totalitarianism, a 20th century term for tyranny

[JBFRAME at aol.com]

In a message dated 04/29/2001 6:16:04 PM Pacific Daylight Time, AREN5 at aol.com 
writes:


> The Roman system worked until they overextended themselves...why do you 
> think they split into east and west?
>     even though secret police and spies existed, people under pre-twentieth 
> century totalitarian regimes still had a measure of personal freedom, very 
> unlike the Stalin and Hitler versions were one's life, and every aspect of 
> it 
> was devoted entirely to the state.
> 

I find myself in partial agreement.  The East & West empires were still 
efficient dictatorships, even if much else was inefficient.  The empire had 
become too unwieldy, and the split made the two parts easier for the 
succeeding emperors.  

Stalin & Hitler were more totally controlling because of the technology -- 
they were the apex of what tyrants like the tsars & Franz Josef were trying 
to do.  But Soviet bureaucratic socialism and fascism were a response by the 
oligarchs to certain historical accidents caused by the worst and most 
devastaing war ever fought up to that time.  
The measure of personal freedom that people enjoy is only by default.  The 
kind of prosperity & freedom most of us Americans & Europeans now enjoy is 
partly an illusion & partly the leftovers allowed to keep people docile.  
Never doubt for a moment that if the wealth & power of the oligarchy could 
only be maintained by a kind of tyranny that would destroy what Marx called 
bourgeois democracy, it would be instituted without hesitation or mercy.  
Modern, post cold-war capitalism has the opportunity and the technology to 
institute whatever kind of nightmare it wishes.  It keeps a kind of  system 
of various degrees of benevolence in place throughout the planet because it 
needs workers who are able to be consumers in one section (the so-called 
first world) to purchase the goods manufactured & workers willing or 
compelled to work for low enough wages to keep profits high enough to support 
the decadent lifestyles of the rich &/or famous & the upwardly-moblie CEOs 
who perform the functions of super-foremen.

end of rant

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