Moving to Authoritarianism

A good piece here on how countries slide unthinkingly into authoritarianism and totalitarianism. I have long thought that governments fall into one of four categories:

Benevolent and weak
Malevolent and weak
Benevolent and powerful
Malevolent and powerful

'Weak' and 'powerful' here relate to their power over citizens of that state.

The best, obviously, is the former - a state which has no malign intent towards its citizens and which has limited powers against them. Power is distributed amongst citizen groups, e.g. localised police forces, independent schools and hospitals, a free market in goods and services. Even with malign intent, the scope of State power is limited. Some obvious examples are the Anglo-Saxon democracies of about 30, 40 years ago.

The second, 'malevolent and weak' is a difficult one, simply because a malevolent state will quicky acquire whatever power it needs. A malevolent state will seek to centralise power, taking it from the hands of empowered citizen groups and exercising it itself.

The third, 'benevolent and powerful', is probably what our political class imagines itself, or wishes itself to be at this moment. You can easily question the 'benevolent' part, but it is not openly malevolent in the way that Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union was.

The main problem is that, once the State has acquired huge power over individual citizens, it is not particularly difficult for the State to turn malevolent. When the State controls whether you receive hospital treatment, or your children's education, you are sitting ducks. When Nanny sees the kids aren't doing what they are told, a quick smack around the ear results.

We are somewhere between three and four at the moment. The State has acquired great powers over us, and is greedily seeking more. Their benevolent attitude is becoming more belligerent by the day. These are troubling times ahead, unless you are a socialist.