Authoritarianism

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Violence is the whole essence of authoritarianism, just as the repudiation of violence is the whole essence of anarchism. ~ Errico Malatesta.

Authoritarianism is a political stance supporting forms of government characterized by strong central power and limited political freedoms. Civil liberties are subordinate to the state and there is little or no reliable constitutional accountability under an authoritarian regime.

See also:
Fascism
Nazism
Totalitarianism

Quotes[edit]

The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians. ~ George Orwell
That the more authoritarian organizations survive and prevail goes generally unnoticed because people focus on the objectives of organizations, which are many and varied, rather than on their structures, which tend to be similar. ~ Robert Shea
However sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, class, religion or all four. ~ Gloria Steinem
  • Most traditional societies produce an authoritarian personality, but some produce an innovative one, which leads to change.
    • Bert N. Adams and Rosalind Ann Sydie in Sociological Theory (2001), p. 449
  • When true freedom covers the earth, we shall see the end of tyranny - politically, religiously and economically. I am not here referring to modern democracy as a condition which meets the needs, for democracy is at present a philosophy of wishful thinking, and an unachieved ideal. I refer to that period which will surely come, in which an enlightened people will rule; these people will not tolerate authoritarianism in any political system; they will not accept or permit the rule of any body of men who undertake to tell them what they must believe in order to be saved, or what government they must accept.
  • They are the driven crowds that makes the army of the authoritarian overlord; they are the stuffing of conservatism ... mediocrity is their god. They fear the stranger, they fear the new idea; they are afraid to live, and scared to die.
  • Hierarchic and authoritarian structures are not self-justifying. They have to have a justification. So if there is a relation of subordination and domination, maybe you can justify it, but there's a strong burden of proof on anybody who tries to justify it. Quite commonly, the justification can't be given. It's a relationship that is maintained by obedience, by force, by tradition, by one or another form of sometimes physical, sometimes intellectual or moral coercion. If so, it ought to be dismantled. People ought to become liberated and discover that they are under a form of oppression which is illegitimate, and move to dismantle it.
    What happens next? We don't really know. There are people who think they know the answer. I'm not one of them. My view is, we don't understand very much about human beings or human affairs, so anything that would be done has to be experimentally tried, but I think there are some leading ideas that make some good sense.
  • The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, unfolding around the world as I write these words, will likely be remembered as an epochal shift. In this extended winter, as borders close, as lockdowns and quarantines multiply, as people succumb and recover, there is a strong sense that, when the spring finally arrives we will awaken in a drastically changed landscape. Those of us now in isolation, in spite of our fear and frustrations, in spite of our grief ⁠— for those who have died or may die, for the life we once lived, for the future we once hoped for ⁠— there is also a sense we are cocooned, transforming, waiting, dreaming. True: Terrors stalk the global landscape, notably the way the virus ⁠— or our countermeasures ⁠— will endanger those among us whom we, as a society, have already abandoned or devalued. So many of us are already disposable. So many of us are only learning it now, too late. Then there is the dangerous blurring of the line between humanitarian and authoritarian measures. There is the geopolitical weaponization of the pandemic.
  • After months of chaos, isolation and fear, the desire to return to normal, even if normal is an abusive system, may be extremely strong. The stage is set for this desire to be accompanied by a frantic revanchism. Will we want someone to blame, especially those of us who lose loved ones? Must there be blood, figurative or literal?: a baptism by fire so that the old order ⁠— which, of course, created the conditions of austerity and inequality that made this plague so devastating⁠ — can be reborn in purified form. Of course, things will never be “normal” again: some of us, the privileged and wealthy, may be afforded the illusion, but this illusion is likely to be carried on the backs of the vast majority who will work harder, longer and for less, suffer greater risks and fewer rewards. The debts of the pandemic, literal and figurative, will have to be repaid.
  • On the other hand ⁠— or maybe at the same time ⁠— we can also expect that, among the powerful and among the rest of us, there will be calls to reject the “return to normal,” but in order to embrace something even worse. It is likely that the chaos and deaths of the pandemic will be blamed on too much democracy, liberalism and empathy. Now that states are flexing their muscles and taking full command of society, there will be many who do not want the sleeve to be rolled back down. We may yet see, in this crisis, the use of repressive force on civilians ⁠— as it is already being used on migrants and incarcerated people ⁠— and I fear that it will be seen by many as justified, a human sacrifice to feed the Gods of fear. In the wake of the pandemic we can be sure that fascists and reactionaries will seek to mobilize tropes of ⁠— racial, national, economic ⁠— purity, purification, parasitism, and pollution to impose their long-festering dreams on reality. The vengeful romance of the border, now more politicized than ever, will haunt all of us in the years to come. The “new” authoritarians, whether they emphasize the totalitarian state or the totalitarian market ⁠— or both ⁠— will insist that we all recognize we now live ⁠— have always lived ⁠— in a ruthless, competitive world and must take measures to wall ourselves in and cast out the undesirable.
  • Other times, authoritarianism may come by stealth, cloaked in the rhetoric of science, liberalism and the common good. Meanwhile, there will almost certainly be efforts by those vastly enriched and empowered in the last decades, notably in the intertwined technology and financial sectors, to leverage their influence and resources, as well as the weakness and disarray of traditional institutions, to lead the reorganization of society along neo-technocratic lines. They will continue to generously offer the services of their powerful and integrated surveillance, logistics, financial and data empires to “optimize” social and political life. This corporate dystopia can wear a human face: basic income, hypervigilance for new epidemics, personalized medicine. Already they arrive, bearing gifts to help us in this emergency: tracking disease vectors, banning disinformation, offering states help with data and population management. Underneath the mask will be the reorganization of society to better conform to the hyper-capitalist meta-algorithm which, though driven by capitalist contradictions, will essentially be neofeudal for most of us: a world of data and risk management where only a small handful enjoy the benefits. We will be told it is for our own good.
  • Violence is the whole essence of authoritarianism, just as the repudiation of violence is the whole essence of anarchism.
    • Errico Malatesta, "Anarchism, Authoritarian Socialism and Communism" in Fede (28 October 1923); also in What Is Anarchism? : An Introduction edited by Donald Rooum (1992, 1995) p. 59
  • Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadows about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.
  • In popular terminology, a libertarian is the opposite of an authoritarian. Strictly speaking, a libertarian is one who rejects the idea of using violence or the threat of violence — legal or illegal — to impose his will or viewpoint upon any peaceful person.
    • Dean Russell, in "Who Is A Libertarian?" in The Freeman, Vol. 5 Issue 5 (May 1955) published by Foundation for Economic Education
  • That the more authoritarian organizations survive and prevail goes generally unnoticed because people focus on the objectives of organizations, which are many and varied, rather than on their structures, which tend to be similar. Whenever people see a problem, an opportunity or a threat, their first reaction — even before saying, "Pass a law'" — is, "Let's start an organization."
    But the more an organization succeeds and prospers, the more it is likely to be diverted from its original ideals, principles and purposes.
  • However sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, class, religion or all four. However far it may expand, the progression inevitably rests on unequal power and airtight roles within the family.
    • Gloria Steinem in "If Hilter Were Alive, Whose Side Would He Be On?" in M.S. magazine (October-November 1980); later in Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983)
  • We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is authoritarian.
    • Lionel Trilling, notebook entry (1948), published in Partisan Review 50th Anniversary edition (1985), p. 510
  • Most fundamentally, I would see Anarchism as a synonym for anti-authoritarianism.
    • John Zerzan, in Running on Emptiness: The Pathology of Civilization (2008), p. 67
  • The Napoleonic rule which followed within a decade after the French Revolution is generally conceded to be the prototype of modern dictatorships. It was the forerunner not only historically, but psychologically as well, for it demonstrated a principal function of dictatorship as a psychocultural emergent: a reversion to authoritarian rule after a too drastic attempt to impose democracy on an authoritarian culture. Napoleon's assumption of the role of dictator and then emperor, with the wholehearted support of significant segments of of postrevolutionary French society, illustrates a fact that has been true of virtually every dictatorship since then: the inability of an authoritarian culture to absorb too much self-government too suddenly without reverting, at least temporarily, to some form of paternalistic-authoritarian rule. From the first French Republic to the German Weimar Republic, it has been proved again and again that, while the outward forms of democracy may be achieved overnight by revolution, the psychological changes necessary to sustain it cannot.
    • G.M. Gilbert in The Psychology of Dictatorship (1950), pp. 4-5.

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