Post-democracies, autocracies, oligarchies, technocracies, dictatorships...
When no better terms can be found to describe social phenomena or artistic trends that appear to conflict with the previous status quo or attempt, with varying degrees of success, to present themselves as innovative, the usual solution is to add a nice "post" to the concept one wishes to present as obsolete. Thus we have the "Post-Impressionists" in painting, "Post-structuralism" in linguistics and its environs, and even "Postmodernity," which can be explained even to infants, as a certain Jean-François Lyotard attempted to do (1).
This is a legitimate and understandable
procedure: a new term garners more interest than existing ones and suggests a
deeper understanding of the phenomena in question. But often, the new term
captures aspects that are only apparently new but in fact marginal, and in any
case, misses the essence of the problem. A case in point is the term
"post-democracies," used to describe what undeniably appears to be a
regression of what were long believed to be true democracies, and which, with
the aforementioned term, are effectively consecrated as if they never truly
existed, so as not to admit that it was all an illusion. And so, since we
cannot or will not admit that when "pseudo-democracies" (for this is
the term that describes them in their actuality) reveal their true colors,
throwing off their masks, we should admit that we have been the victims of
illusions. But here's the practical solution: yes, they were democracies, but
now they are "post-democracies" (which, however, implicitly also
means ex-democracies!).
But as all philosophers who have analyzed the
mechanisms of state power, starting not from ideological appearances but from
the reality of the facts, know, democracy has always been a contested term
(and, in Hellenic origins, even negative) because it is, in fact, a fiction:
except in tiny village communities, every state system is based on the
controlled delegation of power, that is, automatically, power and counterpower.
The lack of control, that is, the stifling of opposition, is the most
spectacular form of dictatorially exercised power, but the difference between
the ideal of "democracy" and the reality of "dictatorships"
(to cite the two extremes) is a question of management method, not essence.
In other words, the essential difference
between the various forms of exercising state power cited in the title is a
question of modality and circumstances. A state in which complete freedom for
all reigned without coercion would quickly slide into the anarchy that is
always the prelude to dictatorships (a tragic example is Republican Spain,
which ended in the dictatorship of Generalissimo Franco, or the Weimar
Republic, which ended in Hitler's dictatorship, and not unlike Italy, which
after the First World War slipped into fascist dictatorship).
A country surrounded or threatened by external
enemies must necessarily impose increasingly unpopular and iron discipline to
defend itself from internal enemies, incited or financed, and often armed by
external enemies. The cases here are so numerous that it is pointless to list
them all, but from Cuba and Latin America to Asia and the Middle East, modern
history knows no exceptions to this system.
In so-called "Western" countries, as a rule (but with many exceptions), the repression of opposition generally works through the seemingly gentle mechanism of marginalizing dissent: limited spaces are granted in which outbursts of anger against those in power are permitted, but only on the condition that they do not spread to the "healthy body" of the masses convinced they live in true democracies. George Orwell made this explicit in his novel "1984" with the example of the "fifteen-hour hate," a time granted to vent one's anger against those in power and then return to blind obedience.
This—and this alone—is the difference between
pseudo-democracies and autocracies: the latter foolishly stifle dissent instead
of limiting it, and thus unwittingly allow it to grow until they are
overwhelmed by it.
It is common to trace the origins of modern
democracies back to the Declaration of Human Rights, and in particular to the
American Revolution. But even here, ideals and reality are very distant.
It is no coincidence that the term
"democracy" is completely absent from documents often cited as the
origin of modern democracies. For example, in the 1776 Declaration of
Independence of the American colonies, a document drafted by Thomas Jefferson
(the fourth US president but the first in terms of slave ownership: he owned
600), the word "democracy" is not mentioned once: absent because it
was considered, as in ancient Greece where it originated, a dangerous system
for the management of state power.
But descending to the harsh terrain of reality,
if we accept that the reality of the "democracy-dictatorship" issue
is far more problematic than generally believed, the question arises:
"What is to be done?"
There can't be a single answer; true democracy
is like Metastasio's phoenix (“Everyone says it exists, but no one knows
where it is”).
But as with all ideals, what matters is
striving for it, getting closer, knowing full well that it can never be
achieved, and above all, not deluding oneself into thinking that it has been
achieved by being dazzled by insubstantial reflections. Take the case of
"free elections," which are generally considered proof of the
existence of democracy: democracies would therefore be a very recent
phenomenon, given that, for example, in Italy, half of the citizens—women—were
able to vote for the first time only in 1946, and in one Swiss canton (Thurgau)
in 1976.
Free elections, however, are only free when
there is real freedom of choice and, above all, if there is freedom of
information and not a monopoly on the press. Yet, throughout Europe, the press
and television are largely owned by private groups (billionaires or financial
groups) or state-owned entities dependent on the power of the moment, and
therefore they select the information and present it in a In order to maintain
the political or financial power they wield.
And as for the ease with which citizens'
fundamental rights are repressed and the media manipulated for profit, it's
enough to recall what happened in much of the world with the so-called
"Covid" pandemic.
Here too, there's one (sole) laudable
exception: Sweden, with no mandatory vaccinations and no” house arrest” (
called "lock down" in reverent homage to the language of
Anglo-American cultural dominance, dissimulating the overly realistic terms of
other European languages ).
Information is therefore the essential prerequisite for the existence of true democracy, and thus freedom of the press is an indisputable criterion for measuring the degree of democracy in every country in the world.
It is no coincidence that, with governing
parties lacking popular support but glued to power and even willing to ban
opposition parties rather than be ousted, Germany, for example, has fallen to
14th place in the world press freedom rankings (and Italy to 56th!), while the
top spots are held by Northern European countries (Norway holds first place,
which, coincidentally, is not a member of the EU after its citizens rejected
membership in a referendum).
But there are also positive examples to look
to.
A small but essential corrective to
"post-democracy" (let's use this hypocritical term for once) would be
popular referendums. In this area, Switzerland's primacy is undoubtedly
undisputed: no government can impose a law knowing it lacks popular support,
because a referendum would overturn it immediately after its imposition.
And indeed, every attempt to propose
Switzerland's accession to the Brussels oligarchy (aka the European Union) has
always failed miserably. And Swiss referenda even ward off potential trends
unwanted by citizens: the referendum to guarantee the preservation of cash
demonstrated that Swiss citizens rejected the imposition of a purely digital
currency: on March 9, 2026, a news item rarely reported by the European press
in the EU, the referendum to include the right to use cash in the Swiss
Constitution received 73% of the vote.
And so, at least a small mountainous region in
the heart of Europe would be more justified in calling itself a
"democratic garden" surrounded by an "authoritarian
jungle," the false and racist comparison used by a high-ranking EU
official, Joseph Borrell, to praise the EU, which he believed to be the
democratic garden and the rest of the world the jungle. (2)
Nomen est omen, and it would be easy to play on
the name of this character by replacing an "r" with a "d"
to describe in turn what the management of the EU has become. A Union
originally intended for economic and social cooperation to avert the conflicts
of the last century has irremediably transformed into an oligarchy supported by
a statute imposed without further referendums after the first three countries
called to vote (Portugal, France, and Ireland) rejected the monstrous plan to
annul the state sovereignties of the member countries and concentrate them
precisely in the Brussels suburb.
An oligarchy at the service of financial and
industrial powers because it is not truly controlled by the voters: in fact,
they elect a European Parliament that is a sham because it is deprived of the
power to propose laws and called only to ratify the decisions of a Commission
that no one elects but is appointed by the governments of the member countries
of the Union. Therefore, even formally, the requirements of a true democracy
are lacking.
And in fact, against the evident desire for
peace and well-being of the vast majority of European citizens, without even
consulting Parliament (!), the decision to create a monstrous army for the war
against Russia was taken directly and in an absolutely undemocratic manner by
the EU Commissioner, who diverted 800 billion euros from social spending to the
war industry.
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(1) Le
Postmoderne expliqué aux enfants, Correspondance 1982-85 (1988)
(2)
“Europe is a garden. We have built a garden. Everything works. [...] The rest
of the world [...] is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a
jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden.”
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