Chapter 3
The Appeal of Autocracy

Sociologist Max Weber in his classic essay “Politics as a Vocation” outlined three sources of authority that underlie governments. First is what he calls traditional authority, which underlies monarchies. Second is the rule of law, the authority underlying democracies. The third is what Weber calls a “charismatic leader.” Today, we might say “strongman” or “demagogue.” The strongman form of government draws its authority from the power and personality of the leader.

Thus, democracies draw their authority from laws that (in theory) bind all people equally. In a stable, rule-of-law democracy, change is slow. This is true given the very definition of stable which is “an object or structure not likely to give way or overturn.” In addition, in a democracy based on rule of law, power is divided to prevent too much power from falling into the hands of a single person or small group of people. Dividing power leads to gridlock, and gridlock can be frustrating.

The difficulty of bringing about change in a stable democracy can lead people to seek more desperate means. Autocracy therefore holds appeal for those in a panic or who feel hopeless or helpless. The autocrat, who is unhampered by rules or gridlock, promises swift, dramatic action.

While the changes of the past seventy years were rapid in contrast to the previous 200 years, the changes occurred within the law and followed established procedures and what the Constitution allows. Moreover, the period of rapid changes was preceded by decades of grueling work on the parts of activists who laid the groundwork for civil rights. The work of activists and legal teams included reeducating judges and the population. By the time the changes came through the courts and legislation, a majority of Americans were ready to accept them. A poll in 1964, for example, found that 59 percent of Americans approved of the Civil Rights Act while 31 percent disapproved.

In contrast, the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917 abruptly upended existing social and economic hierarchies. What we learn from these kinds of abrupt revolutions is that the outcome is unpredictable and not always what the revolutionaries wanted or intended.

The French revolutionaries not only toppled the monarchy and sought to eliminate the privileged class, but did so with swift and brutal violence. The goal of the French Revolution was to create a society based on reason and individual rights, with a government representing the will of the people. The utopian ideal included liberty, equality, and fraternity.

In what we may consider a historical irony, within fifteen years of the French Revolution, the French had a dictator. The reason is that upending the social and economic hierarchies created instability and factionalism. Napoleon came to power by essentially making two promises. He promised stability, and he promised to carry forward the ideals of the Revolution. He appealed to those who wanted order, and he appeased those who embraced the ideals of the Revolution, so he was able to pull together a large coalition. He did, in fact, take steps to equalize citizens. For example, it was Napoleon who decreed that Jewish citizens should have the full rights of citizenship. He also ruled as a dictator.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 was also carried out by radicals who sought to entirely upend the existing power and economic hierarchy. The goal of the Russian Revolution was to eliminate economic classes with a view to ending economic oppression. The revolutionaries envisioned a classless utopia.

It wasn’t long before the Russian Revolution went completely off the rails. While the revolutionaries managed to get rid of the czar, they ended up with a totalitarian state. It was mostly Stalin’s efforts to eliminate all opposition that led to a totalitarian state. The only way to eliminate all opposition is to exert complete control over the population, and because a great many people do not like to be controlled that way, it requires the use of force.

Stalin and his supporters justified his use of force and totalitarian methods as necessary to bring about the perfect utopian vision of a classless society. The inherent contradiction in using brutal violence against your own people to create a perfect society should have been obvious, but it wasn’t.

Similarly, advocating rule-breaking in a rule-of-law society to save the rule of law is an inherent contradiction. Among other things, it undermines the authority that limits those in power.

Autocracy Promises Order

One appeal of autocracy is that it promises sameness. It reassures those who are afraid of differences.

People in an autocracy don’t pull in different directions because it isn’t permitted. Everyone knows their place. In an autocracy, you can feel reassured that others think as you do, and if they don’t, they keep their views to themselves. For most people, life in an autocracy goes on. They get up in the morning, have their coffee, go to work, and take care of their families.

The differences are that, in an autocracy, you don’t criticize the leader, you do what you are told to do, you believe (or pretend to believe) whatever you are told to believe, and you know that if you get into trouble, you cannot count on help from the government. People living in autocracies often avoid talking about politics altogether.

People imagine that autocracy will look like this:

Here’s the catch: Autocracies are not stable either. Eventually, autocracies topple. A personalist dictatorship has a particular vulnerability: uncertainty about the succession. In Russia, for example, nobody knows what will happen when Vladimir Putin dies. Personalist rulers often avoid designating a successor or creating a succession mechanism out of fear of losing control. They are afraid the successor will consolidate power while the personalist ruler is still alive. Not designating a successor keeps rivals uncertain and vying for the personalist ruler’s favor.

Monarchies and family dynasties are more stable because the heir is the monarch’s offspring, and the king can generally count on his own son or daughter not to bump him off to acquire power. Moreover, being the son or daughter of the king is lovely enough so that the heir is generally content to wait. Monarchy, however, has its own serious flaws. Suppose, for example, that the king’s son is a nutcase.

A representative democracy, in theory, creates a meritocracy because the voters can—though often do not—vote for the most competent leaders.

Many of the Founders who called themselves anti-Federalists believed the lesson to be gleaned from the ancient democracies of Greece and Rome was that democracy thrives best when citizens share a common climate and culture. That is why many of them believed power should remain local.

Certainly, a small group of people who share a climate and culture will have less pushing and pulling than a large, sprawling, multicultural democracy. But, even with small groups, democracy is difficult. I was on a nonprofit board and there was much conflict. As the saying goes, if you put two people in a room, you will get three opinions.

There will always be a push and pull because people are different—with different desires and different fears. Even on a small, local scale, people push in different directions. If you don’t believe me, run for local office and try to get something done. It took my community years to get a much-needed traffic light. Yes, many voters opposed the traffic light, even though they could see with their own eyes that people, including kids, waited for a break in the traffic and then darted across four lanes because they didn’t want to walk a mile to the nearest light. (Can you guess which side of the traffic-light issue I was on?)

Whatever you suggest, no matter how sensible it seems to you, there will always be opposition. As Professor Andriy Chirovsky said, “Democracy is messy. Authoritarianism is neat.” People who cannot tolerate the complexity, the messiness, and the give and take of democracy, long for order. They want all people to be the same.

That’s why a large, complex, sprawling representative democracy like the United States, consisting of hundreds of separate jurisdictions and lots of bureaucracies to administer the regulations, looks like this:

These are the same images I used earlier to illustrate “this is the world” and “this is the world with your brain on ideology,” because autocracies and ideologies have much in common. For an autocracy to function, a controlling ideology is essential. Enough people must have an unshakable belief that the autocrat has special or perhaps divine powers to save the nation. Autocrats say things like “I, and I alone, can fix it.”

The Appeal of Oligarchy

An oligarchy is a situation in which a small group of people have disproportionate power. Oligarchy is based on the idea that nature naturally forms a hierarchy. The strong and capable rise to the top.

Heather Cox Richardson, in her book, How the South Won the Civil War, points out that the United States has had two oligarchies, and we are currently slipping into a third.

The first oligarchy occurred during the plantation era, when one percent of the population—large plantation owners—controlled 90 percent of the nation’s wealth and resources. The wealthy enslavers used their wealth and power to protect themselves. They believed that the hierarchy that put a few (white) men in charge was based on what they believed to be a fact of nature—superiority of the white race.

The Democratic Party, at that time, was the party of the Confederates and rural America. The Democrats wanted a limited federal government because they were afraid that the North, if given the chance, would end slavery. So they vetoed federal funds for infrastructure such as canals and highways because they understood that such infrastructure would strengthen the industrial North. Their argument was that the Constitution didn’t give the federal government the power to do things like build highways across states.

The Constitution contains the Commerce Clause, which gives the federal government the power to regulate commerce among the states, but before the Civil War, the Commerce Clause mostly lay dormant. Those in power knew that invoking the Commerce Clause would alarm the South because if interpreted broadly it would give the federal government the authority to end slavery, which would lead to a Civil War.

In 1855 the Republican Party, called the Freedom Party, was born as an anti-slavery, pro-industry, pro-federal government party.

After the Civil War and the crushing defeat of the South, the Republicans had the power to pass pro-industry legislation. They built the kind of infrastructure—interstate highways and canals—that enabled industry to thrive. Republicans also gave us our first income tax.

As a result of the better infrastructure and pro-business legislation, we had an industrial revolution.

A few people who became known as business tycoons, or robber barons, grew wealthy. They often used ruthless business practices that were made possible because there were essentially no regulations. They could fix prices, manipulate markets, and pay poverty wages. Because a few people had disproportionate wealth and power, the age of business tycoons was our second oligarchy.

The economic theory that allowed for this was called laissez-faire economics, or a free market economy. This theory holds that the economy works best when the government doesn’t interfere. It’s the idea that you just let it happen. What will be will be.

Free market proponents argued that personal liberty means that if a worker agrees to work ten hours for a few pennies, it’s none of the government’s business. They also argued that if employers offer bad working conditions, people will look for other jobs. Slavery, after all, was illegal, so the market would take care of the problem. In other words, they believed the government didn’t have to, and shouldn’t, do anything about unsafe or bad working conditions.

Free market proponents believe that taxing the wealthy to pay for welfare is simply stealing from the rich to give to the poor. They believe the wealthy should be encouraged to donate to charities—and many of the tycoons were also philanthropists—but free market proponents believe they should not be forced, or taxed.

This has been expressed as the makers and takers theory. The idea is that the makers are those who produce, and the takers are, to use author Ayn Rand’s word, looters. Under this theory, welfare recipients are looters.

People on the lower end of the hierarchy often embrace this theory, which seems like a contradiction, but some people simply dislike regulations. They don’t like being told what to do. Others hold to the theory that there is a natural hierarchy, therefore, attempts on the part of the government to create complete equality means going against nature. Perhaps some believe that they, or their children, will rise to the top.

The era from 1870 until the early 1900s has been called the Age of Business. Meanwhile, laborers worked long hours in dangerous jobs at poverty wages. There was no minimum wage, no forty-hour workweek, and no Social Security or worker protections, so while a few people became fabulously wealthy, most people labored in poverty.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Republican Party split into two factions: the pro-industry part and the pro-civil-rights portion that also became the pro-labor faction. By the 1920s, the pro-industry faction took control of the Republican Party. The Party dropped racial equality and labor issues from its platform and became the party of business.

The Democratic Party, at the time, consisted of former Confederates and agricultural America. Neither party during that period championed civil rights.

The Age of Business came tumbling down in 1929 when Wall Street crashed, followed by the Great Depression.

Enter, stage left, Franklin D. Roosevelt and his pro-labor New Deal. The New Deal offered worker protections, a minimum wage, and a forty-hour workweek. That was when we got Social Security and worker protections. The G.I. Bill essentially educated a generation and moved a large number of people into the middle class.

As a result, the middle class strengthened. Income inequality came down, and we moved out of the second oligarchy.

Meanwhile, the parties continued shifting. Roosevelt drew many Black Americans into the Democratic coalition because they liked his pro-labor stance. Republicans, in contrast, pushed back against the pro-labor New Deal.

Beginning with President Truman, the Democratic Party began turning toward civil rights. As the Party embraced civil rights, many long-time Democrats, particularly those in the South, found themselves at odds with the Democratic Party. A group in the South called themselves Dixie Democrats, or Dixiecrats, who were opposed to things like integration.

At the same time, free-market proponents found that their economic policies were unpopular. People liked things such as social security and worker protections. To pull together a large coalition, Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan invited the Dixiecrats into the Republican Party. The Party became the party of fiscal conservatives (people who were anti-regulation and against taxes) and social conservatives (people who didn’t want to integrate, and blamed the women’s movement for destroying what they called the traditional family).

What the two groups had in common was a dislike of the federal government and the new power that the federal government was taking on. Recall that the Civil Rights Movement largely happened through the United States Supreme Court and federal regulations.

By 1980, the Democratic Party had changed from the party of the Confederacy to the party of civil rights and urban America.

During the 1980 presidential election, which pitted Jimmy Carter against Ronald Reagan, I did some political polling. My job was to call the voters in a small town in Missouri, where I am originally from. I believe I called them all.

I had conversations like this:

Me:  What is your political affiliation?

Town Resident: I’m a Democrat. My daddy was a Democrat, and my granddaddy was a Democrat.

Me: Who will you be voting for, for president?

Town Resident: Ronald Reagan.

Me: But Reagan is a Republican and Carter is a Democrat.

Town Resident: [laughs] I’m not voting for Carter.

In other words, I was watching the shift happen. At the local level, the more conservative candidates still called themselves Democrats. That, too, would soon change.

What has been called Reaganomics marked the beginning of a movement back toward deregulation. Reaganomics also meant tax cuts. Businesses benefited, but Reaganomics ushered in an era of increasing economic inequality. Today, income inequality is reaching levels like those in the 1920s, and we are edging toward our third oligarchy.

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 marked another shift of the Republican Party. Social conservatives who Presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon invited into the party, essentially took control. “Make America Great Again” is a reactionary call to arms.

Traditional fiscal conservatives who dislike Trump’s demagoguery find themselves without a party. This suggests that another party realignment may be in our future.

There will always be a push and pull between those who view regulations as creating fairness and those who want to abolish regulations on the grounds that they interfere with personal liberty. For that matter, there will always be tension between one person’s liberty to do as he or she pleases and another person’s right not to be subjected to hurtful or damaging behavior. As the saying goes, your right to swing your fist stops where my nose begins. Drawing the line between regulations that create fairness and regulations that are burdensome and infringe on personal liberty with no tangible benefit is not easy.

Regulated Capitalism
Is the Best Economic System

I’ll call this a theory, even though I think it’s a fact: Regulated capitalism is the best economic system for today’s world. Regulated capitalism offers the benefits of capitalism. Innovation is fostered, economic growth is promoted, and opportunities expand. Wider choices are available to consumers. Regulated capitalism generally brings a higher standard of living.

Regulating capitalism creates more fairness, which increases the benefits of capitalism by preventing things such as market manipulation, insider trading, false advertising, and worker exploitation. If cheating isn’t allowed, genuine innovation is encouraged. The prize then goes to true innovators instead of those who figure out how to manipulate and cheat others. Regulation allows more freedom and opportunity because more people can participate.

However, as you would expect, some capitalists don’t want to be regulated. Companies will frequently come out on the side of profits over the public good. “We will make less profit, but the general population will benefit,” I assume, is rarely the consensus of a corporate board of directors.

So there is a constant push and pull between those who want industry to be regulated and those who think the economy works best when it is unregulated. That adds another element to the constant flux and vulnerability of democratic forms of government.

Democracy Requires Compromise

Recall the Pinochet story and what Harvard Professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said about mutual tolerance. When the opposing parties in a democracy refuse to compromise and prioritize winning at all costs, democracy is in danger of breaking down. This is particularly true when one side resorts to illegal means.

Some people don’t want to compromise. They want things their way. Those people will never feel comfortable in a democratic government based on the rule of law. They will insist on their way, they will refuse to compromise, and they will advocate rule-breaking to save the system. Such people, if they accumulate too much power, will derail a democratic form of government.

A Large, Sprawling, Diverse, Multicultural Democracy Is Always in Danger

What we might call the existence pain of democracies is that they are always difficult. James Madison wrote, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” If we were angels, democracy would also work perfectly—but then, we wouldn’t need a government in the first place.

The existence pain of democracy includes knowing that our world is messy, imperfect, and in constant flux. It means knowing and accepting that democracy is never easy. People are imperfect, and democracy means “rule by the people,” so democracy can never work perfectly. Those who want perfection and cannot tolerate the constant flux will reject democracy.

Recall Karen Stenner’s theory that the worldwide rise of authoritarian movements has happened because liberal democracy has exceeded many people’s capacity to tolerate it.

Until recently in our evolutionary history, humans were concerned only with their immediate surroundings. The world was a simpler place. Humans knew that large predatory cats were dangerous, they knew that the neighboring group might make war on them, and they knew which berries were good to eat. Today, our lives are interconnected with people who live on the other side of the planet.

Evolutionary biologists and neuroscientists tell us that our brains are poorly equipped to cope with globalization. Put another way, our technology is in danger of outpacing our wisdom to manage it.

If life or democracy is hard, a person may look for someone to blame. Such people are vulnerable to the siren call of a demagogue. A person who can’t hold a job as a casual laborer may be taught to blame immigrants for taking his job. A man continually rejected by women can be taught to blame the changes that have made women independent.

Liberals and progressives are always introducing new ideas or trying to improve what is there, while conservatives resist change. Regressives feel that something is being lost and try to undo the changes. Even people who are mostly liberal can start feeling like “Okay, now things have gone too far.” There may be more people like that than we realize because they may be afraid to say how they feel.

Consider these messages:

• People are coming to take our jobs.
• People less qualified than us are taking our jobs, and it isn’t fair.
• What is essentially American is being lost.
• The cities are teeming with crime, immorality, and vice.
• We are being invaded by foreigners who want to change America into something else.

These messages in the hands of a skillful demagogue can ignite a reactionary movement.

Some people who respond to the above messages may have a vague feeling of unease, discomfort, or fear without understanding the source of those fears and anxieties. Things may have moved too quickly, so they may be uncomfortable. They are uneasy with all this stuff about gender and pronouns.

These kinds of messages, which play on fears that come from rapid changes, can send a person into an ideological spiral.

You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught

We turn back now to the artists because artists can impart wisdom in a way that resonates deeply. That is partly because artists express their messages through symbols, metaphors, or stories. Art, after all, is condensed life.

The musical South Pacific tackled the issue of racism in 1949. When the play was first performed on Broadway, racial segregation was legal. The modern Civil Rights Movement was in the future.

The story is about how people often initially resist what is new and different. One of the main characters, Nellie, overcomes her prejudice after she spends time with people who are different, and becomes comfortable with them.

There was pressure on Rodgers and Hammerstein to remove the song, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” because it was considered too controversial. James Michener, the author of the book on which the play was based, later recalled that Rodgers and Hammerstein “replied stubbornly that the number represented why they wanted to do the play, and that even if it meant failure of the production, it was going to stay in.”

The song so offended some Georgia legislators that that they introduced a bill to outlaw entertainment having “an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow.” By that, they meant communism. And by that, they meant going against what they believed was essentially American.

The character says, “It is not born in you! It happens after you are born!” The song he then sings includes these lyrics:

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear.
You’ve got to be taught from year to year . . .
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.The Rodgers & Hammerstein website offers the full lyrics and a performance of the song, which you can see by clicking here.

You’ve got to be carefully taught is exactly what the neuroscientists also tell us. For an ideology to take root, it must be continually reinforced.

However, as people become accustomed to changes, what was once new and scary becomes familiar and comfortable. People who embrace change and are comfortable with the new and different perhaps need to show patience to those who need time to adjust.

Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, on the first page of his book, The Road Less Traveled, said this:

Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

His idea is that once we understand that life is difficult, we stop moaning about it and get to work solving problems as they arise.

The same can be said about democracy. Democracy is always difficult. Once we understand this, we stop being shocked each time there is a setback and set to work looking for solutions.