Politics is Authoritarian. All of It.
Since Trump finagled his way into the White House, the threat of “authoritarianism” has become an unremitting anxiety of the skittish pundit class. On MSNBC newscasts, in Washington Post editorials, norms fetishists declare, “Oh no! This pompous, gaudy vulgarian has taken office and is now instituting horrible, unprecedentedly dictatorial policies…that also just so happen to be totally aligned with the long term goals of the gop, and in many cases, the dems .”
Despite being an obvious continuation of the American bourgeoisie’s political project, Donald Trump is also an anomalous tyrant bent on eradicating all that is decent and rightful in our undeniably decent and rightful America. According to the cacophonous sobs of the American liberal, he is the new Hitler, the modern Stalin, a McDonald’s Mao.
Of course, this is hysterical and hypocritical gibberish whined by people who have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. But as irritating as your average liberal commentator is, the discourse of ａｕｔｈｏｒｉｔａｒｉａｎｉｓｍ is actually a solid segue for discussing both how power is exerted generally and in the context of the American state.
~Authoritarian~ rouses a stark fear in the American psyche; it reminds a sizable portion of the populace about when they had to read Animal Farm in their 10th grade English class. If you asked Joe or Jane on the street somewhere, they would likely understand the term as the modus operandi of horrible world-dominating enclaves. So, in actuality, beleaguered nations like North Korea and Iran that live in fear everyday that the sociopaths who control the American military are going to vaporize them with thermonuclear weapons. The American fear of authoritarianism is a profoundly tragic irony considering our geopolitical status and the ruthlessness of our masters.
But let’s digress from America to contemplate the machinations of political economy more broadly. In his short piece “On Authority,” Engels describes the crux of all economic organization:
We have thus seen that, on the one hand, a certain authority, no matter how delegated, and, on the other hand, a certain subordination, are things which, independently of all social organisation, are imposed upon us together with the material conditions under which we produce and make products circulate.
We have seen, besides, that the material conditions of production and circulation inevitably develop with large-scale industry and large-scale agriculture, and increasingly tend to enlarge the scope of this authority. Hence it is absurd to speak of the principle of authority as being absolutely evil, and of the principle of autonomy as being absolutely good. Authority and autonomy are relative things whose spheres vary with the various phases of the development of society.
Engels is specifically addressing economic production, but this logic also must be necessarily applied to the intertwined political domain. A massive system of governance, designed by those who control economic production and seek to ensure said economy enriches them, would assuredly mirror the hierarchical structure of the means of production. Within an expansive nation, even the instatement of seemingly minor policies is unquestionably going to require a massive network of governmental institutions and the exercise of vast authoritative power. The capitalist class has arranged society in a strict order and its overarching political apparatuses have been tasked with maintaining that status.
The severity of the American state is expressed constantly. Think back to recent political happenings: organizing police forces in opposition to protests like Occupy and NoDAPL, transferring wealth and restructuring banks during the Great Recession, increasing the digital surveillance of American intelligence groups, etc. Just in the last decade, the federal government has been expressly imperious. Even “libertarian” policies like the deregulation of financial institutions demand rigorous top down coordination between corporate and political entities in order to domineer the electoral process and cram unpopular legislation through Congress. The overseeing of capital requires a dominant, an authoritarian, political force. And since the USA is the hegemonic spine of capital, its rule is especially devastating.
In order to cultivate a more robust knowledge of political operation, here’s another way to envision how government actually functions:
Americans have been indoctrinated by the alleged egalitarianism of our liberal democracy, but this is a perception constructed by the powers that be. In reality, there have been very few regimes as brutal and authoritarian as the United States, particularly since the end of WWII. This chain of imperial war crimes and national repressions, however, is not thoroughly detailed in the average high school history course. Evil, ireful, and usually non-white nations like China and Venezuela are portrayed as devilishly authoritarian by national media apparatuses because their governments are purportedly intrusive, harsh, and dominated by a single political party (gasp!), a phenomenon apparently foreign to our good ol’ GOP controlled US of A.
Depicting intimidated states as unhinged and autocratic is an integral ideological objective of the American overclass. By disseminating the invented truism that “empowered America=good, empowered other state=bad,” the proletariat’s loyalty to the national bourgeoisie is secured and militaristic international relations are justified. It’s a grievously effective ploy.
American authoritarianism is expressed in a variety of ways, but for example, its military proves to be the most sadistic. Since 9/11, America has conducted various military operations, violent interventions, and war in a plethora of countries:
Sierra leone
Nigeria
Yemen
East Timor
Afghanistan
Philippines
Cote d’Ivore
Iraq
Liberia
Georgia
Djibouti
Haiti
Pakistan
Lebanon
Somalia
Libya
Uganda
Jordan
Chad
Mali
Syria
Cameroon
Despite this recent despotic history, liberal observers are perpetually blathering about the terror of America’s burgeoning authoritarianism. It’s a truly repugnant, but also unsurprising, ignorance.
Lenin accurately unravels this specious punditry in his essay “‘Democracy’ and Dictatorship”:
Elections held in such circumstances are lauded by the bourgeoisie, for very good reasons, as being “free”, “equal”, “democratic” and “universal”. These words are designed to conceal the truth, to conceal the fact that the means of production and political power remain in the hands of the exploiters, and that therefore real freedom and real equality for the exploited, that is, for the vast majority of the population, are out of the question. It is profitable and indispensable for the bourgeoisie to conceal from the people the bourgeois character of modern democracy, to picture it as democracy in general or “pure democracy”
The bourgeoisie are compelled to be hypocritical and to describe as “popular government”, democracy in general, or pure democracy, the ( bourgeois ) democratic republic which is, in practice, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the dictatorship of the exploiters over the working people…The dictatorship of the proletariat alone can emancipate humanity from the oppression of capital, from the lies, falsehood and hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy — democracy for the rich — and establish democracy for the poor, that is, make the blessings of democracy really accessible to the workers and poor peasants, whereas now (even in the most democratic — bourgeois — republic) the blessings of democracy are, in fact, inaccessible to the vast majority of working people.
Political organization and the exertion of power are fundamentally authoritarian endeavors. People don’t fear authority generally, they fear the authority of an oppressor class. Unfortunately, the American worker has been convinced to despise their counterparts here and abroad, and not the vicious capitalists within the border.
In the United States, when lawmakers seek to defund social safety nets, that’s not authoritarian. When American drones incinerate a Yemeni wedding, that’s not authoritarian. When millions of Latinx migrants are ethnically cleansed by a national deportation campaign, that’s not authoritarian.
If there is one good thing about Trump, it is that his administration has reminded some that there is an enduring class war. America has always been a dictatorship, one of capital over labor. A transformative political movement seeks to abolish this subjugation and empower the underclass. Workers need not fear authority. We have to organize ourselves into a sovereign party and claim it.
