Authoritarianism

Jump to navigationJump to search

Violence is the whole essence of authoritarianism, just as the repudiation of violence is the whole
essence of anarchism. ~ Errico Malatesta.

Authoritarianism is a political stance supporting forms of government characterized by strong

central power and limited political freedoms. Civil liberties are subordinate to the state and
there is little or no reliable constitutional accountability under an authoritarian regime.
See also:
Fascism
Nazism
Totalitarianism

Quotes[edit]

The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians

and libertarians. ~ George Orwell
 That the more authoritarian organizations survive and prevail goes generally unnoticed because
people focus on the objectives of organizations, which are many and varied, rather than on their
structures, which tend to be similar. ~ Robert Shea

However sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start with a belief in
some group's greater right to power, whether that right is justified by sex, race, class, religion or
all four. ~ Gloria Steinem

 Most traditional societies produce an authoritarian personality, but some

produce an innovative one, which leads to change.
 Bert N. Adams and Rosalind Ann Sydie in Sociological Theory (2001), p. 449

 In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran, Yugoslavia,

journalists play a critical role in civil society, they form the very basis of those new
democracies and civil societies.
 Christiane Amanpour, in the Keynote address at the Edward R. Murrow Awards
Ceremony in Minneapolis, Minnesota (13 September 2000)

 An anarchist … is an individual who, whether he has been brought to it by a

process of reasoning or by sentiment, lives to the greatest possible extent in a
state of legitimate defence against authoritarian encroachments.
 Emile Armand, in "Anarchist Individualism as Life and Activity" (1907)

 No moral system can rest solely on authority.

 Alfred Jules Ayer, in Humanist Outlook (1968), p. 4
 When true freedom covers the earth, we shall see the end of tyranny - politically,
religiously and economically. I am not here referring to modern democracy as a
condition which meets the needs, for democracy is at present a philosophy of wishful
thinking, and an unachieved ideal. I refer to that period which will surely come, in
which an enlightened people will rule; these people will not tolerate authoritarianism in
any political system; they will not accept or permit the rule of any body of men who
undertake to tell them what they must believe in order to be saved, or what
government they must accept.
 Alice Bailey The Reappearance of the Christ (1947) p. 164/5

 They are the driven crowds that makes the army of the authoritarian overlord; they are
the stuffing of conservatism ... mediocrity is their god. They fear the stranger, they fear
the new idea; they are afraid to live, and scared to die.
 Donald Ewen Cameron as quoted by Harvey Weinstein in Father, Son and
CIA pg. 101

 Hierarchic and authoritarian structures are not self-justifying. They have to have a

justification. So if there is a relation of subordination and domination, maybe you can
justify it, but there's a strong burden of proof on anybody who tries to justify it. Quite
commonly, the justification can't be given. It's a relationship that is maintained by
obedience, by force, by tradition, by one or another form of sometimes physical,
sometimes intellectual or moral coercion. If so, it ought to be dismantled. People
ought to become liberated and discover that they are under a form of
oppression which is illegitimate, and move to dismantle it. 
What happens next? We don't really know. There are people who think they know the
answer. I'm not one of them. My view is, we don't understand very much about human
beings or human affairs, so anything that would be done has to be experimentally
tried, but I think there are some leading ideas that make some good sense.
 Noam Chomsky, in "Reluctant Icon" (interview, c. 1990)

 The killing of another, except in defense of human life, is archistic, authoritarian,

and therefore, no Anarchist can commit such deeds. It is the very opposite of what
Anarchism stands for.
 Joseph Labadie, in "Anarchism and Crime" in Anarchism (1932)

 Violence is the whole essence of authoritarianism, just as the repudiation of

violence is the whole essence of anarchism.
 Errico Malatesta, "Anarchism, Authoritarian Socialism and Communism"
in Fede (28 October 1923); also in What Is Anarchism? : An Introduction edited by
Donald Rooum (1992, 1995) p. 59

 I think the question is not about "communists" and "individualists", but rather
about anarchists and non-anarchists. And we, or at least many of us, were quite
wrong in discussing a certain kind of alleged "anarchist individualism" as if it really was
one of the various tendencies of anarchism, instead of fighting it as one of the many
disguises of authoritarianism.
 Errico Malatesta, in "Note to the article "Individualism and Anarchism" by
Adams" in Pensiero e Volontà No. 15 (1 August 1924)

 Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All
through history mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their
 fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the
meadows about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of
prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to
achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of
sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a
democracy, the whores are us.
 P. J. O'Rourke, in Parliament of Whores (1991)

 The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between

authoritarians and libertarians.
 George Orwell, in a letter to Malcolm Muggeridge (4 December 1948), quoted
in Malcolm Muggeridge : A Life (1980) by Ian Hunter

 In popular terminology, a libertarian is the opposite of an authoritarian. Strictly

speaking, a libertarian is one who rejects the idea of using violence or the threat of
violence — legal or illegal — to impose his will or viewpoint upon any peaceful person.
 Dean Russell, in "Who Is A Libertarian?" in The Freeman, Vol. 5 Issue 5 (May
1955) published by Foundation for Economic Education

 That the more authoritarian organizations survive and prevail goes generally
unnoticed because people focus on the objectives of organizations, which are
many and varied, rather than on their structures, which tend to be
similar. Whenever people see a problem, an opportunity or a threat, their first reaction
— even before saying, "Pass a law'" — is, "Let's start an organization." 
But the more an organization succeeds and prospers, the more it is likely to be
diverted from its original ideals, principles and purposes.
 Robert Shea, in The Empire of the Rising Scum (1990)

 However sugarcoated and ambiguous, every form of authoritarianism must start

with a belief in some group's greater right to power, whether that right is
justified by sex, race, class, religion or all four. However far it may expand, the
progression inevitably rests on unequal power and airtight roles within the family.
 Gloria Steinem in "If Hilter Were Alive, Whose Side Would He Be On?"
in M.S. magazine (October-November 1980); later in Outrageous Acts and
Everyday Rebellions (1983)

 We are at heart so profoundly anarchistic that the only form of state we can imagine
living in is Utopian; and so cynical that the only Utopia we can believe in is
authoritarian.
 Lionel Trilling, notebook entry (1948), published in Partisan Review 50th
Anniversary edition (1985), p. 510

 Anarchism is a manifestation of natural human urges … it is the tendency to

create authoritarian institutions which is the transient aberration.
 George Woodcock, in Anarchism (1963) The Family Tree

 Most fundamentally, I would see Anarchism as a synonym for anti-authoritarianism.

 John Zerzan, in Running on Emptiness: The Pathology of Civilization (2008), p.
67
 The Napoleonic rule which followed within a decade after the French Revolution is
generally conceded to be the prototype of modern dictatorships. It was the forerunner
not only historically, but psychologically as well, for it demonstrated a principal function
of dictatorship as a psychocultural emergent: a reversion to authoritarian rule after a
too drastic attempt to impose democracy on an authoritarian culture.Napoleon's
assumption of the role of dictator and then emperor, with the wholehearted support of
significant segments of of postrevolutionary French society, illustrates a fact that has
been true of virtually every dictatorship since then: the inability of an authoritarian
culture to absorb too much self-government too suddenly without reverting, at least
temporarily, to some form of paternalistic-authoritarian rule. From the first French
Republic to the German Weimar Republic, it has been proved again and again that,
while the outward forms of democracy may be achieved overnight by revolution, the
psychological changes necessary to sustain it cannot.
 G.M. Gilbert in The Psychology of Dictatorship (1950), pp. 4-5.