Altruistic Totalitarianism

An Essay about dictatorships I did for Great Books. I had some interesting thoughts in it. For those of you who don't know what altruistic means (I sure hope you know what totalitarianism is) click here



Altruistic Totalitarianism


Dictatorships and monarchies are the purest form of government and have the highest potential good for their citizens. Unfortunately, they also have the highest potential evil, and as history has proven, absolute power is almost always abused. The problem with the dictatorship does not lie in the system itself, but in the men that use it. As a race, we are basically evil. When a man has the absolute power over an entire country, his sinful side is magnified. Throughout history we have witnessed so many monarchies go awry that absolute power has won itself a reputation of oppression, unfairness, and corruption. People now-a-days tend to associate negative connotations with the words 'dictatorship' and 'absolute power.' By their main definition though, these words have no negative denotations. It is not the actual object that is evil, but the people who misuse it.


If monarchy is truly the purest form of government, there must be some sort of ideal structure for it. As we look back at history, it it becomes clear that constructing an incorruptible dictatorship is extremely difficult, if not impossible. One of the problems with this form of government is that there are very few men capable of holding absolute power and not abusing it. Many times, the immediate decedents of an exceptional king are weak or stupid, or both. In most cases this is because a ruler simply doesn't have enough time to devote to his young. At the very earliest stages of their youth, when they are desperately in need of a godly father model, there is no one there for them. Then again, kings often make parents in the first place.


The inheritance system. Herein lies the problem. As soon as a weak and easily corruptible—or already corrupt— man takes the throne, things are thrown into a mess. Any good done by a ruler is almost always vastly outweighed by the imprudence of his feeble successor. If you could ensure that strong, moral men stayed on the throne, the monarchy would promptly become a powerful and altruistic state.


The ideal hierarchy system must be based on this important factor; that the founding monarch is be an honest, valiant, and strong man. Ideally, he would be Christian as well, although this is not a vital point. The traditional system of inheritance desperately needs to be done away with. Instead of his first born son, the ruler would pick a young man out of his country to mentor as his heir. Because there is the slight chance that a ruler might be biased towards his children, it would be customary that he not pick any of his own offspring. As soon as any king begins his rule, he would begin a search throughout his kingdom for this heir. The young heir would travel by the ruler's side, almost like an aide-de-camp, and the ruler would teach him wisdom and country-running skills. If a strong, wise, Christian man took the throne to begin with, this system would ensure that a good king was always on the throne. Also, there would be a board of counselors that the king would appoint. These men would have power only subordinate to the king, and would advise him and help him wisely rule his country.


Another consideration that must be made, is that of marriage. Will rulers be allowed to marry? At first glance, the simple answer is no. It would be distracting. On the other hand, Kings throughout history have had queens (or harems), but ours isn't the normal dictator. In the end, it is necessary that a ruler have an intellectual partner and a second in command—a sort of 'vice-dictator' who would take command in the scenario that anything happen to the ruler. This would mean that the dictator would have to pick a wife very carefully, but if he is already a wise and godly man, this should not be a problem.


There are, as is probably apparent by now, gaping holes in the above system. It is quite possible that a ruler could die before he had chosen an heir. This would likely result in a fierce struggle to gain power. For this reason, it would be the queen's responsibility to choose the heir if her husband died. Hopefully, corruption would also be counterbalanced by the kings council, who would presumably be wise and godly men, and would attempt to keep evil out of high positions. If both the queen and king died before a new heir was in place, it would be up to the council to choose the next heir, and for practical purposes, none of them could be put into the position themselves.


Due to man's sinful nature, constructing a workable monarchy in the real world would be extremely difficult. There is, however, one perfect dictatorship we can look up to: that of God over the universe. He reigns perfectly, always knows what is best, and has supreme power. There is no problem of corruption in his monarchy, and he needn't deal with the problem of heirs, because he is everlasting. Neither has he any need for a council; he is all knowing.