Totalitarian (the word) was Re: Rethinking the transition from feudalism questi on

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

> "Devine, James" wrote:
>
> No-one has described the feudal period as being "totalitarian."

I had never looked up the word. It seems that it does not exist in
English before the 1920s, when it was borrowed from an Italian coinage.
In other words, Mussolini _invented_ the word to describe his proposed
state and it was first used in English in commentaries on Italian
fascism. By 1929 the _Times_ had extended it to "unitary state, whether
Fascist or Communist." In 1936 the OED quotes F Underhill giving it a
theological twist and Pound using it in a couple of articles. George
Orwell used "totalitarianization" in 1941.

Applied to any regime prior to Mussolini's the word is a crude
anachronism. I think it has been applied to Plato, and it is true that
some _modern_ authoritarian theories strongly suggest direct or indirect
ties to Plato, and particularly to the _Republic_.

Carrol