Totalitarianism: Difference between revisions

'''Totalitarianism''' is a [[political system]] and a [[Government#Forms|form of government]] that prohibits opposition political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and controls the [[public sphere]] and the [[private sphere]] of society. In the field of [[political science]], totalitarianism is the extreme form of [[authoritarianism]], wherein all [[power (social and political)|socio-political power]] is held by a [[dictator]], who also controls the national politics and the peoples of the nation with continual propaganda campaigns that are broadcast by state-controlled and by friendly private [[mass media|mass communications media]].<ref name="reflections2">{{cite book |first=Robert |last=Conquest |author-link=Robert Conquest |title=Reflections on a Ravaged Century |year=1999 |isbn=0393048187 |pages=73–74|publisher=Norton }}</ref>

From the right-wing perspective, the social phenomenon of political totalitarianism is a product of [[Modernism]], which the philosopher [[Karl Popper]] said originated from [[Humanismhumanism|humanist philosophy]]; from the ''[[Republicthe (Plato)|Republic]]republic'' (''res publica'') proposed by [[Plato]] in [[Ancient Greece]] (12th c. BC – 600 AD), from [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|G.F.W. Hegel]]'s conception of [[State (polity)|the State]] as a polity of peoples, and from the [[political economy]] of [[Karl Marx]] in the 19th century<ref>{{cite book|last=Popper|first=Karl|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EaKc0RRqlvYC&q=The+Open+society+and+its+enemies|title=The Open Society and Its Enemies|editor-last=Gombrich|editor-first=E. H.|year=2013|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0691158136|access-date=17 August 2021|archive-date=11 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220111091824/https://books.google.com/books?id=EaKc0RRqlvYC&q=The+Open+society+and+its+enemies|url-status=live}}</ref>—yet historians and philosophers of those periods dispute the historiographic accuracy of Popper's 20th20-century interpretation and delineation of the historical origins of totalitarianism, because the ancientAncient Greek philosopher Plato did not invent the [[Sovereigntysovereignty|modern State]].<ref>Wild, John (1964). ''Plato's Modern Enemies and the Theory of Natural Law''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 23. "Popper“Popper is committing a serious historical error in attributing the organic theory of the State to Plato, and accusing him of all the fallacies of post–Hegelian and Marxist historicism — the theory that history is controlled by the inexorable laws governing the behaviour of superindividual social entities of which human beings and their free choices are merely subordinate manifestations."”</ref><ref>Levinson, Ronald B. (1970). ''In Defense of Plato''. New York: Russell and Russell. p. 20. "In“In spite of the high rating, one must accord his [Popper'sPopper’s] initial intention of fairness, his hatred for the enemies of the 'open‘open society'society’, his zeal to destroy whatever seems, to him, destructive of the welfare of mankind, has led him into the extensive use of what may be called ''terminological counter-propaganda''. [. . .] With a few exceptions in Popper's favour, however, it is noticeable that [book] reviewers possessed of special competence in particular fields – and here Lindsay is again to be included – have objected to Popper's conclusions in those very fields. [. . .] Social scientists and social philosophers have deplored his radical denial of historical causation, together with his espousal of Hayek's systematic distrust of larger programs of social reform; historical students of philosophy have protested his [Popper's] violent, polemical handling of Plato, Aristotle, and, particularly, Hegel; ethicists have found contradictions in the ethical theory ('critical‘critical dualism'dualism’) upon which his [anti-Modernist] polemic is largely based."</ref>

In the early 20th century, [[Giovanni Gentile]] proposed [[Italian Fascism]] as a political ideology with a philosophy that is "totalitarian, and [that] the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unity inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people"."<ref name="doctrine">{{cite book |last1=Gentile |first1=Giovanni |author-link1=Giovanni Gentile |last2=Mussolini |first2=Benito |author-link2=Benito Mussolini |date=1932 |title=La dottrina del fascismo |trans-title=The Doctrine of Fascism |title-link=The Doctrine of Fascism}}</ref> In 1920s Germany, during the [[Weimar Republic]] (1918–1933), the Nazi jurist [[Carl Schmitt]] integrated Gentile's Fascist philosophy of united national purpose to the supreme-leader ideology of the ''[[FührerprinzipFuhrerprinzip]]''. In the mid 20th-century, the German academics [[Theodor W. Adorno]] and [[Max Horkheimer]] traced the origin of totalitarianism to the [[Age of Enlightenment|Age of Reason]] (17th–18th17th centuriesc. – 18th c.), especially to the [[Anthropocentrism|anthropocentrist]] proposition that: "Man“Man has become the master of the world, a master unbound by any links to Nature, society, and history", which excludes the intervention of [[Supernatural|supernatural beings]] to earthly politics of government.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Horkheimer |first1=Max |author-link=Max Horkheimer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l-75zLjGlZQC&q=the+dialectic+of+enlightenment |title=Dialectic of Enlightenment |last2=Adorno |first2=Theodor W. |author2-link=Theodor W. Adorno |last3=Noeri |first3=Gunzelin |date=2002 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-0804736336 |language=en |access-date=2021-08-17 |archive-date=2022-01-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220110122043/https://books.google.com/books?id=l-75zLjGlZQC&q=the+dialectic+of+enlightenment |url-status=live }}</ref>

In the essay "The 'Dark Forces', the Totalitarian Model, and Soviet History" (1987), by J.F. Hough,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hough |first1=Jerry F. |title=The "Dark Forces," the Totalitarian Model, and Soviet History |journal=The Russian Review |date=1987 |volume=46 |issue=4 |pages=397–403 |doi=10.2307/130293 |jstor=130293 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/130293 |issn=0036-0341}}</ref> and in the book ''The Totalitarian Legacy of the Bolshevik Revolution'' (2019), by Alexander Riley,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CNeaDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22first+totalitarian%22+%22lenin%22&pg=PA9|title=The Totalitarian Legacy of the Bolshevik Revolution|first1=Alexander|last1=Riley|first2=Alfred Kentigern|last2=Siewers|date=June 18, 2019|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=9781793605344 |via=Google Books|access-date=April 17, 2022|archive-date=April 17, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417002550/https://books.google.com/books?id=CNeaDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA9&dq=%22first+totalitarian%22+%22lenin%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&gbmsitb=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjShc7Ht5n3AhXhkGoFHa8jCS0Q6AF6BAgGEAM#v=onepage&q=%22first+totalitarian%22+%22lenin%22&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> the historians said that the Russian Marxist revolutionary [[Lenin]] was the first politician to establish a sovereign state of the totalitarian model.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-eaWDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22first+totalitarian%22+%22lenin%22&pg=PA98|title=Totalitarianisms: The Closed Society and Its Friends. A History of Crossed Languages|first=Juan Francisco|last=Fuentes|date=April 29, 2019|publisher=Ed. Universidad de Cantabria|isbn=9788481028898 |via=Google Books|access-date=April 17, 2022|archive-date=April 17, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417002552/https://books.google.com/books?id=-eaWDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA98&dq=%22first+totalitarian%22+%22lenin%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&gbmsitb=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjso5nU0pn3AhUXVzABHborA044ChDoAXoECAkQAw#v=onepage&q=%22first+totalitarian%22+%22lenin%22&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pHUzDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22first+totalitarian%22+%22lenin%22&pg=PT85|title=Lenin and the Twentieth Century: A Bertram D. Wolfe Retrospective|first=Lennard|last=Gerson|date=September 1, 2013|publisher=Hoover Press|isbn=9780817979331 |via=Google Books|access-date=April 17, 2022|archive-date=April 17, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417002551/https://books.google.com/books?id=pHUzDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT85&dq=%22first+totalitarian%22+%22lenin%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&gbmsitb=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjShc7Ht5n3AhXhkGoFHa8jCS0Q6AF6BAgHEAM#v=onepage&q=%22first+totalitarian%22+%22lenin%22&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MjQ5DwAAQBAJ&dq=%22first+totalitarian%22+%22lenin%22&pg=PT13|title=Resolutions and Decisions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Volume 2: The Early Soviet Period 1917–1929|first=Richard|last=Gregor|date=1974|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=9781487590116 |via=Google Books|access-date=April 17, 2022|archive-date=April 17, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220417002552/https://books.google.com/books?id=MjQ5DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT13&dq=%22first+totalitarian%22+%22lenin%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&gbmsitb=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjso5nU0pn3AhUXVzABHborA044ChDoAXoECAgQAw#v=onepage&q=%22first+totalitarian%22+%22lenin%22&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> As the ''[[Duce]]'' leading the Italian people to the future, [[Benito Mussolini]] (r. 1922–1943) said that his dictatorial régime of government made [[Fascist Italy]] (1922–1943) the representative ''Totalitarian State'': "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Delzell |first=Charles F. |title=Remembering Mussolini |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40257305 |journal=The Wilson Quarterly |volume=12 |number=2 |date=Spring 1988 |page=127 |publisher=Wilson Quarterly |location=Washington, D.C. |jstor=40257305 |access-date=2022-04-24 |archive-date=2022-05-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220513050107/https://www.jstor.org/stable/40257305 |url-status=live }} Retrieved April 8, 2022</ref> Likewise, in ''[[The Concept of the Political]]'' (1927), the Nazi jurist Schmitt used the term ''der Totalstaat'' (the Total State) to identify, describe, and establish the [[Legitimacy (political)|legitimacy]] of a German totalitarian state led by a [[FührerFuhrer|supreme leader]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Carl |last=Schmitt |author-link=Carl Schmitt |date=1927 |title=Der Begriff des Politischen |trans-title=The Concept of the Political|isbn=0226738868 |edition=1996 |editor=University of Chicago Press |publisher=Rutgers University Press |page=22 |language=de}}</ref>

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[[Laure Neumayer]] posited that "despite the disputes over its heuristic value and its normative assumptions, the concept of totalitarianism made a vigorous return to the political and academic fields at the end of the Cold War"."<ref>{{cite book |last=Neumayer |first=Laure |author-link=Laure Neumayer |year=2018 |title=The Criminalisation of Communism in the European Political Space after the Cold War |publisher=Routledge |isbn= 9781351141741}}</ref> In the 1990s, [[François Furet]] made a comparative analysis<ref>{{cite journal |last=Schönpflug |first=Daniel |date=2007 |title=Histoires croisées: François Furet, Ernst Nolte and a Comparative History of Totalitarian Movements |journal=European History Quarterly |volume=37 |issue=2 |pages=265–290 |doi=10.1177/0265691407075595|s2cid=143074271 }}</ref> and used the term ''[[Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism|totalitarian twins]]'' to link Nazism and Stalinism.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Singer |first=Daniel |author-link=Daniel Singer (journalist) |date=17 April 1995 |title=The Sound and the Furet |url=http://www.thenation.com/doc/19950417/singer |url-status=dead |magazine=[[The Nation]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080317075608/https://www.thenation.com/doc/19950417/singer |archive-date=17 March 2008 |access-date= 7 August 2020 |quote=Furet, borrowing from Hannah Arendt, describes Bolsheviks and Nazis as totalitarian twins, conflicting yet united.}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last=Singer |first=Daniel |author-link=Daniel Singer (journalist) |date=2 November 1999 |url=https://www.thenation.com/article/exploiting-tragedy-or-le-rouge-en-noir/ |title=Exploiting a Tragedy, or Le Rouge en Noir |magazine=[[The Nation]] |access-date=7 August 2020 |quote=... the totalitarian nature of Stalin's Russia is undeniable. |archive-date=26 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190726020527/https://www.thenation.com/article/exploiting-tragedy-or-le-rouge-en-noir/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.remember.org/guide/Facts.root.nazi.html |title=Nazi Fascism and the Modern Totalitarian State |last=Grobman |first=Gary M. |date=1990 |website=Remember.org |access-date=7 August 2020 |quote=The government of [[Nazi Germany]] was a fascist, totalitarian state. |archive-date=2 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402073405/http://www.remember.org/guide/Facts.root.nazi.html |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Eric Hobsbawm]] criticised Furet for his temptation to stress the existence of a common ground between two systems with different ideological roots.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hobsbawm |first=Eric |author-link=Eric Hobsbawm |date=2012 |chapter=Revolutionaries |title=History and Illusion |publisher=Abacus |isbn=978-0349120560}}</ref> In ''Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?: Five Interventions in the (Mis)Use of a Notion'', Žižek wrote that "[t]he liberating effect" of General [[Augusto Pinochet]]'s arrest "was exceptional", as "the fear of Pinochet dissipated, the spell was broken, the taboo subjects of torture and disappearances became the daily grist of the news media; the people no longer just whispered, but openly spoke about prosecuting him in Chile itself"."<ref>{{cite book |last=Žižek |first=Slavoj |author-link=Slavoj Žižek |date=2002 |title=Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?: Five Interventions in the (Mis)Use of a Notion |location=London and New York |publisher=Verso |page=169 |isbn=9781859844250}}</ref> Saladdin Ahmed cited Hannah Arendt as stating that "the Soviet Union can no longer be called totalitarian in the strict sense of the term after [[Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin|Stalin's death]]", writing that "this was the case in General August Pinochet's Chile, yet it would be absurd to exempt it from the class of totalitarian regimes for that reason alone"." Saladdin posited that while [[Military dictatorship of Chile|Chile under Pinochet]] had no "official ideology", there was one man who ruled Chile from "behind the scenes", "none other than [[Milton Friedman]], the godfather of [[neoliberalism]] and the most influential teacher of the [[Chicago Boys]], was Pinochet's adviser"." In this sense, Saladdin criticised the totalitarian concept because it was only being applied to "opposing ideologies" and it was not being applied to liberalism.<ref name="Saladdin 2019"/>

In the early 2010s, Richard Shorten, [[Vladimir Tismăneanu]], and Aviezer Tucker posited that totalitarian ideologies can take different forms in different political systems but all of them focus on [[utopia]]nism, [[scientism]], or [[political violence]]. They posit that Nazism and Stalinism both emphasised the role of specialisation in modern societies and they also saw [[polymath]]y as a thing of the past, and they also stated that their claims were supported by statistics and science, which led them to impose strict ethical regulations on culture, use psychological violence, and persecute entire groups.<ref>{{cite book |last=Shorten |first=Richard |date=2012 |title=Modernism and Totalitarianism: Rethinking the Intellectual Sources of Nazism and Stalinism, 1945 to the Present |publisher=Palgrave |isbn=978-0230252073}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Tismăneanu |first=Vladimir |date=2012 |title=The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0520954175}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Tucker |first=Aviezer |date=2015 |title=The Legacies of Totalitarianism: A Theoretical Framework |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1316393055}}</ref> Their arguments have been criticised by other scholars due to their partiality and anachronism. [[Juan Francisco Fuentes]] treats totalitarianism as an "[[invented tradition]]" and he believes that the notion of "modern [[despotism]]" is a "reverse anachronism"; for Fuentes, "the anachronistic use of totalitarian/totalitarianism involves the will to reshape the past in the image and likeness of the present"."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Fuentes |first=Juan Francisco |date=2015 |title=How Words Reshape the Past: The 'Old, Old Story of Totalitarianism |journal=Politics, Religion & Ideology |volume=16 |issue=2–3 |pages=282–297 |doi=10.1080/21567689.2015.1084928|s2cid=155157905 }}</ref>

Other studies try to link modern technological changes to totalitarianism. According to [[Shoshana Zuboff]], the economic pressures of modern [[surveillance capitalism]] are driving the intensification of connection and monitoring online with spaces of social life becoming open to saturation by corporate actors, directed at the making of profit and/or the regulation of action.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Zuboff|first1=Shoshana|title=The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power|publisher=PublicAffairs|year=2019|isbn=978-1610395694|location=New York|oclc=1049577294}}</ref> [[Toby Ord]] believed that George Orwell's fears of totalitarianism constituted a notable early precursor to modern notions of anthropogenic existential risk, the concept that a future catastrophe could permanently destroy the potential of Earth-originating intelligent life due in part to technological changes, creating a permanent [[technological dystopia]]. Ord said that Orwell's writings show that his concern was genuine rather than just a throwaway part of the fictional plot of ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]''. In 1949, Orwell wrote that "[a] ruling class which could guard against (four previously enumerated sources of risk) would remain in power permanently"."<ref>{{cite book|last=Ord|first=Toby|year=2020|chapter=Future Risks|title=The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1526600196}}</ref> That same year, [[Bertrand Russell]] wrote that "modern techniques have made possible a new intensity of governmental control, and this possibility has been exploited very fully in totalitarian states"."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Clarke|first=R.|year=1988|title=Information Technology and Dataveillance|journal=[[Communications of the ACM]]|volume=31|number=5|pages=498–512|doi=10.1145/42411.42413|s2cid=6826824|doi-access=free}}</ref>

In 2016, ''[[The Economist]]'' described China's developed [[Social Credit System]] under [[Chinese Communist Party]] [[General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party|general secretary]] [[Xi Jinping]]'s [[Xi Jinping Administration|administration]], to screen and rank its citizens based on their personal behavior, as ''totalitarian''.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/12/17/china-invents-the-digital-totalitarian-state|title=China invents the digital totalitarian state|newspaper=The Economist|date=17 December 2017|access-date=14 September 2018|archive-date=14 September 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180914200819/https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/12/17/china-invents-the-digital-totalitarian-state|url-status=live}}</ref> Opponents of China's ranking system say that it is intrusive and it is just another tool which a one-party state can use to control the population. Supporters say that it will transform China into a more civilised and law-abiding society.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Leigh |first1=Karen |last2=Lee |first2=Dandan |date=2 December 2018 |title=China's Radical Plan to Judge Each Citizen's Behavior |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/chinas-radical-plan-to-judge-each-citizens-behavior/2018/12/02/0a281258-f69b-11e8-8642-c9718a256cbd_story.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190102090447/https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/chinas-radical-plan-to-judge-each-citizens-behavior/2018/12/02/0a281258-f69b-11e8-8642-c9718a256cbd_story.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2 January 2019 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |access-date=23 January 2020}}</ref> Shoshana Zuboff considers it instrumentarian rather than totalitarian.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Lucas |first=Rob |date=January–February 2020 |title=The Surveillance Business |url=https://newleftreview.org/issues/II121/articles/rob-lucas-the-surveillance-business |journal=[[New Left Review]] |volume=121 |issue= |pages= |doi= |access-date=23 March 2020 |archive-date=21 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200621022016/https://newleftreview.org/issues/II121/articles/rob-lucas-the-surveillance-business |url-status=live }}</ref> Other emerging technologies that could empower future totalitarian regimes include [[brain-reading]], [[contact tracing]], and various applications of [[artificial intelligence]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Brennan-Marquez |first=K. |date=2012 |title=A Modest Defence of Mind Reading |url=https://yjolt.org/modest-defense-mind-reading |journal=[[Yale Journal of Law and Technology]] |volume=15 |issue=214 |pages= |doi= |access-date= |archive-date=2020-08-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200810195039/https://yjolt.org/modest-defense-mind-reading |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Pickett |first=K. |date=16 April 2020 |title=Totalitarianism: Congressman calls method to track coronavirus cases an invasion of privacy |url=https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/totalitarianism-congressman-calls-method-to-track-coronavirus-cases-an-invasion-of-privacy |work=[[Washington Examiner]] |access-date=23 April 2020 |archive-date=22 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200422082819/https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/totalitarianism-congressman-calls-method-to-track-coronavirus-cases-an-invasion-of-privacy |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Helbing2019">{{cite book |last1=Helbing |first1=Dirk |last2=Frey |first2=Bruno S. |last3=Gigerenzer |first3=Gerd |last4=Hafen |first4=Ernst |last5=Hagner |first5=Michael |last6=Hofstetter |first6=Yvonne |last7=van den Hoven |first7=Jeroen |last8=Zicari |first8=Roberto V. |last9=Zwitter |first9=Andrej |title=Towards Digital Enlightenment |chapter=Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence? |date=2019 |pages=73–98 |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-90869-4_7 |isbn=978-3-319-90868-7 |s2cid=46925747 |chapter-url=https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/111453647/Helbing2019_Chapter_WillDemocracySurviveBigDataAnd.pdf |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20220526083948/https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/111453647/Helbing2019_Chapter_WillDemocracySurviveBigDataAnd.pdf |archivedate= 2022-05-26}} (also published in {{cite book |last1=Helbing |first1=D. |last2=Frey |first2=B. S. |last3=Gigerenzer |first3=G. |display-authors=etal |date=2019 |chapter=Will democracy survive big data and artificial intelligence? |title=Towards Digital Enlightenment: Essays on the Dark and Light Sides of the Digital Revolution |location= |publisher=Springer, Cham. |pages=73–98 |isbn=978-3319908694}})</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Turchin|first1=Alexey|last2=Denkenberger|first2=David|s2cid=19208453|title=Classification of global catastrophic risks connected with artificial intelligence|journal=AI & Society|date=3 May 2018|volume=35|issue=1|pages=147–163|doi=10.1007/s00146-018-0845-5|url=https://philarchive.org/rec/TURCOG-2}}</ref> Philosopher [[Nick Bostrom]] said that there is a possible trade-off, namely that some existential risks might be mitigated by the establishment of a powerful and permanent [[world government]], and in turn the establishment of such a government could enhance the existential risks which are associated with the rule of a permanent dictatorship.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Bostrom|first1=Nick|title=Existential Risk Prevention as Global Priority|journal=Global Policy|date=February 2013|volume=4|issue=1|pages=15–31|doi=10.1111/1758-5899.12002}}</ref>

* [[SurveillanceEconomic capitalismtotalitarianism]]