If we are really going to face up to things though, I guess we should consider autocratic power in all of this.
What is the alternative? Actually? BECAUSE AUTOCRATIC power is not it.
It is a difficult thing to talk about. And harder still, because places like Russia use brutal and deadly force to achieve their objectives. And yet (pretty much) the whole rest of the world (apart from certain die-hards) thinks that Putin is just a nasty (some would say evil) bully.
Power corrupts?
It reminds me of something my Dad used to say to us when we were kids – ‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ True in this case, I think. Some individuals LOVE power, and furthermore, some people have the kind of charisma that whole tribes of people get behind and support (for example, in the case of the autocratic aspirations of Donald Trump).
So, we are this kind of ecosystem of individuals, but some individuals have more power (and want more power) than others. What is the answer to that conundrum?
Politics and autocratic power
While I dig through the crates of my mind (and some essays on Politics and Power that I thankfully did not recently throw away in a big psychotic cleanup), to try and learn more about what is so enticing about the power of treading on the vulnerable little people, in order to achieve our own aims, I will leave you with something that may help us.
One thing that I believe to be true is that democracy is so incredibly precious right now. There are other important elements to the freedom of our people of course, and also to the plight of collectivism, but democracy too is critical. And according to Erik Olin Wright, democracy is a vehicle for FREEDOM.
I am sure (most of us) can agree that this is our most precious asset of all!
References:
Erik Olin Wright (2019), How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century, Verso Books. https://www.booktopia.com.au/how-to-be-an-anticapitalist-in-the-twenty-first-century-erik-olin-wright/book/9781788739559.html – ebook