The result is the absolute rule of one “party” which, having finally achieved complete control, might still call itself a party, referring to its parliamentary past, when it still was merely a part of the diet.Ī typical case is the Red October of 1917. Clausewitz said that wars are the continuation of diplomacy by other means, and in ideologically divided nations revolutions are truly the continuation of parliamentarism with other means. The stage for such violence is set if the parties represent philosophies so different as to make dialogue and compromise impossible.
#Examples of tyranny free#
The first road to totalitarian tyranny (though by no means the most frequently used) is the overthrow by force of a liberal democracy through a revolutionary movement, as a rule a party advocating tyranny but unable to win the necessary support in free elections. To achieve equal scholastic levels in a school one would have to pressure certain students into extra hard work while holding back others. To get a hedge of even height one has to apply pruning shears. He who wants geographic equality has to dynamite mountains and fill up the valleys. Equality doesn’t exist in nature and therefore can be established only by force. The tyranny would evolve from the very character of even a liberal democracy because there is, from the beginning on, a worm in the apple: freedom and equality do not mix, they practically exclude each other. How could a democracy, even an initially liberal one, develop into a totalitarian tyranny? As we said in the beginning, there are three avenues of approach, and in each case the evolution would be of an “organic” nature. (We are, of course, using the term “liberal” in the globally accepted version and not in the American sense, which since the New Deal has been totally perverted.) This means that an absolute monarchy could be liberal (but hardly democratic) and a democracy could be totalitarian, illiberal, and tyrannical, with a majority brutally persecuting minorities. Genuine liberalism is the answer to an entirely different question: How should government be exercised? The answer it provides is: regardless of who rules, government must be carried out in such a way that each person enjoys the greatest amount of freedom, compatible with the common good. A democracy may be either liberal or illiberal. Pondering the question of “Who should rule,” the democrat gives his answer: “the majority of politically equal citizens, either in person or through their representatives.” In other words, equality and majority rule are the two fundamental principles of democracy. Before describing these several patterns of social change, let us state precisely what we mean by “democracy.”
Historically, this process has occurred in three quite different ways. Plato, in his Republic, tells us that tyranny arises, as a rule, from democracy. Kuehnelt-Leddihn is a European scholar, linguist, world traveler, and lecturer.
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