Re: "totalitarianism"

[Bill Lear <rael@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wednesday, April 17, 2002 at 09:24:23 (-0700) Devine, James writes:
>...
>In any event, I don't see the USSR as totalitarian, simply because it didn't
>have very "efficient" labor-power markets (or other markets) of the sort
>that capitalism has. ...
>...
>Yes, there's always a dictionary definition. That's useful for communicating
>with other people, but I think that in this case, the word "totalitarianism"
>has too much ideological baggage. If you want to use the word as a
>rhetorical epithet, that's fine with me. But I don't think it's useful as
>part of a social analysis. In fact, it distorts the analysis.
>...
>Maybe that makes sense in terms of rhetoric, but my concern is with
>political economy, with trying to be scientific.

Well, if we want to be scientific, I would think we should start with
the dictionary term.  I see "totalitarian" as a word that modifies
something else, so I would see the Soviet Union as "state
totalitarian", whereas the US economy is "corporate totalitarian" with
immense support from the state.  I see both as forms of totalitarian
control.  Decoupling the two loses more than it's worth.

I think your definition of totalitarian, as a society that does not
have efficient labor-power markets is simply bizarre.  The form of
control is what we are talking about, not whether or not it is
effective.  If chattel slavery were not effective in exploiting
slaves, we wouldn't cease to call it slavery.

>It's true that a corporate hierarchy is in some ways like the image of a
>"totalitarian society" but there are also dissimilarities. Similarly, a
>corporate bureaucracy is a lot like the actual situation of the old USSR,
>but there are also major differences.

There are always dissimilarities between distinct elements of a class
of things.  Squares are not circles, but both are shapes, have
centers, perimeters, areas, etc.  To say that "shape" has too much
baggage when applied to squares because squares are "pointy" whereas
circles are "smooth" is to ignore the definition of the word "shape"
and its power of abstraction to allow grouping of strongly related
items.  I see corporate America and top-down command-and-control
societies as having a tremendous amount in common in the realm of
social control (again, within the US, I'm speaking fairly strictly of
conditions within a firm).


Bill