The characteristics of Totalitarian regimes in normal circumstances make them highly efficient in emergencies. Issues of freedom, liberty, human rights, justice and fairness are tertiary, if they play any role at all in decision-making. The lack of concern for these matters allows Totalitarian systems to make decisions very quickly, and enforce those decisions without delay.
At a certain point in history, however, people decided that efficient power was less important than moral and accountable power. No one was ignorant of the risks involved when they decided that government should be concerned about principles like liberty even at the cost of expediency; but they felt that the dangers of Totalitarian control were far too much of a gamble.
The efficiency of dictatorial power during emergencies was not enough of a good to outweigh its bad on a daily basis, and thus, by choosing governmental models that place higher value on things like freedom and human rights, we knew that we might be slightly less effective during moments of crisis, because we could not sweep our principles off the table in an emergency and impose drastic measures without hesitation. Rather, we would have to find solutions that address the crisis while still upholding the beliefs to which the government was dedicated.
This has been an ongoing conflict in the West, particularly the United States, for many decades. As institutions of private power have grown – corporations – the Totalitarian impulse has been an increasingly hard to resist reflex. Corporations, after all, are Totalitarian structures, and very few politicians, if any, are not themselves reared within the corporate sector and are beholden to it. The same, of course, is true for the electorate. We exist several hours a day, most of our waking hours, within Totalitarian institutions, within Totalitarian cultures, in the workplace. Our rights are not self-evident at work; they are negotiated with the employers; even down to what we can or cannot wear, for example.
I think this has estranged us from the understanding of fundamental democratic principles. We are so accustomed to the Totalitarian model in our every day lives that we, like corporations and like Totalitarian regimes, de-value basic rights and freedoms in favour of efficiency.
This is rather like the old adage about how you boil a frog; if you try to drop it in boiling water, it will jump out immediately; but if you place it in cold water and heat it slowly, the frog will remain, adapting to the rising temperature until it boils to death.
You can witness this by the fact that there are loud public condemnations of anyone disobeying the various forms of martial law being imposed in country after country under the pretext of the #Coronavirus, while very little is being said about the governments’ refusal to implement genuinely useful measures to protect the vulnerable. The fault is with the people, not with power; if the virus spreads it is because people are too selfish about their personal liberty, not because the government has failed to deal with the problem while still preserving the society’s fundamental values.
Governments that are not even bothering to test their citizens for the virus, that are not providing the necessary — and obviously available — resources to insulate the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions from exposure, and are not adequately diverting funding to medical services; are being rebuked, not for the above failures, but for failing to repress their populations with sufficient thoroughness.
This is precisely why the original decision was made that Totalitarian efficiency cannot be allowed to win over democratic morality; because that efficient use of total power is not going to be exercised except for the benefit of the powerful, whether in normal circumstances or in emergencies. That is what is happening right now, and if we become accustomed to Totalitarian methods, if we become tolerant of Totalitarian methods, once our rights are swept off the table, they will be unrecoverable for generations to come.