We have previously noted the recent increase in the rate of wealth polarisation, with its erosion of working-class living standards. This process has been referred to by Noam Chomsky as "Third-Worldisation." It is appearing in a particularly acute form in the US — the "richest" industrialised nation which also has the highest level of poverty, since it is the most polarised — but the process can be seen in other "advanced" industrial nations as well, particularly in the UK.
Third World governments are typically authoritarian, since harsh measures are required to suppress rebellions among their impoverished and discontented masses. Hence "Third-Worldisation" implies not only economic polarisation but also increasingly authoritarian governments. As Philip Slater puts it, a large, educated, and alert "middle class" (i.e. average income earners) has always been the backbone of democracy, and anything that concentrates wealth tends to weaken democratic institutions [A Dream Deferred, p. 68].
If this is true, then along with increasing wealth polarisation in the US we should expect to see signs of growing authoritarianism. This hypothesis is confirmed by numerous facts, including the following: continuing growth of an "imperial presidency" (concentration of political power); extralegal operations by the executive branch (e.g. the Iran-Contra scandal, the Grenada and Panama invasions); skyrocketing incarceration rates; more official secrecy and censorship; the rise of the Far Right; more police and prisons; FBI requests for massive wiretapping capability; and so on. Public support for draconian measures to deal with crime reflect the increasingly authoritarian mood of citizens beginning to panic in the face of an ongoing social breakdown, which has been brought about, quite simply, by ruling-class greed that has gotten out of hand — a fact that is carefully obscured by the media.
One might think that representative democracy and constitutionally guaranteed freedoms would make an authoritarian government impossible in the United States and other liberal democratic nations with similar constitutional "protections" for civil rights. In reality, however, the declaration of a "national emergency" would allow the central government to ignore constitutional guarantees with impunity and set up what Hannah Arendt calls "invisible government" — mechanisms allowing an administration to circumvent constitutional structures while leaving them nominally in place (see section D.9.2).
In this regard it is important to remember that the Nazis created a "shadow government" in Germany even as the "democratic" Weimar constitution continued to operate in theory. Hitler at first implemented his programmes through the constitution, using existing government agencies and departments. Later he set up Nazi Party bureaus that duplicated the functions of the Weimar government, allowing the latter to remain in place but without power, while the Nazi bureaus (especially the SS, and of course Hitler himself) held the actual power. The Communist Party in Russia created a similar invisible government after the Bolshevik revolution, leaving the revolutionary constitution as well as the government bureaucracy in place while Communist Party agencies and the General Secretary wielded the real power [See Marilyn French, Beyond Power, p. 349].
If the drift toward social breakdown continues in the "advanced" industrial nations, it's not difficult to conceive of voters electing overtly authoritarian, right-wing administrations campaigning on "law-and-order" platforms. In the face of widespread rioting, looting, and mayhem (especially if it spilled over from the ghettos and threatened the suburbs), reactionary hysteria could propel authoritarian types into both the executive and legislative branches of government. The "middle classes" (i.e. professionals, small business people and so on) would then support charismatic martial-style leaders who promised to restore law and order, particularly if they were men with impressive military or police credentials.
Once elected, and with the support of willing legislatures and courts, authoritarian administrations could easily create much more extensive mechanisms of invisible government than already exist, giving the executive branch virtually dictatorial powers. Such administrations could also vastly increase government control of the media, implement martial law, escalate foreign militarism, further expand the funding and scope of the police, national guard units, secret police and foreign intelligence agencies, and authorise more widespread surveillance of citizens as well as the infiltration of dissident political groups. Random searches and seizures, curfews, government control of all organised meetings, harassment or outright banning of groups that disagreed with or attempted to block government policies, and the imprisonment of political dissidents and others judged to be dangerous to "national security" would then become routine.
These developments would not occur all at once, but so gradually, imperceptibly, and logically — given the need to maintain "law and order" — that most people would not even be aware that an authoritarian take-over was underway. Indeed, it is already underway in the US (see Bertram Gross, Friendly Fascism, South End Press, 1989).
In the following subsections we will examine some of the symptoms of growing authoritarianism listed above, again referring primarily to the example of the United States. We are including these sections in the FAQ because the disturbing trends canvassed here give the anarchist programme of social reconstruction more urgency than would otherwise be the case. For if radical and dissident groups are muzzled — as always happens under authoritarian rule — that programme will be much more difficult to achieve.