The Benefit of Benevolent Totalitarianism?

[rice349]

When we commonly think of totalitarianism (an ideal strongly looked down upon by this site) I think we often forget the benefits. During the Enlightenment period there arose an idea known as the "enlightened despot." Many political thinkers of the time realized the inefficiency of democracy and realized if you want drastic social and economic change then you've got to have centralized power to carry it out.

There are obvious benefits to having a one-party system in which that party controls the policies and functions of society. Marx realized that the period of socialism called for a strong centralized government; Lenin expounded upon this with the notion of "Dictatorship of the Proletariat."

This said, what (if anyhting) do you people see wrong with allowing a dictatorship of the proletariat, by this i mean: a system led by the vanguard party (Communist Party) in which after the revolution all the workers, farmers, ethnically oppressed, and all other comrades join the party, practice the notion of democratic centralism, and carry out policies with the efficiency required to set society up for the inevitable transition to communism?

Do you see problems with a strongly controlled one-party system that doesn't see the need to oppress the masses, but just suppress the bourgeoisie and reactionary forces? Is this not the best way to prepare for a communist society that will ultimately run without a government?

[Iepilei]

Supressing a group of people will not make them go away. We're still here, aren't we?

I would imagine that, after a popular revolt, people would not be inclined to go back to what screwed them in the first place.

:ph34r:

[Xvall]

Yes, I see a problem with it, because although they may claim that they will only opress the bourgeoisie and reactionary forces, nothing stops them from turning around and opressing the workers to pursue their own agendas.

Also, I think Democratic Centralism is garbage.

[nochastitybelt]

My only problem with benevolent totalitarianism, if it were truly benevolent, would be that it could not be efficient working from a platform of centralization. The World and especially the developed countries are too big and sprawling. Even the US totalitarians realize this --- and delegate stuff off to the States, with which some policies being totally autonomous.

[pandora]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2005, 08:38 AM
When we commonly think of totalitarianism (an ideal strongly looked down upon by this site) I think we often forget the benefits. During the Enlightenment period there arose an idea known as the "enlightened despot." Many political thinkers of the time realized the inefficiency of democracy and realized if you want drastic social and economic change then you've got to have centralized power to carry it out.


Not true, there was strong oppositition by Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson to the Federalist movement, a movement which was backed by Capitalist banking interests from England which used the relationship between Washington and Alexander Hamilton to deride the democratic process in the United States, as a result of his "efforts" to stop democracy :lol: Alexander was granted a grave right next to the Wall Street stock exchange, if you ever go there you can visit it, he is their hero <_<

Adams immediately saw the problems of this system and that now the system that had been set up of checks and balances was failed by the Federalist movement, the only device it has served has been during the Civil Rights Era, otherwise it has not been too positive in general over riding local law.

In France the facists took over from the true Revolutionaries and executed, only to have themselves executed as the real tolitarian, Napolean hit the scene. The true Revolutionaries realized the Revolution was lost as soon as the facists hit the scene and began questioning everyone.


But there were many great minds that had an idea of true freedom in France, unfortunately they were beheaded by the more conservative elements.

You forget that the Enlightenment is founded primarily on one principle, that man is good at heart and should be trusted to make his own judgements, the essence of Mills, if you rebuke this you are not an Enlightened thinker. You are a conservative or old world thinker. This seems to be the big line between liberals and conservatives, if you think humans are inherently good and capable of self goverence or if you do not.

In January, the EZLN swore in it&#39;s new officers for democracy. Long Live Democracia en Chiapas&#33;

It seems the opposite is true as far as democracy, when local councils lose their power to a more oppressive system of representation then we see more oppression. Oppression sucks to put it mildly, anyone who thinks otherwise has not suffered under it, I have slightly enough to know it is not something you wish on your worst enemy.

[monkeydust]

When we commonly think of totalitarianism (an ideal strongly looked down upon by this site) I think we often forget the benefits. During the Enlightenment period there arose an idea known as the "enlightened despot." Many political thinkers of the time realized the inefficiency of democracy and realized if you want drastic social and economic change then you&#39;ve got to have centralized power to carry it out.


The main problem with this is that you&#39;re never really certain of the outcome.

Some "benevolent despot" might aim to create a better society, but there&#39;s no guarantee that he will. And if he doesn&#39;s there&#39;st shit all we can do about it.

Besides this, it&#39;s far from certain that even if an enlightened despot had the best interests of the people at heart that he&#39;ll actually be able to deliver this. One man, or one party simply cannot guage taccurately the manifold and changing interests in society in any way comparable to that which a more democratic system would allow.

Oh, and it doesn&#39;t work.

[redstar2000]

Setting aside what the despot actually does, what does it do to your mind-set to be a despot?

You quickly attract a horde of ambitious flatterers...people who will never tell you anything but what they imagine that you want to hear.

What happens then to your mental "picture of the world"? It becomes hopelessly distorted. Even if you intend to do something "benevolent", your actions are based on fucked-up "information" and the consequences are likely to be catastrophic.

Do you imagine that Mao intended to cause a famine in China with the starvation of some 18 million people? Everybody was lying to him about the "terrific harvest"&#33;

For that matter, how much do you think Stalin really knew about his "crimes"?

A despot appoints "mini-despots" to carry out his will...and each of them in turn is also quickly surrounded by ambitious flatterers (liars). Corruption explodes and, in the end, no one knows what&#39;s really happening.

In the last weeks of the Third Reich, Hitler was moving "armies" around on his maps...armies that no longer existed.

What happens to you when you are surrounded by people who tell you over and over again that the sun shines out of your ass? How long until you start to believe that crap? Your follies become gilded with monumental conceit; you start to imagine that your commands can alter the cosmos.

Sooner or later, despotism is a recipe for disaster.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[The Grapes of Wrath]

Isn&#39;t "benevolent totalitarianism" an oxymoron?

Have we not walked down this road before? I think another course of action should be thought of an followed through.


You quickly attract a horde of ambitious flatterers...people who will never tell you anything but what they imagine that you want to hear.

The same can happen in any form of government. Where there is any form of power, or authority (of which there will always be some), yes-men will persist. However, you are right, they seem to be much more destructive in a totalitarianist regime than in others.

TGOW

[rice349]

Those are all very good points against totalitarianism; but, what about the fact that with that type of efficiency we could end social injustices such as racist, sexist, homophobic, bourgeoisie legislation that continues to plague society? I mean in the democratic U.S. it took a civil war to end slavery throughout, it took a century after that for real equal rights legislation, and the conditions are still horrendous for African-Americans in the United States. The idea of democracy seems very utopian, but you run the risk of opposing ideas that are ultimately harmful to the people (or a specific group of people) and those ideas can gain a constituency that can hold some weight. The idea of a one-party system would be that those ideas that are against the people can never gain that strength and eventually wither away and die.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by rice349
The idea of a one-party system would be that those ideas that are against the people can never gain that strength and eventually wither away and die.

A worthwhile goal...but the totalitarian approach subverts it. Even if the first despot remains "faithful to the ideal", what of the second? Or tenth???

A "Stalin" could forcefully put an end to ethnic/cultural warfare in Soviet Asia...a good thing. But what he couldn&#39;t do (or never seriously tried to do) was put an end to the social conditions that generated such warfare in the first place. His successors just ignored the matter.

And we know what happened after that.

Your example of reconstruction is also appropriate. The North militarily dominated the defeated Confederate states and kept the new state governments there in power by force.

But the North made no effort to change the social conditions of the South -- there was no implementation of the "40 acres and a mule" proposal and the old slave-owners were not liquidated as a class.

You can suppress a reactionary idea and I have no objection to that...but unless you make a successful effort to abolish the social conditions that gave rise to that reactionary idea, it will climb up out of its grave and bite you in the ass.

Thus the Soviet Union hadn&#39;t been dead for three weeks when the godsuckers were out in force, carrying icons of "St. Nicholas the Martyr" (known to history as "Bloody Nicholas", the last czar of the Russian Empire).

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2005, 05:17 AM
Supressing a group of people will not make them go away. We&#39;re still here, aren&#39;t we?

I would imagine that, after a popular revolt, people would not be inclined to go back to what screwed them in the first place.

:ph34r:
exactley, while i suppose a dictator could enforce his rule, without a complicated law-making system, he/she will inevitably become corrupt, and look after himself before eveyone else.