The dominant American view on tyranny is that it's defined by collective submission. Truthers heap scorn on "sheeple" passively accepting what their media overlords tell them, libertarians and tea partiers denounce "big government" and "the nanny state" that coddles us only so that they may hold their guns closer to our heads, and the Wall Street Journal routinely publishes stark reminders of the horrors of the Soviet Union two decades after its collapse to remind us of what will happen if we succumb to "collectivism"- like, if we raise the minimum wage.
Such conceptions seems to have even been internalized by those on the liberal end of the spectrum. Elizabeth Warren, when
articulating classical liberal and high school-level contract theory, argued that we all need to pay taxes as it sustains the system that promotes individual success. Yes, we need to give up some freedom, she seems to say, but for the greater good. Liberals have largely conceded the word "freedom," allowing their definition of the term to decay so that it may be replaced by a reactionary impostor. The libertarians have won one of the most important of the eternal political battles: they have made their definitions of crucial terms such as "liberty" and "tyranny" nearly hegemonic and commonsensical. We've reached a point where significant numbers of Americans think that the Nazi regime was actually left-wing because it was an example of "big government."
The libertarians certainly have a point. Beating populations into submission is does establish authority. Collectivization, as in the Soviet Union, can be among the most deadly forms of tyranny.
But this is at best a half-truth. The other half of authoritarianism is narcissism, egoism, and a kind of perverse, reptilian individualism. History has shown the best way to maintain long term and stable control over a population is to grant control of one group over another group, as long as that control is dependent on the ruling class. Or, in the words of the classic socialist slogan: "The ruling class can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half." The kind of asocial egoism promoted by Ron Paul, Mises, and Hayek would necessarily lead to a kind of authoritarianism, probably fascism, in the very unlikely event that they could push their agenda through our liberal democratic safeguards.
It doesn't require a thorough understanding of the history of extreme American libertarianism to realize this- although Michael Lind has conducted a
historical overview and has documented a consistent legacy of the key proponents of this ideology flirting or even collaborating with fascists and military dictators. A philosophical exploration of libertarian ideas with the intent of finding "echoes of fascism" isn't necessary either. The issue is practical: how could extreme libertarian ideologues dismantle the welfare state, totally abolish labor rights, and destroy all regulations on private enterprise without violently suppressing the majority of the population? They can't. Too many people have bled in the streets for those rights to be taken away quietly. The jackboot would become immediately necessary.
Recent American history has amply borne this out. Barry Goldwater was the archetypal law and order candidate, proposing police crackdowns on blacks while advocating for limited government without any apparent cognitive dissonance. Reagan, who believed the nature of the "free market" could be determined through astrology, expanded the drug war as a means of occupying poor communities with a quasi-paramilitary police force, and it was under his administration that the largest prison building program in the history of the world was
implemented. On the same day Congress approved NAFTA, they also passed a massive anti-crime bill. The economy collapses due to deregulation, and the NYPD roams Zucotti Park attacking those protesting against the perpetrators.
Libertarians have presented the choice between government and no government, but the real choice, borne out in fact, is between a liberal democratic government (or its approximation) or a government wielding a militarized police force tossing poor people into jail for life after they commit their "third strike." Given the history of nostalgia for the Confederacy and promotion of dictatorships that has permeated the libertarian right- all this has by no means been incidental- it's clear that when the chips are down, its members would instantly pick the latter option. Advocating for both curbs on the authority of law enforcement and the evisceration of the social safety net and the welfare state, as the Paul-ites do, is asking to have one's cake and to eat it too.
It's only very recently that the idea that egoism would lead to tyranny has become somehow so counterintuitive. Christ and Buddha both warned of the tyrannical consequences of power worship. The connection between egoism and authority becomes obvious when one looks at certain non-state organizations. The mafia is composed from top-to-bottom of sociopathic narcissists, but it's a feudal organization. Cults promise to make supermen and heroes of their members as long as they obey every whim of the leader. Frats and sororities are populated by type-A cheerleading captains and alpha males whose compulsions to dominate make life unendurable for the weak and for outcasts. It is possible to have a viciously authoritarian society comprised not of defeated sheep, but of bullish egoists.
Speaking of cults, it makes perfect sense that the doyen of libertarian egoism, Ayn Rand, was a cult leader herself. As Johann Hari writes in a devastating
portrait of Rand (seriously, it's astonishing that her legacy survives these kind of stories):
"As her books became mega-sellers, Rand surrounded herself with a tightly policed cult of young people who believed she had found the One Objective Truth about the world. They were required to memorize her novels and slapped down as 'imbecilic' and 'anti-life' by Rand if they asked questions. One student said: 'There was a right kind of music, a right kind of art, a right kind of interior design, a right kind of dancing. There were wrong books which we should not buy'... Anybody in her circle who disagreed with her was subjected to a show trial in front of the whole group in which they would be required to repent or face expulsion. Her secretary, Barbara Weiss, said: 'I came to look on her as a killer of people.' The workings of her cult exposed the hollowness of Rand's claims to venerate free thinking and individualism. Her message was, think freely, as long as it leads you into total agreement with me."
It's this combination- egoistic advancement within narrowly prescribed limits- that has been crucial to upholding authoritarian political structures ever since European conservatives experimented with male suffrage and limited forms of mass politics after the revolutions of 1848. In this regard, it's all too natural that Rand, a human freak by any reasonable standard, was a cult leader. Just as anyone could be a hero in her cult as long as they obeyed her, anyone could be a hero if they obeyed the demands of capitalism.
She exploited Nietzsche, but the man was clear that each individual should determine their own ethics after arduous self-discovery ("You have your way. I have my way. As for the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist"). For Rand, morality was already prescribed by the imperatives of authoritarian capitalism; all that was left to do was to obey them. One of Nietzsche's many philosophical projects was to attack the idea that true ethics were embedded within the universe or society; compared to him, Rand is practically a Hegelian. Her philosophy of "egoism" is thus exposed as extreme, radical conformity to elite norms, and her conscription of Nietzsche into her philosophy is no less a ridiculous case of reactionary appropriation than the Catholic church exploiting the moral authority of Christ to justify the Pope's golden throne.
Ultimately lonely people like Rand are the rank and file of authoritarian movements. The final chapter of Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism describes a blighted landscape of loneliness as the breeding ground of all authoritarian regimes. "Isolation and impotence, that is the fundamental inability to act at all, have always been characteristic of tyrannies. Political contacts between men are severed in tyrannical government and the human capacities of action and power are frustrated," she writes, anticipating the savaging of the welfare state, unions, civil society, and other unifying and public organizations in general throughout the neoliberal era. Arendt also promoted Adolph Eichmann as an archetypal fascist in contrast to the stereotype of the nationalist fanatic. "The aim of totalitarian education," she says, "has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any." For every Nazi berserker, there were probably ten, fifty, or even a hundred others who kept the machine running for them, all careerists who were just interested in getting ahead, or getting by.
In fact, Arendt says, "organized loneliness is considerably more dangerous than the unorganized impotence of all those who are ruled by the tyrannical arbitrary will of a single man." It is in the dissolved societies that Arendt describes in which criminal organizations, cults, fascist groups, and other organizations of the rampant Id emerge from. Lacking a real community to provide him dignity and a sense of self-worth, the individual is easy prey for the promises of these authoritarian groups. It is in these organizations that "everybody is educated to become a hero," as Umberto Eco wrote in "Eternal Fascism." Collectivism is not the opposite of egoism, but its flipside.
It's worth quoting at length Lezsek Kolakowski's comments on the "anarchist" philosopher Max Stirner, whose The Ego and His Own was The Virtues of Selfishness for nineteenth-century Germany:
“As recent studies by (Hans G.) Helms have shown, Stirner’s doctrine inspired not only anarchists but various German groups who were the immediate precursors of fascism. At first sight, Nazi totalitarianism may seem the opposite of Stirner’s radical individualism. But fascism was above all an attempt to dissolve the social ties created by history and replace them by artificial bonds among individuals who were expected to render implicit obedience to the state on grounds of absolute egoism. Fascist education combined the tenets of asocial egoism and unquestioning conformism, the latter being the means by which the individual secured his own niche in the system. Stirner’s philosophy has nothing to say against conformism, it only objects to the Ego being subordinated to any higher principle: the egoist is free to adjust to the world if it appears that he will better himself by doing so. His ‘rebellion’ may take the form of utter servility if it will further his interest; what he must not do is to be bound by ‘general’ values or myths of humanity. The totalitarian ideal of a barrack-like society from which all real, historical ties have been eliminated is perfectly consistent with Stirner’s principles: the egoist, by his very nature, must be prepared to fight under any flag that suits his convenience.”
This is probably true of every authoritarian regime. Even in the Soviet Union, the archetypal collectivist tyranny, Gogol's bloodless bureaucrat thrived in the bureaucracies inherited from Tsarism. His grasping careerism was the engine of the authoritarian regime. As Eric Hobsbawm has noted, the Soviet Union was not in fact totalitarian in the classical sense, but depended on a totally depoliticized- not mobilized- citizenry, and operated through a very tiny minority of careerist strivers. A system that promotes the most grotesquely self-serving members of that society to the top is the best explanation for the success of a man like Gorbachev.
One of the best ways to maintain authority is probably to have a middle-class bulwark braced against the masses, gaining their compliance through limited upward mobility (again, self-advancement within prescribed limits). If authoritarianism was solely the outcome of mass submission, than all authoritarian tendencies would flow from the besieged lower classes. But, as numerous studies have shown, the power base of fascism is the middle class, particularly the lower-middle class. Often they are self-employed and not beholden to any corporate superior. Scattered and isolated, they certainly don't resemble a "herd" in the classical sense.
So egoism and herd behavior are both symptoms of sick societies and, far from being opposites, necessitate each other. As far as solutions go, I am, as pretentious people say, a "radical moderate." One must maintain one's individuality so that one's community does not become dumb and blind, but one can only actualize individuality within a community. Or, as Arendt puts it, "what makes loneliness so unbearable is the loss of one's own self which can be realized in solitude, but confirmed in it's identity only in the trusting and trustworthy company of my equals." It's a tightrope act, trying to maintain one's individuality without becoming full of one's self. But it's the only way to have true freedom and to not become either one of the "sheeple" or a Randian- even though they're both one and the same.
