Inverted totalitarianism is a system where economic powers like corporations exert subtle but substantial power over a system that superficially seems democratic. Over time, this theory predicts a sense of powerlessness and political apathy, continuing a slide away from political egalitarianism.
Sheldon Wolin coined the term in 2003 to describe what he saw as the emerging form of government of the United States. He said that the United States was turning into a managed democracy (similar to an illiberal democracy). He uses the term "inverted totalitarianism" to draw attention to the totalitarian aspects of such a system, while the term inverted helps to portray the many differences with classical totalitarianism.
Writing on inverted totalitarianism from 1960-2008, Wolin argued that the United States is increasingly totalitarian as a result of repeated military mobilizations: to fight the Axis powers in the 1940s, to contain communism during the Cold War, and to fight the War on Terror after the September 11 attacks.[1]
Wolin describes this development toward inverted totalitarianism in terms of two conflicting political power centers, namely the constitutional imaginary and the power imaginary. Wolin speaks of imaginaries to include political tendencies as well as existing political conditions. He explains:
Wolin explains that the constitutional imaginary "prescribes the means by which power is legitimated, accountable and constrained". Referring to Thomas Hobbes, Wolin understands the power imaginary as a quest for power that is rationalized by fear of collective mortality. The power imaginary may "undermine or override the boundaries mandated in the constitutional imaginary" through fears of a dangerous enemy:
The power imaginary does not only reduce democracy within the United States, it also promotes the United States as a "Superpower" that develops and expands its current position as the only global superpower:
Wolin argued that the similarities to classical totalitarian regimes include using fear, preemptive wars and elite domination.
Wolin distinguished between inverted and classical totalitarianism in several ways:
Wolin (2008) wrote:
The superpower claims both democracy and global hegemony. Democracy and hegemony are coupled by means of managed democracy, where the elections are free and fair but the people lack the actual ability to change the policies, motives and goals of the state.
Managerial methods under such a system are applied to elections:
By using managerial methods and developing management of elections, Wolin argues that the democracy of the United States has become sanitized of political participation, therefore managed democracy is "a political form in which governments are legitimated by elections that they have learned to control". Under managed democracy, the electorate is prevented from having a significant impact on policies adopted by the state because of the opinion construction and manipulation carried out by means of technology, social science, contracts and corporate subsidies.
Managerial methods are also the means by which state and global corporations unite so that corporations increasingly assume governmental functions and services and corporations become still more dependent on the state. A main object of managed democracy is privatization and the expansion of the private, together with reduction of governmental responsibility for the welfare of the citizens.
According to Wolin, the United States has two main totalizing dynamics:
Mark E. Warren and Andrew Nash praised Wolin's impact on the field of politics through both versions of Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Thought, serving as an important warning for the future of democracy.[3] [4] Warren also adds caveats arguing that the part of the book published in 1960 has less relevance in the 21st century, that the new portion of the book makes some leaps in subordinating the positions of historical figures to support his thesis, and that Wolin dismisses too many of the democratic advances in recent years as ultimately serving the elites slowly concentrating power.
Sheldon Wolin's book Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism received a Lannan Literary Award for an Especially Notable Book in 2008.[5]
Arolda Elbasani, in her review of Democracy Incorporated, finds Wolin's description of the US having some tendencies towards inverted totalitarianism as compelling but "rather exaggerated" and using some historical choices she calls "bewildering".[6]
In a review of Wolin's Democracy Incorporated in Truthdig, political scientist and author Chalmers Johnson wrote that the book is a "devastating critique" of the contemporary government of the United States—including the way it has changed in recent years and the actions that "must" be undertaken "if it is not to disappear into history along with its classic totalitarian predecessors: Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Bolshevik Russia". In Johnson's view, Wolin’s is one of the best analyses of why presidential elections are unlikely to be effective in mitigating the detrimental effects of inverted totalitarianism. Johnson writes that Wolin’s work is "fully accessible" and that understanding Wolin's argument "does not depend on possessing any specialized knowledge". Johnson believes Wolin's analysis is more of an explanation of the problems of the United States than a description of how to solve these problems, "particularly since Wolin believes that the U.S. political system is corrupt" and "heavily influenced by financial contributions primarily from wealthy and corporate donors, but that nonetheless Wolin’s analysis is still one of the best discourses on where the U.S. went wrong".
Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers expressed the following view:
We are living in a time of Inverted Totalitarianism, in which the tools used to maintain the status quo are much more subtle and technologically advanced ... These include propaganda and major media outlets that hide the real news about conditions at home and our activities around the world behind distractions [...] Another tool is to create insecurity in the population so that people are unwilling to speak out and take risks for fear of losing their jobs [...] Changes in college education also silence dissent [...] Adjunct professors [...] are less willing to teach topics that are viewed as controversial. This, combined with massive student debt, are tools to silence the student population, once the center of transformative action.
Chris Hedges has argued that the liberal class is unable to reform itself and that classical liberalism has been reduced to a political charade that is stage-managed within corporate capitalism. According to Hedges, political philosophers like Wolin are excluded from publications like The New York Times and New York Review of Books because academic intellectuals and journalists prize access to power rather than truth.[7] The book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (2012) by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco portrays inverted totalitarianism as a system where corporations have corrupted and subverted democracy and where economics bests politics.[8] [9] Every natural resource and living being is commodified and exploited by large corporations to the point of collapse as excess consumerism and sensationalism lull and manipulate the citizenry into surrendering their liberties and their participation in government.
Dennis Ray Morgan adds that in addition to the concentration of raw military power, technology is helping to lead the world towards the type of inverted totalitarianism seen in 1984 and Brave New World.[10]