Authoritarian is a largely meaningless pejorative. All states/countries/political groups etc. must be authoritarian by necessity in class society.
Does it make sense to distinguish the degree of authority that a state wields over its citizens? And by extension, does it make sense to distinguish to which extent citizens can act to hold the state accountable for its actions?
Does it make sense to distinguish the degree of authority that a state wields over its citizens
Not particularly no. More or less authority is largely inconsequential in comparison to the actual important question of class character of the state. Authority of who wielded against who, for what purpose. A workers state that violently represses fascists and the bourgeoisie and a fascist state that violently represses labour organisations are both “authoritarian” however I hope you can agree in reality in every way that matters are in fact diametrically opposed.
does it make sense to distinguish to which extent citizens can act to hold the state accountable for its actions?
Yes but this is not a question of authority but again of class content. For example China is “authoritarian” but we have for more control over our state than for example Amerikans or the British.
Authoritarian obscures for more than it explains and is so broad as to be largely useless for meaningful analysis thus leading it in the modern day of hegemonic liberalism and capitalism to being used as shorthand for “enemy of the EuroAmerikan hegemony” much like regime.
I reject your stated symmetry between fascists and workers. Fascists are inherently violent, workers are not.
A state which only violently represses the violent is far less authoritarian than a state which violently represses a peaceful political group. This distinction is extremely consequential to the inhabitants of said state.
Maybe I worded it poorly but the fact there is no symmetry was sort of exactly my point. While both acts are definitionally authoritarian in reality they are diametrically opposed thus highlighting the fact that authoritarian doesn’t provide any insight of value.
But one is many orders of magnitude less authoritarian than the other, highlighting the fact that it does provide value.
Again no. Both of these things are equally “authoritarian” what’s changing is not the amount of or honestly even type of authority being wielded but the context surrounding it, more specifically the class content. You are effectively using “authoritarian” as a stand in for bad here, which to be fair is what it effectively amounts to due to lacking any real analytical value.
Isn’t it a bit like saying that adding a pinch of salt and adding a kilo of salt to your soup is a meaningless distinction?
To use your salt analogy in both cases you are using 500g of salt but in one you’re using it to bake a cupcake and in the other you’re seasoning a batch of fries. The issue is not amount of salt in the abstract but the context of it’s use which authoritarian does nothing to address and in many cases obscures.
(Not that food analogies are particularly good as changing the amount of “salt” will have knock on effects to the point of in many cases changing the entire “dish”)
Interesting perspective. So authoritarian is not even a binary state in your mind, i.e. that you’re either 100% or 0% authoritarian, but it’s a completely ambient quality of any state? I.e. all states are equally authoritarian?
Does that mean that e.g. Nazi Germany with it’s outlawing of and violent punishment of any “aberrant” behavior is as authoritarian as e.g. modern Iceland which provides legal protection for many of the personal freedoms of its citizens and doesn’t have an army?
If we can’t distinguish these states through the concept of authoritarianism, what concept should we apply instead?
Yes all states are definitionally authoritarian that’s what makes it a state. I think behind the scenes you’re conflating/mixing the state and the government. The government serves a necessary function of organisation and administration. The state is the organised institutions of class rule. So long as class antagonisms exist so too must the state to enforce one classes supremacy over the others. In the case of a fascist/bourgeois state it’s the bourgeoisie ruling over the proletariat and the peasantry and any other progressive forces, while in the case of a workers state it is the proletariat ruling over the remnants of the bourgeoisie and the peasantry and any other reactionary forces. Both are authoritarian enforcing their class rule over the others however one is objectively progressive and the other is regressive.
all states are equally authoritarian?
Not what I said. What I said was the distinction in level of authority is largely inconsequential in comparison to the context said authority is being exercised within, specifically the class character of it, and that authoritarian does not contend with this fact and in many cases obscures it.
Does that mean that e.g. Nazi Germany with it’s outlawing of and violent punishment of any “aberrant” behavior is as authoritarian as e.g. modern Iceland which provides legal protection for many of the personal freedoms of its citizens and doesn’t have an army?
Again the issue with the Nazis was not that they were “authoritarian” it’s that they were genocidal fascists.
Also Iceland still as far as I’m aware is a bourgeois state with a police force and courts that enforce bourgeois ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of the working class and thus is still “authoritarian”. What makes them different to the Nazis is not some nebulous idea of less authority but that they are not currently using said authority to enforce fascism at current (although being a capitalist state as the contradictions of capital sharpen it is absolutely a possibility should a proper proletarian organisation arise to counter it).
If we can’t distinguish these states through the concept of authoritarianism, what concept should we apply instead?
The thing I’ve been saying from the beginning, class analysis. Who is wielding the authority against who for what purpose (this is exactly what authoritarianism as a phrase obscures).
Thanks. I don’t think I’m conflating government and state, rather I distinguish how oppressive the state is measured in part on the laws it is acting within.
The thing I’ve been saying from the beginning, class analysis. Who is wielding the authority against who for what purpose (this is exactly what authoritarianism as a phrase obscures).
Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but it looks like in your class analysis both Nazi Germany and modern Iceland are bourgeois states, making them indistinguishable. Yet in the latter, workers are at least legally allowed to organize, strike and generally work in the open towards a better future, while also generally enjoying personal freedoms not afforded under Nazi rule.
What concept can we use to distinguish these two types of “authoritarian bourgeois states”? Or do you reject the idea that there is any meaningful difference between them?
Any working class state will need to protect itself with force against capitalist classes and fascists. It’s still a direct use of state authority against a group of people, but this liberates the majority. That’s why Marxists reject the notion of “authoritarianism.”
The working class state is the next natural evolution of the state, the same way the bourgeois state was the next natural evolution of the feudal state. This is basic Marc.
Only violent intervention could make a state regress from working class to bourgeois, or from bourgeois to feudal. A state that prevents violent intervention is not an authoritarian state. Or at least far less authoritarian than a state that violently suppresses peaceful movements of progress.
Class struggle does not end with the implementation of socialism, this is also basic Marx. The capitalist class does not go away over night, and state authority is still used to protect it. Private property is gradually collectivized by force. It is not more or less “authoritarian,” because such a comparison is meaningless. It wields authority in favor of the working classes, rather than capitalists.
Does it make sense to distinguish the degree of authority that a state wields over its citizens? And by extension, does it make sense to distinguish to which extent citizens can act to hold the state accountable for its actions?
Not particularly no. More or less authority is largely inconsequential in comparison to the actual important question of class character of the state. Authority of who wielded against who, for what purpose. A workers state that violently represses fascists and the bourgeoisie and a fascist state that violently represses labour organisations are both “authoritarian” however I hope you can agree in reality in every way that matters are in fact diametrically opposed.
Yes but this is not a question of authority but again of class content. For example China is “authoritarian” but we have for more control over our state than for example Amerikans or the British.
Authoritarian obscures for more than it explains and is so broad as to be largely useless for meaningful analysis thus leading it in the modern day of hegemonic liberalism and capitalism to being used as shorthand for “enemy of the EuroAmerikan hegemony” much like regime.
I reject your stated symmetry between fascists and workers. Fascists are inherently violent, workers are not.
A state which only violently represses the violent is far less authoritarian than a state which violently represses a peaceful political group. This distinction is extremely consequential to the inhabitants of said state.
Maybe I worded it poorly but the fact there is no symmetry was sort of exactly my point. While both acts are definitionally authoritarian in reality they are diametrically opposed thus highlighting the fact that authoritarian doesn’t provide any insight of value.
But one is many orders of magnitude less authoritarian than the other, highlighting the fact that it does provide value.
Isn’t it a bit like saying that adding a pinch of salt and adding a kilo of salt to your soup is a meaningless distinction?
Again no. Both of these things are equally “authoritarian” what’s changing is not the amount of or honestly even type of authority being wielded but the context surrounding it, more specifically the class content. You are effectively using “authoritarian” as a stand in for bad here, which to be fair is what it effectively amounts to due to lacking any real analytical value.
To use your salt analogy in both cases you are using 500g of salt but in one you’re using it to bake a cupcake and in the other you’re seasoning a batch of fries. The issue is not amount of salt in the abstract but the context of it’s use which authoritarian does nothing to address and in many cases obscures.
(Not that food analogies are particularly good as changing the amount of “salt” will have knock on effects to the point of in many cases changing the entire “dish”)
Interesting perspective. So authoritarian is not even a binary state in your mind, i.e. that you’re either 100% or 0% authoritarian, but it’s a completely ambient quality of any state? I.e. all states are equally authoritarian?
Does that mean that e.g. Nazi Germany with it’s outlawing of and violent punishment of any “aberrant” behavior is as authoritarian as e.g. modern Iceland which provides legal protection for many of the personal freedoms of its citizens and doesn’t have an army?
If we can’t distinguish these states through the concept of authoritarianism, what concept should we apply instead?
Yes all states are definitionally authoritarian that’s what makes it a state. I think behind the scenes you’re conflating/mixing the state and the government. The government serves a necessary function of organisation and administration. The state is the organised institutions of class rule. So long as class antagonisms exist so too must the state to enforce one classes supremacy over the others. In the case of a fascist/bourgeois state it’s the bourgeoisie ruling over the proletariat and the peasantry and any other progressive forces, while in the case of a workers state it is the proletariat ruling over the remnants of the bourgeoisie and the peasantry and any other reactionary forces. Both are authoritarian enforcing their class rule over the others however one is objectively progressive and the other is regressive.
Not what I said. What I said was the distinction in level of authority is largely inconsequential in comparison to the context said authority is being exercised within, specifically the class character of it, and that authoritarian does not contend with this fact and in many cases obscures it.
Again the issue with the Nazis was not that they were “authoritarian” it’s that they were genocidal fascists.
Also Iceland still as far as I’m aware is a bourgeois state with a police force and courts that enforce bourgeois ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of the working class and thus is still “authoritarian”. What makes them different to the Nazis is not some nebulous idea of less authority but that they are not currently using said authority to enforce fascism at current (although being a capitalist state as the contradictions of capital sharpen it is absolutely a possibility should a proper proletarian organisation arise to counter it).
The thing I’ve been saying from the beginning, class analysis. Who is wielding the authority against who for what purpose (this is exactly what authoritarianism as a phrase obscures).
Thanks. I don’t think I’m conflating government and state, rather I distinguish how oppressive the state is measured in part on the laws it is acting within.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding, but it looks like in your class analysis both Nazi Germany and modern Iceland are bourgeois states, making them indistinguishable. Yet in the latter, workers are at least legally allowed to organize, strike and generally work in the open towards a better future, while also generally enjoying personal freedoms not afforded under Nazi rule.
What concept can we use to distinguish these two types of “authoritarian bourgeois states”? Or do you reject the idea that there is any meaningful difference between them?
Any working class state will need to protect itself with force against capitalist classes and fascists. It’s still a direct use of state authority against a group of people, but this liberates the majority. That’s why Marxists reject the notion of “authoritarianism.”
The working class state is the next natural evolution of the state, the same way the bourgeois state was the next natural evolution of the feudal state. This is basic Marc.
Only violent intervention could make a state regress from working class to bourgeois, or from bourgeois to feudal. A state that prevents violent intervention is not an authoritarian state. Or at least far less authoritarian than a state that violently suppresses peaceful movements of progress.
Class struggle does not end with the implementation of socialism, this is also basic Marx. The capitalist class does not go away over night, and state authority is still used to protect it. Private property is gradually collectivized by force. It is not more or less “authoritarian,” because such a comparison is meaningless. It wields authority in favor of the working classes, rather than capitalists.
If this was the case everyone on the lower democracy index should be called authoritarian, like Russia, Ukraine, France, Paraguay and Indonesia.