Totalitarianism - Essay Example

of the of the of the Totalitarianism Totalitarianism is defined as a political organization in which the state strives to control all aspects of public and private life of its citizens. Totalitarian regimes stay in power by employing widespread use of violence, disseminating propaganda through state controlled media, political oppression, denial of freedom of speech and control over the economy. However, Hannah Arendt perceives totalitarian as a system where the state transform class into mass movements, have the national police assume the role of the military to instill terror in people and establish a foreign policy with the intention of domineering the whole world (Cohen & Fermon 575). Arendt argues that totalitarian movements established by totalitarian governments depend on the sheer force of numbers and not proportionate strength like other political parties. With this understanding, it is clear that communism, socialism, liberalism, feminism, conservatism and fascism are totalitarian ideologies. This paper is intended to show that in the idea of Hannah Arendt, Benito Mussolini; a fascist, Vladimir Lenin; a communist, and Emma Goldman; anarchist and feminist, were all totalitarians. This is because their ideologies involved changing class to masses where individual opinion was not respected, and I will further show that Robert Nozick’s libertarian ideology was not totalitarian. At the end of the First World War, Italy was found entangled in economic and political challenges. Public servants went on strike in urban centers while, in the rural areas, landless peasants grabbed the property of rich landlords. Benito Mussolini used this unrest as an opportunity to climb to power. He formed the fascist party which supported hard line nationalism, and condemned democratic system of government on the belief that competitor parties separated the state. They also reject communism and embraced personal property ownership. In the early 1920s, Mussolini and his supporters had worn the support of most Italian citizens by attacking the communists and socialists. In1922 Mussolini led Italians on a protest march on Rome supposedly to prevent a communist revolution but in a real sense to scare the government into appointing him as the prime minister of Italy. Immediately he was in office he enlarged his power by appointing Fascists to high positions, censoring the press, organizing secret police, and outlawing condemnation of the government. He controlled the army and the schools making Italian citizens embrace the slogan “Everything in the state and nothing outside or against the state” (Cohen & Fermon 571). Mussolini’s Italy was dominated by one party; Fascist party and all opposition parties were wiped out. Mussolini also had a lot of power over this party, until people argued that the party had no part in running of the country but Mussolini himself. He later decided that he wants to run the country for himself and that the party is no longer important for anything else than doing what he wanted. Mussolini believed in making Italy great by making Italians go to war by all means. On his coming to power, he made Italians to belief that he was their savior considering hard times they were facing. He replaced the class society with the masses so that he can avoid criticism and later ruled them with the iron fist. For this, his actions constituted totalitarianism as defined by Arendt. Mussolini faulted the American democracy arguing that people do not know what they want and the best for them. He swore that someday America will know that democracy is only beautifully theoretically but a fallacy practically (Cohen & Fermon 532). Mussolini would have been right here when he said that people do not know what they want during voting in leaders. It has always been known that most of the leaders win elections because of their influence and not their ideology. The best people with good ideologies are normally left out. Vladimir Lenin believed in a classless society in which the citizens’ property would be commonly owned and, he insisted on bold, revolutionary action and emphasized that a strong communist party should be put in place to direct efforts of workers. He also argued that communist nations should prepare for war to defeat the capitalist nations which according to him always resort to hostile imperialist moves. His belief was based on Marxism ideology. He was a charismatic leader and so he used this to gain support of the masses and eventually gained power. In order to remain in power, Lenin employed very brutal means that aimed at suppressing any opposition towards his rule (Steinberg 242). He shut down the opposition press, arrested socialist revolutionaries, encouraged class warfare against bourgeoisie, replaced judicial system with revolutionary system of justice, arrested and executed civil servants. With this, he became the sole decision maker of the country and its people. Arendt was clear that totalitarians do not use violent means to ascend to power, but once they are in authority, they employ terror in order to force their ideas to their subjects and, therefore, Lenin was a totalitarian. Lenin saw a liberal democratic state of the United States’ as the tool for the mistreatment of wage-labor. He argued that failure by the United States to abolish individual property ownership and replace it with communal property ownership has led to unequal wealth distribution for its citizens. This ideology discourages hardworking among citizens and thus reducing economic growth of the state. Because of this, I find it to be difficult to agree with him. Emma Goldman as a feminist, held the view that birth control is salvation to the social and economic problems facing women. She insisted that women should be given left to make a decision if they want to give birth. She believed that male led families were all laid on the grounds of prostitution as women had to practice commercial sex for financial stability. She argued that once women had children, they are burdened further and have to live under the oppression of their husbands. Her campaigns championed change of traditions of the people to replace it with her ideology; that is have women decide if they want to bear children or not even a combined responsibility of married partners. (Cohen & Fermon 539)This is a sign of making women totalitarian. As anarchist, she believed in the liberation of human minds from dominion of religion, liberation of the human body from dominion of property and liberation from strains of the government. She advocated for the complete lack of state. This ideology creates a lawless state which lacks any government and thus in case of a dispute, the only arbiter is public opinion, which may prove, intolerant and dictatorial hence this ideology is totalitarian. Goldman perceived U.S. government as controlling people’s lives and their property and felt that people should be liberated from these chains of the government. However, this ideology may have some advantages such as minimizing governmental dictatorial; it fails to explain how interpersonal disputes can be solved fairly without the involvement of the law and government. Robert Nozick; a libertarian believed that only minimal state is ethically justified, with only powers to protect the citizens against fraud, theft and violence. He also argues that the state should also have powers to control the economy of its citizens such equal distribution of wealth, and provision of social services including education and healthcare (Steinberg 162). He believed that any state with excess powers would violet the natural rights of its citizens and thus it should not have powers to regulate prices of commodities or to set minimum wage as this violet the natural rights of citizens to dispose off their property and labor included. He further argued that the state should be denied powers to use taxes in setting up schools and hospitals. He believed that mandatory taxation used to fund other services rather than those of minimal state amounts to forced labor. In ideological belief of Hannah Arendt, Robert Nozick was not a totalitarian because his ideology does not transform classes into masses instead it encourages class as it insists that no person is supposed to suffer for the sake of another such as compulsory taxation for funding social programs. Nozick thinks that United States’ political system does not respect the liberty of its citizens such as taxing the rich to help the poor in an effort to realize equality. He argues that no person should be deprived of his natural right of liberty for the sake of another. This argument cannot gain my support because it might work to increase the poverty gap, therefore, raising the level of poverty in the country. From Arendt’s ideology, we can conclude that ideologies of Mussolini, Lenin and Goldman were totalitarian as all involve breaking classes in favor of masses and eventually control all aspects of humans’ life. Looking keenly into Nozick’s ideology, it favors classes rather than masses and also it outlaws state’s excesses against its citizens preventing any form of dictatorial rule. Works Cited Cohen, M. & Fermon, N. Princeton Readings in Political Thought: Essential Texts Since Plato. New York: Princeton University Press, 1996. Print. Steinberg, Jules. Hannah Arendt on the Holocaust: a study of the suppression of truth. New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000. Print. Read More