Totalitarianism Essay

Karl Popper launched a scathing attack towards Plato’s Republic in his 1945 book The Open Society and Its Enemies, suggesting that the Ancient Greek philosopher was the root cause of totalitarianism in the west. It can’t be denied that there are similarities between Plato’s ideas in Republic and the Communist, Fascist and Nazi regimes we saw for much of the early 20th century. But what we see in Republic is Plato describing a very theoretical ideal state with very little interest in the physical implementation of this, so was Plato just a Utopian thinker where totalitarianism is a by product or was he a true totalitarian?

Before I can consider whether Plato is a totalitarian, I first need to define what a totalitarian actually is. We tend
to understand totalitarianism as ultimate control of the state, whereby the state will regulate everything it can, to the extent that they impose restrictions on an individual’s private life. Under this definition, there is very little to differentiate a totalitarian regime from that of a tyrannical state or authoritarian regime and I believe there to be a great difference. “Totalitarian states are characterised by a coincidence of two features, authoritarianism and ideology” (Taylor, 1986) provides a much better platform for us to begin to understand totalitarianism more specifically and how this could be applied to Plato’s ideal state in Republic. The key to Taylor’s definition is for a state to be totalitarian, rather than just tyrannical, there needs to be a clear ideology in place. I should say that in this case the ideology needs to be a very clear and concise state doctrine detailing exact directions for society. A very good example for this would be Nazi Germany led by Adolf Hitler.

From this alone we would say that Plato’s ideal state in the Republic was totalitarian for sure. It was clearly very authoritarian, the philosopher kings were tasked with making all the decisions with no influence from the rest of society and the citizens had to abide by what the philosopher kings said. Plato’s ideal state also satisfies the ideology criteria, for Plato set out a very clear doctrine for society to follow. This can be seen in the fact he says that the people belong to three classes solely based on the soul they are born with. Unless identified as a better fit for another class at birth, social mobility was near impossible. It can also be seen in his desire to censor the arts in a particular way ie the philosopher kings have to be portrayed as godly and the people have to be portrayed as strong, brave and relatively emotionless. Looking at it this way, it is hard to argue with Popper’s assertion that Republic is a completely totalitarian state

In the same paper, Taylor also sought to show that there are three different types of totalitarian regime and I feel it is important that I should also outline this to enable me to more accurately determine the extent of Plato’s totalitarianism.
The first type of totalitarianism that Taylor identified is “Orwelian” named so because George Orwell’s Oceania state fits into this. Under this type, individuals have no intrinsic value but instead serve the interests of the state. Only the well-being of the state has any importance under this system, the individual serves to increase this well-being which is measured in terms of prestige and power. This is where Nazi Germany places and incidentally also what Popper was talking about when he called Plato a totalitarian. The second type he calls “organic” totalitarianism. The aim of the state is still the same but the role of the individual is slightly different. In this case “the good of the individual is identified as his/her contribution to the state” meaning that the individual has some intrinsic value unlike under “Orwelian” totalitarianism. It’s important to note however that the individual still serves the state as this is the “ultimate good.” The final kind, according to Taylor, is “paternalistic” totalitarianism. There is a change from the other two in this type because the state is there to provide it’s citizens with everything necessary to improve their individual well-being, similar to a democracy but totalitarian rule is
still imposed on them because they couldn’t achieve good on their own