Posted 11:32 PM by Floyd

This is a response to Rand Simberg's Totalitarianism post, on the difference between authoritarian and totalitarian governments. (Unfortunately I am a blogging newbie and couldn't figure out how to link to the specific post.)

I'd like to add a point not mentioned in Rand's post: Totalitarians are not just more brutal when it comes to dissent. They're also vampires who demand your enthusiastic allegiance at every moment.
Any time a person opens his mouth in public, he is expected to affirm his belief in his government's politics. So for instance it's not permissible to say "Our work team can finish ten engines per
hour." You have to say, "Our work team's belief in scientific socialism will enable us to finish ten engines per hour, and each one will be used to further the cause of communism."

When an authoritarian government bans dissent at least it allows people to get on with their normal lives. Totalitarians crush people and turn them into slaves.

Rand also said "Totalitarianism was a wholly new monstrous invention of the twentieth century, made possible by technology, particularly communications and information technology."
I disagree. The mass movement was made possible by these things, but not all totalitarians rode mass movements to power. Commies prefer coups.

While totalitarianism is mostly a creature of the 20th century, there are some exceptions. England had a brush with totalitarianism under James II three hundred years ago. John Locke, the
English philosopher, had a secret police report written about him. His crime was to attend a book burning wearing a poker face.

The regime of Pol Pot existed in the 20th century, but could have been set in a much earlier era as they made no use of modern inventions; the whole country was turned into a primitive
agrarian slave pit.