“‘Power politics’ is the only kind of politics there is. The idea of some sort of ‘politics’ that would not be ‘power politics’ is empty, self-contradictory. When someone condemns ‘power politics,’ it is a sign either that he doesn't know what politics is about, or that he is objecting to someone else's power politics while simultaneously camouflaging his own.”
James Burnham - Struggle for The World
The term authoritarian is used frequently to describe elements of the regime’s actions that we do not like, or feel is unnecessary in solving the problems of the day. Whilst many feel that such a label somehow critiques the nature of a policy, it does no such thing. At best to suggest that a leader, or group of leaders, are authoritarian is to suggest that they have a power hungry attitude. This too is redundant, all leaders by their nature must be power hungry, otherwise they would not be leaders, another more power hungry individual or group would take up the reigns. At worst authoritarianism is juxtaposed against what must be taken as unauthoritarian politics, this is of course nonsense, as the ever quotable James Burnham tells us above, there can be no such thing as non-power politics. A body that exercises political authority must maintain and grow its power, through technical means, through subterfuge, or outright force. Otherwise it is an authority in decline—a subsidiary of some other growing power.
Readers more familiar with my profile online will understand well that my intellectual journey took off from libertarianism, of a more rightward lean, and developed into anarcho-capitalism. A view which still influences me today, but in a way that many seem to miss. In my journey through libertarianism, without my direct knowledge at the time, I had begun to question any and all central or monopolising authorities in the political world. Be it divine right of kings, technical competency or its ill thought cousin Might-Makes-Right, and latterly the legitimising filter of the democratic mandate. Each one in my mind was challenged and subsequently smashed, the last in the works of Hans-Herman Hoppe who took the democratic world view to task in such a brilliant manner that I credit Democracy The God That Failed as akin to an epiphany.
Divine right of kings fell to liberal regimes centred around individual actualisation. The liberal regimes fell to the technical supremacy of the early managerial regimes. Technical supremacy alone fell to the more developed and matured empire of democracy and pluralism. In my joy of learning about these subsequent revolutions, and arguing about them for hours on end with my peers I lost sight of the most revealing component. In my haste to denounce all monopolising forces, and to be seen as the wrinkliest brain in the room, I never suspected that all politics was really just about power—and power alone.
If one takes the anarcho-capitalist lens and tweak it just so, everything rational, moral, or democratic, within politics dissolves into raw power relations. To realise that Authoritarian! is not the cry of the well meaning freedom fighter, but that of the Machiavellian who wishes to subjugate the current powers under his own boot. Given his want to succeed likely a bigger and spikier boot at that. There is no compromise in politics, conciliation only exists for the groups who are already routed and subjugated, more often than not leading to dependence on the ruling group.
Legitimate regimes in any true sense do not exist, regimes are legitimate only in the moment and legitimacy is demonstrated only in its effective use of power. Attempting to argue over what regimes across time and place are legitimate in comparison to others is a matter solely of taste and preference. Or if you are the sort who believes genuinely that one or another regime truly has an intellectual claim to legitimacy, then I must introduce to the ancient democratic institution of gang rape.