XorNot 13y ago
    This is a uniquely American view on the situation. In America, unless your favored major party holds overwhelming dominance, then voting for any third party is actively voting against your own interests. Its easier to lobby within a party to change things then try and form a new one, given the way the first past the post voting system in the US works. In countries without one, new parties can form and gain some influence all the time.
  - jpttsn 13y ago
    Perhaps; it seems obvious. I'm not debating that point. The premise of democracy is that the will of the governed gives legitimacy to power. This (I argue) doesn't presuppose that the governed have security of income, a positive view of the future of the nation, perfect information, or anything like that. What matters is they choose, not their reasons for choosing.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >I don't think democracy rests on voters being "secure" (in the welfare state sense) when they make their decision. No, an insecure population can also act democratically, but it's much more easier to pressure it.
  - jpttsn 13y ago
    Right. Pressure, though, doesn't invalidate their decision. Cfr. how a purchase is valid even if you saw an ad for the product.
    - lotharbot 13y ago
      Likewise, deciding to buy lunch is not somehow invalidated by being really hungry. In a sense, we consider the pressure of our appetite to validate the purchase of lunch. Decisions in response to circumstances and prevailing conditions are completely valid.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      >Right. Pressure, though, doesn't invalidate their decision. Cfr. how a purchase is valid even if you saw an ad for the product. It might not invalidate it legally or procedurally, but it invalidates it in the spirit of democracy (each deciding what he deems best, not what he was pressured to vote in order to get something unrelated to the issue under voting).
      - jpttsn 13y ago
        The idea is that secret voting rules out anyone being individually held liable for how they choose to vote. The sort of pressure OP is talking about is more vague: the pressure of having some skin in the game. I can't imagine what elections would be without that pressure. The democratic spirit of "what he/she deems best" doesn't rule out the influence of reality over voters' decisions.
- rayiner 13y ago
  The second argument is also nonsensical. The welfare state is larger today than it ever has been. The key difference is that old people have taken over as the primary beneficiaries. And they're more politically active then any other group. Ironically, they also support many of the "external" policies Wolin rejects.
spindritf 13y ago
In the same vein, there's also anarcho-tyranny[1] coined by Samuel Francis What we have in this country today, then, is both anarchy (the failure of the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny – the enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes; the criminalization of the law-abiding and innocent through exorbitant taxation, bureaucratic regulation, the invasion of privacy, and the engineering of social institutions, such as the family and local schools; the imposition of thought control through "sensitivity training" and multiculturalist curricula, "hate crime" laws, gun-control laws that punish or disarm otherwise law-abiding citizens but have no impact on violent criminals who get guns illegally, and a vast labyrinth of other measures. In a word, anarcho-tyranny. which is sort of inverted authoritarianism. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_T._Francis#Anarcho-tyranny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_T._Francis#Anarcho-tyra...
- rayiner 13y ago
  Sensitivity training as a totalitarian tool. I love it! A lot of the people who complain about "totalitarianism" are simply ideological minorities who don't like the majoritarian consensus and seek to delegitimize it.
  - seanhandley 13y ago
    Fascist!
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    ...ideological minorities who don't like the majoritarian consensus and seek to delegitimize it. What's wrong with that?
    - rayiner 13y ago
      There's a difference between disagreeing with the majoritarian consensus, and trying to paint it to be the result of illegitimate process just because you disagree with it.
      - 13y ago
salient 13y ago
> Whereas in Nazi Germany the state dominated economic actors, in inverted totalitarianism, corporations through political contributions and lobbying, dominate the United States, with the government acting as the servant of large corporations. This is considered "normal" rather than corrupt Indeed. As a non-American, I find it quite absurd that corporations can "donate money" to change a Congressman's opinion on a law, and then support them in Congress when passing new bills. As far as I know that's what bribing is pretty much anywhere else. So US has in effect legalized bribing, and almost everyone in US seems to think that's "normal" and okay, and that there's "little corruption" in US, when in fact the whole government wreaks of "legalized" corruption. Does that happen in other countries, too? Sure. Bribing is everywhere. But at least we see it for what it is, and even if we don't catch them in the act, there can be investigations later, and have them arrested. Good luck doing that in US - ever.
- thomasz 13y ago
  > Does that happen in other countries, too? Yes. Donations from corporations are legal in nearly every country, in mine, in the USA, most likely also in yours. That's really nothing to bash america over.
- bad_user 13y ago
  True, but at least lobbying is transparent and there are rules to it. Those that donate money for an electoral campaign are required to make those donations without strings attached. Of course, there are always strings attached, that's implicit, but if somebody tries to coerce a politician into doing something, that's as illegal as bribery in other countries. In functional democracies, making bribing illegal works, in theory at least, but in semi-functional democracies like the countries from Eastern Europe where oligarchies happen, dirty politicians are untouchable and mass media is owned by the rich that are part of the ruling parties. Basically, if a politician is bribed, at most you'll only hear rumours and nothing else will happen. And if some big-profile case does indeed happen, those involved will just keep a low profile until the public forgets about it and then you'll see them back in the next elections. There is no real opposition either. They fight against each other only on TV. Note that I was born and still living in Romania. It's not so bad here as I describe it, but not that far either. The real underlying problem in every country is of course that the public is so freaking stupid, lacking long-term memory and being easily swayed by electoral alms.
ama729 13y ago
The US is also hardly a democracy, even if the politicians were perfect. The voting system of the US (and the UK too), is just horrendous. The simple fact that in some cases less than 40 or 30% of the population can choose an election (if you don't believe me, look it up on youtube, CGP Grey made a video about it), show it's hard to take seriously the claim that the US is a democracy.
- digitalengineer 13y ago
  Well in my western european country I can not even directly choose a president, major, sheriff, or local representative. I'd say the us is 't so bad...
  - maaaats 13y ago
    Sheriff, as in head of police? Why should he or she be chosen by the public? That seems like a big, red flag to me. In my "western european country" they are selected as you would hire a boss to a company, and they hold no "political power", they should do what the government has chosen (as a boss would follow the order of the board/owners).
    - mcv 13y ago
      I think this is a big part of the different views of democracy between the US and Europe. Should the laws themselves be the reflection of the will of the people, or should the way those laws are enforced be a reflection of the will of the people? Personally I believe enforcement should be neutral and unbiased, whereas the creation of those laws are the realm of politics and where the will of the people should count. The US clearly has the opposite opinion. Personally I think that leads to arbitrary and unreliable enforcement, justice only for the majority (or even the rich).
    - Lazare 13y ago
      Some areas of the US have experimented with electing some surprising things, including police chiefs and even judges. The system is flawed, and it doesn't work very well. However! It's only very slightly flawed, and it works about as well as all the other systems. The key is this: > they hold no "political power", they should do what the government has chosen (as a boss would follow the order of the board/owners). Right. But the government is chosen by the electorate, who are the ultimate "owners" in your analogy. The difference between electing a governor (or state congress, or whatever) and having him appoint a judge, or just electing the judge directly turns out to be really, really minimal. If an electorate would have elected a far-right (or far-left) whackjob to be a police chief, then they'll elect the kind of governor who will appoint a far-right (or far-left) whackjob as police chief. I happen to strongly dislike Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa County Arizona, but I don't see why Governor Jan Brewer could be counted upon to appoint someone better (google those names and you'll see why). The people there support policies I dislike, and they will find ways to implement them unless forceably stopped. That's democracy. (Conversely, at one time Senators were appointed by state governments; they are now directly elected. Doesn't seem to have had a ton of impact. Conservative states went from electing conservative state governments which appointed conservative senators to just electing conservative senators. I think the earlier system might have been better, but I'll be damned if I can point to any concrete evidence either way.) People seem to get the government they deserve. :)
jeswin 13y ago
I hate it when some people misuse Wikipedia like this. This reads like an opinion piece, and belongs to a blog. edit: from the talk and history, the term was invented by Wolin, but has found little acceptance elsewhere. I am all for adding this to Wikipedia once it becomes generally accepted. But not as a means to get there.
- madaxe_again 13y ago
  It's not misuse - it's a political concept, described by Wolin, a well known and respected academic in the field most thoroughly in his book "Democracy Incorporated - Managed Inverted Totalitarianism": http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/0691135665/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387021143&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverte... I mean, if this is misuse, you'd better nix nihilism, liberalism, socialism, and all the rest, as those are also just "opinions".
  - jpttsn 13y ago
    While all "isms" are ideas, the interesting ones are shared by enough people to enhance communication. Inventing new "isms" to market fringe ideas should be discouraged on this basis; it makes things harder to understand.
    - BrokenPipe 13y ago
      Doesn't sound like frige ideas to me.
    - jgg 13y ago
      How should this political theory be presented, in your mind?
      - jpttsn 13y ago
        Let the author present it however he wants. Wait for it to get traction before using his personal vocabulary on Wikipedia.
tokenadult 13y ago
"This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources." We may as well find some better-quality writing about the one author's idea, rather than using an article from the Encyclopedia That Any Point-of-View-Pusher Can Edit™ as a coatrack to open up a discussion on Hacker News. Hacker News can be a community in which people use much better sources than most Wikipedia articles (I am a Wikipedian, so I have seen the sausage made) if we let it be.
znowi 13y ago
The US is indeed a superpower. The only superpower left after the Soviets collapsed. It's not a big leap to predict how it's going to turn out in the long term without checks and balanced imposed. This is the first step: the Bush Doctrine that the United States has the right to launch preemptive wars Unless the American citizenry, along with the western allies, oppose this militant attitude, it's not going to end well - whatever new term you call it.
- ordinary 13y ago
  The George W. Bush administration was hardly the first to act according to that point of view. Just about every country that has held significant power has at some point fought wars of aggression.
  - wreegab 13y ago
    I don't read anywhere that he said this was the first time. Why would you suggest he said that?
  - redblacktree 13y ago
    In the name of self defense?
    - wreegab 13y ago
      An argument which can be used by all sides. In the end, it's the civilians who get screwed.
      - yetanotherphd 13y ago
        Statistically it's the people in the military who have it worse.
        ivanca 13y ago
        Absolute bullshit, 50:1 is the ratio of civilians casualties in the Israeli conflict. http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/05/06/combatantcivilian-casualties-and-the-moral-hysteriahypocrisy-of-the-west/ http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/05/06/combatantcivilian... Your ignorance is middly acceptable because US media and other information reporters are biased or coerced into giving bad statistics about the issue: http://www.lawfareblog.com/wiki/the-lawfare-wiki-document-library/targeted-killing/controversy/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/wiki/the-lawfare-wiki-document-li...
marvin 13y ago
There are plenty of interesting things to be said about the United States and its similarities (and differences) to totalitarian regimes of the past. I don't think we should point to Wikipedia as the authority on this matter, but it is perfectly okay to go to the primary sources for insight in this. These are recent historical developments, and the questions are covered in so much controversy that it is difficult to find unbiased commentary. As I have said before, there are plenty of really worrying developments in the theory and execution of power in the United States. When I say worrying, I mean worrying in the sense that they remind closely of things that totalitarian regimes have done in the past. We shouldn't be distracted too much by history when analyzing contemporary events - "History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme." The list, which you can compile by simply reading the news, is quite long: Warrantless dragnet surveillance, world record incarceration rate, selective enforcement and prosecution of unclear and conflicting criminal law, lifetime incarceration for non-violent crimes, utilization of paramilitary forces (SWAT teams) against non-violent offenders, plea bargains as a tool for simplifying prosecution under the threat of lifetime sentencing, indefinite detainment and incarceration with no judicial oversight (Guantanamo), extrajudicial execution of citizens (drone strikes), limitations on free speech during peaceful protests, systematic prosecution of whistleblowers. These are just some issues which are interesting to discuss. I am an outsider, and I believe the things I have quoted are facts which have very small political bias in the interpretation. The United States' deadlocked political system and prosecutors' role in the execution of power is also worthy of discussion, although it is harder to discuss this without taking a particular political view.
- bananacurve 13y ago
  >There are plenty of interesting things to be said about the United States and its similarities (and differences) to totalitarian regimes of the past. While implying that the US is a totalitaian state will get you lots of up votes from insecure europeans, the word has no meaning if it encompasses the current state of affairs in America. Could that change? Sure. Pretending it is already the case is fine as long as you realize you are just pretending.
  - redblacktree 13y ago
colinbartlett 13y ago
Congratulations, pikachu_is_cool, you are now a blip on the NSA radar.
whyme 13y ago
So things are much more sinister than I had originally believed, and this does explain why the US is not genuinely worried about the national debt!
ianmcgowan 13y ago
What's scary about reading articles like this is that if they are true, those "in power" don't care enough what people think to try and suppress these thoughts. If the frog is boiling, where are we at on the scale of "didn't make tenure" to "jack booted swat team renditions you"?
julie1 13y ago
USA today is like Athena after the 2nd medic war: a Republic that claims to be a democracy. During Peloponese war, Athena the "democracy" had turned into a violent colonial power, and Sparta the totalitarian state turned oddly into the creation of an alliance for protecting the weakest. Needless to say at the end, of these war neither Athena nor Sparta won, because they both lost. Plato's Republic is a simple HOWTO turn a democracy ruled by citizens into a system claiming to be ruled in the best interest of the citizen by a minority of "Wise men" with an elite of watchmen that enforce the power. Read Alan Moore's "Watchmen" for a criticize of the republic (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?) Pericles(or Solon (don't remember) before Athena became a Republic said the same thing as Eisenower: beware of the richs that want to get a grip on a state and extend their power through their influence and will use military power for expension. Nothing new under the sun. The guy is reinventing the wheel http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.html http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.html
rayiner 13y ago
Wolin essentially mistakes hegemony for totalitarianism. The U.S. is a global hegemon in the same vein as the Great Britain used to be. An open society internally that maintains global superiority using military power. Sometimes global or regional hegemons, like the Soviet Union, are totalitarian, but it's not necessarily the case. Great Britain clearly wasn't a totalitarian state. Also problematic is Wolin's implied assumption that hegemony can only exist if democracy is compromised. But that's utterly absurd. Why would anyone expect that voters, given the free choice, wouldn't want the benefits that accrue from their country having global supremacy? Does anyone think that, deep down, Americans really want to be like Europe, just another player on the world stage who must modulate their foreign policy based on the consideration that they can't impose it unilaterally? Even people who believe the U.S. should act multilaterally when possible don't necessarily believe the U.S. should concede the option to act unilaterally when necessary.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  > Why would anyone expect that voters, given the free choice, wouldn't want the benefits that accrue from their country having global supremacy? That has an easy answer if you look at treaties like TPP: The hegemon uses power over trading "partners" to work around the will of the people. Hegemony is no benefit to the majority of the people. It is a tool used against them.
mrobot 13y ago
Point 2, apathy: "Nothing to hide" is an apathetic "Yes, Sir" to losing self control, letting the results machine analyze and respond to your life actions with all power of an authority you've amplified for yourself. Apathy toward drone "signature strikes" is a "Yes, Sir" to striking and killing exactly where the results machine wishes. The results machine does not have human well-being programmed as a core, infallible rule. That means that mistakes like collateral human damage are not seen as mistakes at all, they are part of getting results. Trusting any machine we've built to probe and manipulate the earth to meet any end other than human growth and good is very scary and selfish. Apathy is the new allegiance toward our scary and selfish state.
Pitarou 13y ago
Godwin's Law writ large. Which is not to understate the scale of the problems alluded to, but the analogy isn't enlightening. It's just name-calling.
- whyme 13y ago
  Correct me if I am wrong, but Godwin's law does not apply. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law "Godwin's law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Nazis – often referred to as "playing the Hitler card". The law and its corollaries would not apply to discussions covering known mainstays of Nazi Germany such as genocide, eugenics, or racial superiority, nor, more debatably, to a discussion of other totalitarian regimes or ideologies,..."
  - Pitarou 13y ago
    You're right. The term doesn't quite fit. I'll have to invent a new one. How does "Bottom Up Godwin's Law" sound to you? ;-)
dylandrop 13y ago
So if you compare the U.S. and Nazis they are therefore foils of each other? While I agree that the U.S. falls short of being a true democracy for all of those three bullet points, I'm a little confused about Wolin's reasoning. His argument seems to be: * In Nazi Germany, the state dominated economic factors, in the U.S. corporations do * Nazis advocated political action, U.S. does not and does not advocate voting * Nazis mocked democracy, U.S. made it its ideology * Therefore Nazis and the U.S. are very similar Doesn't anyone see why this is problematic reasoning? He just made three points that showed how the U.S. and Nazi Germany have flawed political models, but the connections seem to be few and far between. I get that he's saying that they are both nondemocratic systems under the guise of democracy, but it seems a little farfetched using this argument.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
puppetmaster3 13y ago
" in inverted totalitarianism, corporations through political contributions and lobbying, dominate the United States, with the government acting as the servant of large corporations. This is considered "normal" rather than corrupt.[6]"
FrankenPC 13y ago
On the surface this appears to be true. But, like all things in a constant flux, it's a lot more complicated than it seems. One observation though, I've always wondered if Orwell's novel would act as a warning to those who seek power. In other words, 1984 acted as a inventory of obvious psycho-social obstacles to avoid while attempting to control the masses.
mrobot 13y ago
Scored below these, bumped from the front page, does not even have NSA in the name for NSA penalty. Is it because the submitter is green, or some other valid reason? 27. DataStickies: USB drives as sticky notes (datastickies.com) 120 points by JeanSebTr 18 hours ago | 89 comments 28. Best Firefox Add-ons of 2013 (mozilla.org) 106 points by yeukhon 21 hours ago | 50 comments 34. Inverted totalitarianism (wikipedia.org) 211 points by pikachu_is_cool 10 hours ago | 124 comments
ajslater 13y ago
Here's an insightful reddit comment from /r/changemyview Q: The United States is moving towards facism CMV (sic) A: Does the US exhibit some fascist traits? Sure. But I'd contend that we are moving farther, rather than closer. http://np.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1se6cr/the_united_states_is_moving_towards_facism_cmv/cdwpupt http://np.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1se6cr/the_unit...

Interesting. I'd question the "totalizing dynamics" part. In my view Wolin couples two arguments unnecessarily tightly: * Today's govt. marketing makes it seem more legitimate than it is. Democracy is vulnerable to a panem-et-circenses strategy. * If citizens' needs are not satisfied by a welfare state, they are rendered helpless enough to be managed by a veiled totalitarian regime. The former is an interesting problem, expressed well. The latter is more concerning. Are opinions (votes) really worthless just because voters are exposed to economic realities? I don't think democracy rests on voters being "secure" (in the welfare state sense) when they make their decision. Classically the line is drawn at secret/anonymous voting. OP suggests voters also need to have their economy guaranteed, if their votes are to give the government any legitimacy. That's very different.

canadaduane 13y ago
> I don't think democracy rests on voters being "secure" (in the welfare state sense) when they make their decision. This is a really interesting question/assertion. I lean toward security being necessary for good decision making. For example, people whose time is spent primarily on "getting by" will have far less time and psychological wherewithal to propose new ideas that meet their needs and the group; creative problem solving is less likely[1]. They may be able to voice their opinion on a multiple-choice proposal, however, which could pass as democracy I suppose. A smaller number of people may have a creative ability that is inversely related to stress--necessity is the mother of invention and all that. But I don't think that is a majority, and perhaps unfortunately, democracy depends on the psychological traits of the majority. [1] http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/strsbeta.htm http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/strsbeta.htm
- jpttsn 13y ago
  Oh, surely. But as democratic thinkers, we don't trust the public by reason of their good decision making.
4bpp 13y ago
The second point does mesh quite well with my observations regarding the system. If you question a fairly randomly sampled member of the populace as to why they would choose to vote for one of the established political parties rather than a new or minor party that may represent their position on most issues much more closely, the answer you will get will invariably be some sort of invocation of a fear of economical downturn or collapse, as only "experienced" or, in a somewhat Kafkaesque turn, outright industry-coddling politicians are trusted to know what is good for the economy. The net effect is that anything that the established parties have a consensus on is effectively impossible to challenge in the political system (and no member of either established party has much of an incentive to break the consensus); it is hard to imagine that this would be the case to the same extent if the majority of voters did not consider their economical situation to be in some sense precarious or unsatisfactory.
- XorNot 13y ago
  This is a uniquely American view on the situation. In America, unless your favored major party holds overwhelming dominance, then voting for any third party is actively voting against your own interests. Its easier to lobby within a party to change things then try and form a new one, given the way the first past the post voting system in the US works. In countries without one, new parties can form and gain some influence all the time.
- jpttsn 13y ago
  Perhaps; it seems obvious. I'm not debating that point. The premise of democracy is that the will of the governed gives legitimacy to power. This (I argue) doesn't presuppose that the governed have security of income, a positive view of the future of the nation, perfect information, or anything like that. What matters is they choose, not their reasons for choosing.
coldtea 13y ago
>I don't think democracy rests on voters being "secure" (in the welfare state sense) when they make their decision. No, an insecure population can also act democratically, but it's much more easier to pressure it.
- jpttsn 13y ago
  Right. Pressure, though, doesn't invalidate their decision. Cfr. how a purchase is valid even if you saw an ad for the product.
  - lotharbot 13y ago
    Likewise, deciding to buy lunch is not somehow invalidated by being really hungry. In a sense, we consider the pressure of our appetite to validate the purchase of lunch. Decisions in response to circumstances and prevailing conditions are completely valid.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >Right. Pressure, though, doesn't invalidate their decision. Cfr. how a purchase is valid even if you saw an ad for the product. It might not invalidate it legally or procedurally, but it invalidates it in the spirit of democracy (each deciding what he deems best, not what he was pressured to vote in order to get something unrelated to the issue under voting).
    - jpttsn 13y ago
      The idea is that secret voting rules out anyone being individually held liable for how they choose to vote. The sort of pressure OP is talking about is more vague: the pressure of having some skin in the game. I can't imagine what elections would be without that pressure. The democratic spirit of "what he/she deems best" doesn't rule out the influence of reality over voters' decisions.
rayiner 13y ago
The second argument is also nonsensical. The welfare state is larger today than it ever has been. The key difference is that old people have taken over as the primary beneficiaries. And they're more politically active then any other group. Ironically, they also support many of the "external" policies Wolin rejects.

spindritf 13y ago

In the same vein, there's also anarcho-tyranny[1] coined by Samuel Francis What we have in this country today, then, is both anarchy (the failure of the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny – the enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes; the criminalization of the law-abiding and innocent through exorbitant taxation, bureaucratic regulation, the invasion of privacy, and the engineering of social institutions, such as the family and local schools; the imposition of thought control through "sensitivity training" and multiculturalist curricula, "hate crime" laws, gun-control laws that punish or disarm otherwise law-abiding citizens but have no impact on violent criminals who get guns illegally, and a vast labyrinth of other measures. In a word, anarcho-tyranny. which is sort of inverted authoritarianism. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_T._Francis#Anarcho-tyranny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_T._Francis#Anarcho-tyra...

rayiner 13y ago
Sensitivity training as a totalitarian tool. I love it! A lot of the people who complain about "totalitarianism" are simply ideological minorities who don't like the majoritarian consensus and seek to delegitimize it.
- seanhandley 13y ago
  Fascist!
- jessaustin 13y ago
  ...ideological minorities who don't like the majoritarian consensus and seek to delegitimize it. What's wrong with that?
  - rayiner 13y ago
    There's a difference between disagreeing with the majoritarian consensus, and trying to paint it to be the result of illegitimate process just because you disagree with it.
    - 13y ago

salient 13y ago

> Whereas in Nazi Germany the state dominated economic actors, in inverted totalitarianism, corporations through political contributions and lobbying, dominate the United States, with the government acting as the servant of large corporations. This is considered "normal" rather than corrupt Indeed. As a non-American, I find it quite absurd that corporations can "donate money" to change a Congressman's opinion on a law, and then support them in Congress when passing new bills. As far as I know that's what bribing is pretty much anywhere else. So US has in effect legalized bribing, and almost everyone in US seems to think that's "normal" and okay, and that there's "little corruption" in US, when in fact the whole government wreaks of "legalized" corruption. Does that happen in other countries, too? Sure. Bribing is everywhere. But at least we see it for what it is, and even if we don't catch them in the act, there can be investigations later, and have them arrested. Good luck doing that in US - ever.

thomasz 13y ago
> Does that happen in other countries, too? Yes. Donations from corporations are legal in nearly every country, in mine, in the USA, most likely also in yours. That's really nothing to bash america over.
bad_user 13y ago
True, but at least lobbying is transparent and there are rules to it. Those that donate money for an electoral campaign are required to make those donations without strings attached. Of course, there are always strings attached, that's implicit, but if somebody tries to coerce a politician into doing something, that's as illegal as bribery in other countries. In functional democracies, making bribing illegal works, in theory at least, but in semi-functional democracies like the countries from Eastern Europe where oligarchies happen, dirty politicians are untouchable and mass media is owned by the rich that are part of the ruling parties. Basically, if a politician is bribed, at most you'll only hear rumours and nothing else will happen. And if some big-profile case does indeed happen, those involved will just keep a low profile until the public forgets about it and then you'll see them back in the next elections. There is no real opposition either. They fight against each other only on TV. Note that I was born and still living in Romania. It's not so bad here as I describe it, but not that far either. The real underlying problem in every country is of course that the public is so freaking stupid, lacking long-term memory and being easily swayed by electoral alms.

ama729 13y ago

The US is also hardly a democracy, even if the politicians were perfect. The voting system of the US (and the UK too), is just horrendous. The simple fact that in some cases less than 40 or 30% of the population can choose an election (if you don't believe me, look it up on youtube, CGP Grey made a video about it), show it's hard to take seriously the claim that the US is a democracy.

digitalengineer 13y ago
Well in my western european country I can not even directly choose a president, major, sheriff, or local representative. I'd say the us is 't so bad...
- maaaats 13y ago
  Sheriff, as in head of police? Why should he or she be chosen by the public? That seems like a big, red flag to me. In my "western european country" they are selected as you would hire a boss to a company, and they hold no "political power", they should do what the government has chosen (as a boss would follow the order of the board/owners).
  - mcv 13y ago
    I think this is a big part of the different views of democracy between the US and Europe. Should the laws themselves be the reflection of the will of the people, or should the way those laws are enforced be a reflection of the will of the people? Personally I believe enforcement should be neutral and unbiased, whereas the creation of those laws are the realm of politics and where the will of the people should count. The US clearly has the opposite opinion. Personally I think that leads to arbitrary and unreliable enforcement, justice only for the majority (or even the rich).
  - Lazare 13y ago
    Some areas of the US have experimented with electing some surprising things, including police chiefs and even judges. The system is flawed, and it doesn't work very well. However! It's only very slightly flawed, and it works about as well as all the other systems. The key is this: > they hold no "political power", they should do what the government has chosen (as a boss would follow the order of the board/owners). Right. But the government is chosen by the electorate, who are the ultimate "owners" in your analogy. The difference between electing a governor (or state congress, or whatever) and having him appoint a judge, or just electing the judge directly turns out to be really, really minimal. If an electorate would have elected a far-right (or far-left) whackjob to be a police chief, then they'll elect the kind of governor who will appoint a far-right (or far-left) whackjob as police chief. I happen to strongly dislike Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa County Arizona, but I don't see why Governor Jan Brewer could be counted upon to appoint someone better (google those names and you'll see why). The people there support policies I dislike, and they will find ways to implement them unless forceably stopped. That's democracy. (Conversely, at one time Senators were appointed by state governments; they are now directly elected. Doesn't seem to have had a ton of impact. Conservative states went from electing conservative state governments which appointed conservative senators to just electing conservative senators. I think the earlier system might have been better, but I'll be damned if I can point to any concrete evidence either way.) People seem to get the government they deserve. :)

jeswin 13y ago

I hate it when some people misuse Wikipedia like this. This reads like an opinion piece, and belongs to a blog. edit: from the talk and history, the term was invented by Wolin, but has found little acceptance elsewhere. I am all for adding this to Wikipedia once it becomes generally accepted. But not as a means to get there.

madaxe_again 13y ago
It's not misuse - it's a political concept, described by Wolin, a well known and respected academic in the field most thoroughly in his book "Democracy Incorporated - Managed Inverted Totalitarianism": http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/0691135665/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387021143&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverte... I mean, if this is misuse, you'd better nix nihilism, liberalism, socialism, and all the rest, as those are also just "opinions".
- jpttsn 13y ago
  While all "isms" are ideas, the interesting ones are shared by enough people to enhance communication. Inventing new "isms" to market fringe ideas should be discouraged on this basis; it makes things harder to understand.
  - BrokenPipe 13y ago
    Doesn't sound like frige ideas to me.
  - jgg 13y ago
    How should this political theory be presented, in your mind?
    - jpttsn 13y ago
      Let the author present it however he wants. Wait for it to get traction before using his personal vocabulary on Wikipedia.

tokenadult 13y ago

"This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources." We may as well find some better-quality writing about the one author's idea, rather than using an article from the Encyclopedia That Any Point-of-View-Pusher Can Edit™ as a coatrack to open up a discussion on Hacker News. Hacker News can be a community in which people use much better sources than most Wikipedia articles (I am a Wikipedian, so I have seen the sausage made) if we let it be.

znowi 13y ago

The US is indeed a superpower. The only superpower left after the Soviets collapsed. It's not a big leap to predict how it's going to turn out in the long term without checks and balanced imposed. This is the first step: the Bush Doctrine that the United States has the right to launch preemptive wars Unless the American citizenry, along with the western allies, oppose this militant attitude, it's not going to end well - whatever new term you call it.

ordinary 13y ago
The George W. Bush administration was hardly the first to act according to that point of view. Just about every country that has held significant power has at some point fought wars of aggression.
- wreegab 13y ago
  I don't read anywhere that he said this was the first time. Why would you suggest he said that?
- redblacktree 13y ago
  In the name of self defense?
  - wreegab 13y ago
    An argument which can be used by all sides. In the end, it's the civilians who get screwed.
    - yetanotherphd 13y ago
      Statistically it's the people in the military who have it worse.
      - ivanca 13y ago
        Absolute bullshit, 50:1 is the ratio of civilians casualties in the Israeli conflict. http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/05/06/combatantcivilian-casualties-and-the-moral-hysteriahypocrisy-of-the-west/ http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/05/06/combatantcivilian... Your ignorance is middly acceptable because US media and other information reporters are biased or coerced into giving bad statistics about the issue: http://www.lawfareblog.com/wiki/the-lawfare-wiki-document-library/targeted-killing/controversy/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/wiki/the-lawfare-wiki-document-li...

marvin 13y ago

There are plenty of interesting things to be said about the United States and its similarities (and differences) to totalitarian regimes of the past. I don't think we should point to Wikipedia as the authority on this matter, but it is perfectly okay to go to the primary sources for insight in this. These are recent historical developments, and the questions are covered in so much controversy that it is difficult to find unbiased commentary. As I have said before, there are plenty of really worrying developments in the theory and execution of power in the United States. When I say worrying, I mean worrying in the sense that they remind closely of things that totalitarian regimes have done in the past. We shouldn't be distracted too much by history when analyzing contemporary events - "History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme." The list, which you can compile by simply reading the news, is quite long: Warrantless dragnet surveillance, world record incarceration rate, selective enforcement and prosecution of unclear and conflicting criminal law, lifetime incarceration for non-violent crimes, utilization of paramilitary forces (SWAT teams) against non-violent offenders, plea bargains as a tool for simplifying prosecution under the threat of lifetime sentencing, indefinite detainment and incarceration with no judicial oversight (Guantanamo), extrajudicial execution of citizens (drone strikes), limitations on free speech during peaceful protests, systematic prosecution of whistleblowers. These are just some issues which are interesting to discuss. I am an outsider, and I believe the things I have quoted are facts which have very small political bias in the interpretation. The United States' deadlocked political system and prosecutors' role in the execution of power is also worthy of discussion, although it is harder to discuss this without taking a particular political view.

bananacurve 13y ago
>There are plenty of interesting things to be said about the United States and its similarities (and differences) to totalitarian regimes of the past. While implying that the US is a totalitaian state will get you lots of up votes from insecure europeans, the word has no meaning if it encompasses the current state of affairs in America. Could that change? Sure. Pretending it is already the case is fine as long as you realize you are just pretending.
- redblacktree 13y ago

colinbartlett 13y ago

Congratulations, pikachu_is_cool, you are now a blip on the NSA radar.

whyme 13y ago

So things are much more sinister than I had originally believed, and this does explain why the US is not genuinely worried about the national debt!

ianmcgowan 13y ago

What's scary about reading articles like this is that if they are true, those "in power" don't care enough what people think to try and suppress these thoughts. If the frog is boiling, where are we at on the scale of "didn't make tenure" to "jack booted swat team renditions you"?

julie1 13y ago

USA today is like Athena after the 2nd medic war: a Republic that claims to be a democracy. During Peloponese war, Athena the "democracy" had turned into a violent colonial power, and Sparta the totalitarian state turned oddly into the creation of an alliance for protecting the weakest. Needless to say at the end, of these war neither Athena nor Sparta won, because they both lost. Plato's Republic is a simple HOWTO turn a democracy ruled by citizens into a system claiming to be ruled in the best interest of the citizen by a minority of "Wise men" with an elite of watchmen that enforce the power. Read Alan Moore's "Watchmen" for a criticize of the republic (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?) Pericles(or Solon (don't remember) before Athena became a Republic said the same thing as Eisenower: beware of the richs that want to get a grip on a state and extend their power through their influence and will use military power for expension. Nothing new under the sun. The guy is reinventing the wheel http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.html http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.html

rayiner 13y ago

Wolin essentially mistakes hegemony for totalitarianism. The U.S. is a global hegemon in the same vein as the Great Britain used to be. An open society internally that maintains global superiority using military power. Sometimes global or regional hegemons, like the Soviet Union, are totalitarian, but it's not necessarily the case. Great Britain clearly wasn't a totalitarian state. Also problematic is Wolin's implied assumption that hegemony can only exist if democracy is compromised. But that's utterly absurd. Why would anyone expect that voters, given the free choice, wouldn't want the benefits that accrue from their country having global supremacy? Does anyone think that, deep down, Americans really want to be like Europe, just another player on the world stage who must modulate their foreign policy based on the consideration that they can't impose it unilaterally? Even people who believe the U.S. should act multilaterally when possible don't necessarily believe the U.S. should concede the option to act unilaterally when necessary.

Zigurd 13y ago
> Why would anyone expect that voters, given the free choice, wouldn't want the benefits that accrue from their country having global supremacy? That has an easy answer if you look at treaties like TPP: The hegemon uses power over trading "partners" to work around the will of the people. Hegemony is no benefit to the majority of the people. It is a tool used against them.

mrobot 13y ago

Point 2, apathy: "Nothing to hide" is an apathetic "Yes, Sir" to losing self control, letting the results machine analyze and respond to your life actions with all power of an authority you've amplified for yourself. Apathy toward drone "signature strikes" is a "Yes, Sir" to striking and killing exactly where the results machine wishes. The results machine does not have human well-being programmed as a core, infallible rule. That means that mistakes like collateral human damage are not seen as mistakes at all, they are part of getting results. Trusting any machine we've built to probe and manipulate the earth to meet any end other than human growth and good is very scary and selfish. Apathy is the new allegiance toward our scary and selfish state.

Pitarou 13y ago

Godwin's Law writ large. Which is not to understate the scale of the problems alluded to, but the analogy isn't enlightening. It's just name-calling.

whyme 13y ago
Correct me if I am wrong, but Godwin's law does not apply. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law "Godwin's law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Nazis – often referred to as "playing the Hitler card". The law and its corollaries would not apply to discussions covering known mainstays of Nazi Germany such as genocide, eugenics, or racial superiority, nor, more debatably, to a discussion of other totalitarian regimes or ideologies,..."
- Pitarou 13y ago
  You're right. The term doesn't quite fit. I'll have to invent a new one. How does "Bottom Up Godwin's Law" sound to you? ;-)

dylandrop 13y ago

So if you compare the U.S. and Nazis they are therefore foils of each other? While I agree that the U.S. falls short of being a true democracy for all of those three bullet points, I'm a little confused about Wolin's reasoning. His argument seems to be: * In Nazi Germany, the state dominated economic factors, in the U.S. corporations do * Nazis advocated political action, U.S. does not and does not advocate voting * Nazis mocked democracy, U.S. made it its ideology * Therefore Nazis and the U.S. are very similar Doesn't anyone see why this is problematic reasoning? He just made three points that showed how the U.S. and Nazi Germany have flawed political models, but the connections seem to be few and far between. I get that he's saying that they are both nondemocratic systems under the guise of democracy, but it seems a little farfetched using this argument.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

puppetmaster3 13y ago

" in inverted totalitarianism, corporations through political contributions and lobbying, dominate the United States, with the government acting as the servant of large corporations. This is considered "normal" rather than corrupt.[6]"

FrankenPC 13y ago

On the surface this appears to be true. But, like all things in a constant flux, it's a lot more complicated than it seems. One observation though, I've always wondered if Orwell's novel would act as a warning to those who seek power. In other words, 1984 acted as a inventory of obvious psycho-social obstacles to avoid while attempting to control the masses.

mrobot 13y ago

Scored below these, bumped from the front page, does not even have NSA in the name for NSA penalty. Is it because the submitter is green, or some other valid reason? 27. DataStickies: USB drives as sticky notes (datastickies.com) 120 points by JeanSebTr 18 hours ago | 89 comments 28. Best Firefox Add-ons of 2013 (mozilla.org) 106 points by yeukhon 21 hours ago | 50 comments 34. Inverted totalitarianism (wikipedia.org) 211 points by pikachu_is_cool 10 hours ago | 124 comments

ajslater 13y ago

Here's an insightful reddit comment from /r/changemyview Q: The United States is moving towards facism CMV (sic) A: Does the US exhibit some fascist traits? Sure. But I'd contend that we are moving farther, rather than closer. http://np.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1se6cr/the_united_states_is_moving_towards_facism_cmv/cdwpupt http://np.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1se6cr/the_unit...