
Inverted totalitarianism - pikachu_is_cool
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
======
salient
> Whereas in Nazi Germany the state dominated economic actors, in inverted
> totalitarianism, corporations through political contributions and lobbying,
> dominate the United States, with the government acting as the servant of
> large corporations. This is considered "normal" rather than corrupt

Indeed. As a non-American, I find it quite absurd that corporations can
"donate money" to change a Congressman's opinion on a law, and then support
them in Congress when passing new bills. As far as I know that's what bribing
is pretty much anywhere else. So US has in effect legalized bribing, and
almost everyone in US seems to think that's "normal" and okay, and that
there's "little corruption" in US, when in fact the whole government wreaks of
"legalized" corruption.

Does that happen in other countries, too? Sure. Bribing is everywhere. But at
least we see it for what it is, and even if we don't catch them in the act,
there can be investigations later, and have them arrested. Good luck doing
that in US - ever.

~~~
Lazare
> As a non-American, I find it quite absurd that corporations can "donate
> money" to change a Congressman's opinion on a law, and then support them in
> Congress when passing new bills.

Let's be clear: Under US law, a corporation cannot donate money to a candidate
under any circumstance. They can, however, spend money independently of a
candidate, for example, to produce newspaper or documentary, write and publish
a book, hire a billboard, produce and air an ad, etc.

On the other hand, in Australia, Germany, the UK, corporations can make
unlimited donations directly to politicians.

My, that does sound absurd.

(Really, I'm not sure what's worse: Your lack of understanding of how US law
works, or your lack of understand of how non-US law works. You may understand
how your local election laws work, but the world is a big place. Sweeping
statements just make you look silly.)

~~~
threelettered
What about Citizens United? The US Supreme Court Jesters declared corporations
ARE people expressly so they could make unlimited political contributions,
saying it is "free speech". We live in a super fucking corrupt nation.

~~~
ubernostrum
The idea of corporate personhood was not new in Citizens United.

The question is not whether a corporation has rights similar to a natural
person's -- in order to work at all, a corporation must have some of those
rights. For example, it must have the right to own property, the right to
enter into contracts, the right to bring cases in court, and so on.

The question is which set of rights corporations should have, and to what
extent they can be regulated. Which is far from easy to sort out or solve with
simple black-and-white rules.

~~~
lotharbot
To expand: SCOTUS has consistently ruled that corporations have some of the
rights of a natural person _because_ _" corporations are merely associations
of individuals united for a special purpose"_ [0]. If I get together with
like-minded individuals in order to do something we each have the right to do
individually, in most cases, we retain the right to do it as a group (key word
"most" \-- as you say, which specific rights corporations should have is far
from easy to sort out.)

In particular, free speech is a right of _" every ... association representing
a segment of American life and taking an active part in our political
campaigns and discussions"_ [1] -- unions, guilds, consumer groups, religious
groups, newspapers, political parties, and so forth. Those groups are made up
of individuals united for a purpose, and their choosing to unite should not
penalize them by restricting their ability to speak. Justice Kennedy made a
great comment to this effect: _" wealthy individuals and unincorporated
associations can spend unlimited amounts .... Yet [under the Austin decision]
certain disfavored associations of citizens — those that have taken on the
corporate form — are penalized for engaging in the same political speech ....
When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to
command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted
source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is
unlawful."_ [2]

[0] Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania, 1886. Yes, that's
eighteen eighty six.

[1] US vs UAW, 1957

[2] Citizens United v FEC, 2010 - page 40 of Justice Kennedy's majority
opinion

------
marvin
There are plenty of interesting things to be said about the United States and
its similarities (and differences) to totalitarian regimes of the past. I
don't think we should point to Wikipedia as the authority on this matter, but
it is perfectly okay to go to the primary sources for insight in this. These
are recent historical developments, and the questions are covered in so much
controversy that it is difficult to find unbiased commentary.

As I have said before, there are plenty of _really_ worrying developments in
the theory and execution of power in the United States. When I say worrying, I
mean worrying in the sense that they remind closely of things that
totalitarian regimes have done in the past. We shouldn't be distracted too
much by history when analyzing contemporary events - "History does not repeat
itself, but it does rhyme."

The list, which you can compile by simply reading the news, is quite long:
Warrantless dragnet surveillance, world record incarceration rate, selective
enforcement and prosecution of unclear and conflicting criminal law, lifetime
incarceration for non-violent crimes, utilization of paramilitary forces (SWAT
teams) against non-violent offenders, plea bargains as a tool for simplifying
prosecution under the threat of lifetime sentencing, indefinite detainment and
incarceration with no judicial oversight (Guantanamo), extrajudicial execution
of citizens (drone strikes), limitations on free speech during peaceful
protests, systematic prosecution of whistleblowers.

These are just _some_ issues which are interesting to discuss. I am an
outsider, and I believe the things I have quoted are facts which have very
small political bias in the interpretation. The United States' deadlocked
political system and prosecutors' role in the execution of power is also
worthy of discussion, although it is harder to discuss this without taking a
particular political view.

~~~
bananacurve
>There are plenty of interesting things to be said about the United States and
its similarities (and differences) to totalitarian regimes of the past.

While implying that the US is a totalitaian state will get you lots of up
votes from insecure europeans, the word has no meaning if it encompasses the
current state of affairs in America. Could that change? Sure. Pretending it is
already the case is fine as long as you realize you are just pretending.

~~~
redblacktree
It certainly is for some. For example, the folks still indefinitely detained
at Guantanamo would probably agree that it's a totalitarian state.

~~~
rayiner
"Totalitarianism" loses all meaning if you apply it to states that imprison
foreigners captured in war. What developed country doesn't do this?

Guantanamo is an example of improper treatment of POWs, not detainment of
citizens in a totalitarian state.

~~~
berntb
The Taliban side didn't follow any kind of war laws. What legal protection
does the POWs of Guantanamo really have?

For instance, afaik POWs from _lawful_ sides in conflicts can be kept until
the conflicts are over. The Afghan war is still raging, arguably. And the
Guantanamo conditions are hardly much worse than the horrid US prison system.

I have seen this subject discussed, but never in a serious way. E.g. please
don't write that they should be treated as civilians or something, the point
of the Geneva conventions etc was to give POWs some protection, it is just
stupid to then argue that to ignore those laws would give _better_ protection.

(And I have no idea how many of the people at Guantanamo are innocent, as
dragonwriter claims to know. The people making claims on that subject aren't
exactly to be trusted if they really would know!)

Sigh, I guess I deserve downvotes for the stupidity of asking a tricky legal
question on newsYC which doesn't have to do with startups. :-)

~~~
np422
Two wrongs does not make one right ... arguments like "they started" may be
heard in a kindergartens playground but I think it's reasonable to hold USA to
higher standards than that.

And as for the conditions at Guantanamo, I hope that "enhanced interrogation
techniques", water boarding and similar, isn't used all that frequently in the
US penal system.

~~~
berntb
Not in a hurry now.

Your point is that democratic countries should behave better than _the
international treaties they sign_ , even if it will result in dead citizens of
those countries.

And you compare with children, to give "weight" to your argument? Sigh...

~~~
np422
Feel free to call me an idealist, but I do think that the base foundation for
a democracy such as a fair trail before imprisonment and non-use of torture
should extend not only to citizens but to all people.

~~~
berntb
Where to start? :-(

The point with democracies is that they take input from their citizens, or the
leadership will get kicked out. The point with terrorism is to scare people,
mainly in democracies.

If the terrorists succeed in scaring voters enough, then the politicians will
throw out the law book and all other concerns (see Germany, UK, Spain, Israel,
USA, etc) because they want to get reelected above anything else... What you
ask for go against the central interests of the involved parties.

I might also note that your moral world view is based on living inside a
society with a state violence monopoly, in a democracy. If you go outside
that, the attitude is ... well, read up on clan societies yourself. A typical
example is when Israel did one sided peace gestures -- it was taken as signs
of weakness and attacks increased (leaving south Libanon and Gaza).

tl;dr: You're not naive, you just don't think. This is HackerNews, please
start.

------
spindritf
In the same vein, there's also anarcho-tyranny[1] coined by Samuel Francis

 _What we have in this country today, then, is both anarchy (the failure of
the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny – the
enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes; the criminalization
of the law-abiding and innocent through exorbitant taxation, bureaucratic
regulation, the invasion of privacy, and the engineering of social
institutions, such as the family and local schools; the imposition of thought
control through "sensitivity training" and multiculturalist curricula, "hate
crime" laws, gun-control laws that punish or disarm otherwise law-abiding
citizens but have no impact on violent criminals who get guns illegally, and a
vast labyrinth of other measures. In a word, anarcho-tyranny._

which is sort of inverted authoritarianism.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_T._Francis#Anarcho-
tyra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_T._Francis#Anarcho-tyranny)

~~~
rayiner
Sensitivity training as a totalitarian tool. I love it!

A lot of the people who complain about "totalitarianism" are simply
ideological minorities who don't like the majoritarian consensus and seek to
delegitimize it.

~~~
jessaustin
_...ideological minorities who don 't like the majoritarian consensus and seek
to delegitimize it._

What's wrong with that?

~~~
rayiner
There's a difference between disagreeing with the majoritarian consensus, and
trying to paint it to be the result of illegitimate process just because you
disagree with it.

~~~
aric
And...

The system _should_ be viewed as illegitimate (read: as a system to be
peacefully turned to dust or forever changed) by those who find deep ethical
fault with it. You're alluding to conscientious objectors negatively. They are
one of the few groups of people who have ever pushed progress through the ages
on this planet. Of course, you're entitled to love the status quo to the point
of making it legitimate in your mind every step it takes. Those who ethically
disagree with the current _oligarchical model_ for issuing laws that govern
the fate of the world do, indeed, disagree.

I view "majoritarian consensus," which the US doesn't actually have, as only a
small step above monarchy. It's a very low bar to set for laws of any serious
consequence. To be so presumptuous and selfish as to give one small body the
right to govern over vast regions of territory would have to, on an ethical
level, require approaching systems models that use near full consensus.

Disagreement is the only necessary factor for a person wanting to delegitimize
something mentally. In the mind of an objector, there is no more legitimacy in
a dictator's brutality, or in an oligarchical republic's brutality (e.g.
imprisonment for nonviolent crimes), other than the reality of the sword that
backs the decree. Lest the world become lemmings, may people continue to find
illegitimacy as they search their minds and hearts.

~~~
rayiner
You're misunderstanding my use of "legitimate" in this context. I don't mean
"legitimate" in some broad moral sense. I mean "legitimate" as in being
consistent with the accepted rules of the system. Many people who decry the
U.S. government don't express fundamental disagreement with the principles of
the system. They instead claim that the consensus is inconsistent with those
principles.

~~~
aric
Fair enough. It'd be more explicit in context with the words "consistent" or
"inconsistent." Legitimacy is generally a duality between claims and personal
consent. I immediately associate legitimacy by legal frameworks as a whole
rather than the laws produced.

No doubt, many people who object to certain laws believe the system is
"broken" without appreciation that the system is fixed and 'well-oiled.'

------
tokenadult
"This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Relevant
discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by
introducing citations to additional sources."

We may as well find some better-quality writing about the one author's idea,
rather than using an article from the Encyclopedia That Any Point-of-View-
Pusher Can Edit™ as a coatrack to open up a discussion on Hacker News. Hacker
News can be a community in which people use much better sources than most
Wikipedia articles (I am a Wikipedian, so I have seen the sausage made) if we
let it be.

------
jeswin
I hate it when some people misuse Wikipedia like this. This reads like an
opinion piece, and belongs to a blog.

edit: from the talk and history, the term was invented by Wolin, but has found
little acceptance elsewhere. I am all for adding this to Wikipedia once it
becomes generally accepted. But not as a means to get there.

~~~
madaxe_again
It's not misuse - it's a political concept, described by Wolin, a well known
and respected academic in the field most thoroughly in his book "Democracy
Incorporated - Managed Inverted Totalitarianism":
[http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-
Inverte...](http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-
Totalitarianism/dp/0691135665/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387021143&sr=1-1)

I mean, if this is misuse, you'd better nix nihilism, liberalism, socialism,
and all the rest, as those are also just "opinions".

~~~
jpttsn
While all "isms" are ideas, the interesting ones are shared by enough people
to enhance communication. Inventing new "isms" to market fringe ideas should
be discouraged on this basis; it makes things harder to understand.

~~~
jgg
How should this political theory be presented, in your mind?

~~~
jpttsn
Let the author present it however he wants. Wait for it to get traction before
using his personal vocabulary on Wikipedia.

------
ama729
The US is also hardly a democracy, even if the politicians were perfect. The
voting system of the US (and the UK too), is just horrendous.

The simple fact that in some cases less than 40 or 30% of the population can
choose an election (if you don't believe me, look it up on youtube, CGP Grey
made a video about it), show it's hard to take seriously the claim that the US
is a democracy.

~~~
calibraxis
Yes, the US founders opposed democracy; naturally, if the country were run by
its population, the vast majority of whom aren't wealthy, they'd abolish
debts, redistribute land, etc. ([http://press-
pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s15....](http://press-
pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s15.html))

Then Andrew Jackson used the term democracy as political marketing (probably
had the same impact as calling yourself "anarchist"), and the US system co-
opted it and rebranded itself as a democracy. Because people naturally would
like to govern their lives, rather than political and wealthy elites.

I recommend Graeber's _The Democracy Project_ for more on this; he's an
anthropologist who helped found Occupy, and popularized the 99% slogan.

~~~
vixen99
'if the country were run by its population, the vast majority of whom aren't
wealthy, they'd abolish debts, redistribute land'. A crass assumption if I may
say so.

~~~
XorNot
When the vast majority of farmers who work the land are generally held in debt
they consider unfair, yeah, they're going to do that.

You're forgetting that the Free Silver movement was about exactly this -
farmers trapped in debt due to a deflationary gold-backed dollar were
agitating for the silver dollar which would be inflationary and thus allow
them to escape it. Deny them that, and they're going to switch to something
else - like taking a long hard look at what's considered "fair".

You might also note that the modern US has exactly this concept - bankruptcy.
It has consequences, but debt can in fact just disappear.

------
znowi
The US is indeed a superpower. The only superpower left after the Soviets
collapsed. It's not a big leap to predict how it's going to turn out in the
long term without checks and balanced imposed. This is the first step:

 _the Bush Doctrine that the United States has the right to launch preemptive
wars_

Unless the American citizenry, along with the western allies, oppose this
militant attitude, it's not going to end well - whatever new term you call it.

~~~
ordinary
The George W. Bush administration was hardly the first to act according to
that point of view. Just about every country that has held significant power
has at some point fought wars of aggression.

~~~
redblacktree
In the name of self defense?

~~~
wreegab
An argument which can be used by all sides. In the end, it's the civilians who
get screwed.

~~~
yetanotherphd
Statistically it's the people in the military who have it worse.

~~~
ivanca
Absolute bullshit, 50:1 is the ratio of civilians casualties in the Israeli
conflict.

[http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/05/06/combatantcivilian...](http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/05/06/combatantcivilian-
casualties-and-the-moral-hysteriahypocrisy-of-the-west/)

Your ignorance is middly acceptable because US media and other information
reporters are biased or coerced into giving bad statistics about the issue:

[http://www.lawfareblog.com/wiki/the-lawfare-wiki-document-
li...](http://www.lawfareblog.com/wiki/the-lawfare-wiki-document-
library/targeted-killing/controversy/)

~~~
yetanotherphd
What I meant was that the death rate for soldiers was higher.

Total civilian deaths are higher because there are more civilians.

Israel-Palestine is a special case because it is so one sided. I'm not very
sympathetic to Israel (did Nelson Mandela recognize the right of the Afrikaner
people to exist, and affirm the existence of South Africa as an Afrikaner
state? This is what the Israelis are always going on about right?) but that's
not really relevant to whether being a soldier is in general more dangerous
than being a civilian.

Maybe I am addressing a different point to everyone else, but I think it's
important given that deaths of soldiers are sometimes considered on a
completely different moral plane to deaths of civilians, even though from a
utilitarian perspective they are equally important.

~~~
ivanca
No they are not; military is more likely to kill civilians if they survive; so
their "utilitarian value" can be considered a negative.

~~~
yetanotherphd
so you wish, for example, that more soldiers on both sides had died during
WWII?

~~~
ivanca
That's a way too-emotionally charged question for someone pretending to be
"utilitarian".

But the answer is: No, I wish there weren't any soldiers to begin with. Dead
being just the most common way they disappear, plus is always a political
assertion the prime causative, so to avoid refilling wars with youngsters it's
more effective to stop that.

------
rayiner
Wolin essentially mistakes hegemony for totalitarianism. The U.S. is a global
hegemon in the same vein as the Great Britain used to be. An open society
internally that maintains global superiority using military power. Sometimes
global or regional hegemons, like the Soviet Union, are totalitarian, but it's
not necessarily the case. Great Britain clearly wasn't a totalitarian state.

Also problematic is Wolin's implied assumption that hegemony can only exist if
democracy is compromised. But that's utterly absurd. Why would anyone expect
that voters, given the free choice, wouldn't want the benefits that accrue
from their country having global supremacy? Does anyone think that, deep down,
Americans really want to be like Europe, just another player on the world
stage who must modulate their foreign policy based on the consideration that
they can't impose it unilaterally? Even people who believe the U.S. should act
multilaterally when possible don't necessarily believe the U.S. should concede
the option to act unilaterally when necessary.

~~~
Zigurd
> Why would anyone expect that voters, given the free choice, wouldn't want
> the benefits that accrue from their country having global supremacy?

That has an easy answer if you look at treaties like TPP: The hegemon uses
power over trading "partners" to work around the will of the people. Hegemony
is no benefit to the majority of the people. It is a tool used against them.

------
mrobot
Point 2, apathy:

"Nothing to hide" is an apathetic "Yes, Sir" to losing self control, letting
the results machine analyze and respond to your life actions with all power of
an authority you've amplified for yourself.

Apathy toward drone "signature strikes" is a "Yes, Sir" to striking and
killing exactly where the results machine wishes.

The results machine does not have human well-being programmed as a core,
infallible rule. That means that mistakes like collateral human damage are not
seen as mistakes at all, they are part of getting results.

Trusting any machine we've built to probe and manipulate the earth to meet any
end other than human growth and good is very scary and selfish.

Apathy is the new allegiance toward our scary and selfish state.

------
dylandrop
So if you compare the U.S. and Nazis they are therefore foils of each other?
While I agree that the U.S. falls short of being a true democracy for all of
those three bullet points, I'm a little confused about Wolin's reasoning. His
argument seems to be:

* In Nazi Germany, the state dominated economic factors, in the U.S. corporations do

* Nazis advocated political action, U.S. does not and does not advocate voting

* Nazis mocked democracy, U.S. made it its ideology

* Therefore Nazis and the U.S. are very similar

Doesn't anyone see why this is problematic reasoning? He just made three
points that showed how the U.S. and Nazi Germany have flawed political models,
but the connections seem to be few and far between. I get that he's saying
that they are both nondemocratic systems under the guise of democracy, but it
seems a little farfetched using this argument.

------
julie1
USA today is like Athena after the 2nd medic war: a Republic that claims to be
a democracy. During Peloponese war, Athena the "democracy" had turned into a
violent colonial power, and Sparta the totalitarian state turned oddly into
the creation of an alliance for protecting the weakest.

Needless to say at the end, of these war neither Athena nor Sparta won,
because they both lost.

Plato's Republic is a simple HOWTO turn a democracy ruled by citizens into a
system claiming to be ruled in the best interest of the citizen by a minority
of "Wise men" with an elite of watchmen that enforce the power.

Read Alan Moore's "Watchmen" for a criticize of the republic (Quis custodiet
ipsos custodes?)

Pericles(or Solon (don't remember) before Athena became a Republic said the
same thing as Eisenower: beware of the richs that want to get a grip on a
state and extend their power through their influence and will use military
power for expension.

Nothing new under the sun. The guy is reinventing the wheel

[http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.html](http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.html)

------
jpttsn
Interesting. I'd question the "totalizing dynamics" part. In my view Wolin
couples two arguments unnecessarily tightly:

* Today's govt. marketing makes it seem more legitimate than it is. Democracy is vulnerable to a panem-et-circenses strategy.

* If citizens' needs are not satisfied by a welfare state, they are rendered helpless enough to be managed by a veiled totalitarian regime.

The former is an interesting problem, expressed well. The latter is more
concerning. Are opinions (votes) really worthless just because voters are
exposed to economic realities?

I don't think democracy rests on voters being "secure" (in the welfare state
sense) when they make their decision.

Classically the line is drawn at secret/anonymous voting. OP suggests voters
also need to have their economy guaranteed, if their votes are to give the
government any legitimacy. That's very different.

~~~
4bpp
The second point does mesh quite well with my observations regarding the
system. If you question a fairly randomly sampled member of the populace as to
why they would choose to vote for one of the established political parties
rather than a new or minor party that may represent their position on most
issues much more closely, the answer you will get will invariably be some sort
of invocation of a fear of economical downturn or collapse, as only
"experienced" or, in a somewhat Kafkaesque turn, outright industry-coddling
politicians are trusted to know what is good for the economy. The net effect
is that anything that the established parties have a consensus on is
effectively impossible to challenge in the political system (and no member of
either established party has much of an incentive to break the consensus); it
is hard to imagine that this would be the case to the same extent if the
majority of voters did not consider their economical situation to be in some
sense precarious or unsatisfactory.

~~~
XorNot
This is a uniquely American view on the situation. In America, unless your
favored major party holds overwhelming dominance, then voting for any third
party is actively voting against your own interests.

Its easier to lobby within a party to change things then try and form a new
one, given the way the first past the post voting system in the US works. In
countries without one, new parties can form and gain some influence all the
time.

------
mrobot
Scored below these, bumped from the front page, does not even have NSA in the
name for NSA penalty. Is it because the submitter is green, or some other
valid reason?

27\. DataStickies: USB drives as sticky notes (datastickies.com) 120 points by
JeanSebTr 18 hours ago | 89 comments

28\. Best Firefox Add-ons of 2013 (mozilla.org) 106 points by yeukhon 21 hours
ago | 50 comments

34\. Inverted totalitarianism (wikipedia.org) 211 points by pikachu_is_cool 10
hours ago | 124 comments

------
FrankenPC
On the surface this appears to be true. But, like all things in a constant
flux, it's a lot more complicated than it seems. One observation though, I've
always wondered if Orwell's novel would act as a warning to those who seek
power. In other words, 1984 acted as a inventory of obvious psycho-social
obstacles to avoid while attempting to control the masses.

------
ianmcgowan
What's scary about reading articles like this is that if they are true, those
"in power" don't care enough what people think to try and suppress these
thoughts.

If the frog is boiling, where are we at on the scale of "didn't make tenure"
to "jack booted swat team renditions you"?

------
ajslater
Here's an insightful reddit comment from /r/changemyview

Q: The United States is moving towards facism CMV (sic)

A: Does the US exhibit some fascist traits? Sure. But I'd contend that we are
moving farther, rather than closer.

[http://np.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1se6cr/the_unit...](http://np.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1se6cr/the_united_states_is_moving_towards_facism_cmv/cdwpupt)

------
whyme
So things are much more sinister than I had originally believed, and this does
explain why the US is not genuinely worried about the national debt!

------
Pitarou
Godwin's Law writ large.

Which is not to understate the scale of the problems alluded to, but the
analogy isn't enlightening. It's just name-calling.

~~~
whyme
Correct me if I am wrong, but Godwin's law does not apply.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law)

"Godwin's law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic
comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Nazis – often
referred to as "playing the Hitler card". The law and its corollaries would
not apply to discussions covering known mainstays of Nazi Germany such as
genocide, eugenics, or racial superiority, nor, more debatably, to a
discussion of other totalitarian regimes or ideologies,..."

~~~
Pitarou
You're right. The term doesn't quite fit. I'll have to invent a new one.

How does "Bottom Up Godwin's Law" sound to you?

;-)

------
colinbartlett
Congratulations, pikachu_is_cool, you are now a blip on the NSA radar.

------
puppetmaster3
" in inverted totalitarianism, corporations through political contributions
and lobbying, dominate the United States, with the government acting as the
servant of large corporations. This is considered "normal" rather than
corrupt.[6]"

