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[Seriphyn]

Blame Godwin. Whenever we use the word 'authoritarian' or 'totalitarian', our immediate reaction is to be repulsed; we're shaped by 20th century history, and we immediately associate these words with the great dictators of that era, including everyone's favourite, mister Hitler. Thus, if we call the Caldari State 'totalitarian', the interpretation is that of tyranny. However, I argue the following...

Authoritarianism and totalitarianism is not the same as tyranny

Tyranny, to me, would be actions that would violate the established tenets of a culture or political system. As on Wikipedia, "a tyrant, in its modern English usage, is a ruler of a cruel and oppressive character who is an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution". Each of the Big Four are law-based in some form. The Federation has its treaties, the Amarr has its Scriptures, the Caldari State have their corporate laws, and the Republic have their tribal laws/traditions. Even unwritten mores and practices would fit into this framework. None of them are tyrannies (they simply wouldn't last very long), although all have cases of tyranny in the past, manifested via numerous vehicles relative to that system's specifics. Using a Western measure (and thus heavily biased), I would class the Caldari State as totalitarian, the Amarr Empire as authoritarian, the Minmatar Republic as a flawed democracy, and the Gallente Federation as a full democracy.

The Caldari State would only be regarded as totalitarian due to the fact the Government (in this case, one of the eight megacorporations) have absolute control over their subjects' lives. This would be seen as tyrannical by a Gallentean, but the fact of the matter is, is that Caldari citizens do not see it as tyrannical at all, as their culture works best under such a system. The laws support a totalitarian system. Tyranny according to the Caldari would be when a megacorporation violates the established laws and customs. At least going from the PF (and using no extrapolations), it doesn't seem the megacorporations have been that tyrannical at all, and have seldom violated their own laws. Tibus Heth and the Provists, however, would be seen as a tyrant, due to his status violating the established norms and practices (they're still being violated even if they're tolerated). The arbitrary imprisonment of individuals by the Provists without regard to corporate law is an example of Caldari tyranny.

Although the Amarr Empire has slavery, for its citizens/commoners, it more appears as authoritarian to me. There is the Theology Council and Ministry of Internal Order to put down dissidents and so forth, but they do not meddle and directly control an Amarr commoner's life, unlike a Caldari megacorporation. Certainly, there are social traditions and practices that would keep you in line, but the political system's methods to enforcing conformity is reactionary rather than pre-emptive. In addition, because so much of the Empire is run by Holders, there is significant discretion down to these individuals on how to administer their domains. Amarr tyranny would perhaps be the unjust treatment of commoners according to the Scriptures, or undermining the authority of the Holders.

The Minmatar Republic is a bit difficult at the moment since it's still not clear whether they're still the Gallente-engineered democracy or moved onto a tribal system (though, I don't necessarily see how they're mutually exclusive). Assuming a tribal democracy, it can be quite argued to be a flawed democracy due to having sham elections with only one candidate. Of course, that's not to say the Minmatar or Republic are 'flawed', only if you measure them along a democratic standard. Without clear lore on how the Minmatar would actually administer themselves without having a Gallente system imposed on them, it's difficult to identify what is and what isn't tyranny to them.

The Gallente Federation's status as a full democracy does not exempt them from tyranny. In the same way totalitarianism does not automatically equate tyranny, democracy does not automatically grant immunity to tyranny. Tyranny here could be instances of majority or minority rule, the Black Eagles, the exploitation of political relativism by absolutist forces, and so on. Because of the ambiguities in a liberal democracy, there is a real broad palette to pick from with regards to what is tyranny and what isn't. All the same, they are just as suspectible to it as everyone else, however it manifests.

The idea here, is that if I or anyone else calls the Caldari State 'totalitarian', we are not trying to put it down by calling it tyrannical. At the same time, calling the Gallente Federation a democracy does not mean we believe it to be immune to tyranny either. Our Western culture engineers us to think democracy means no tyranny, but that's just flat-out not true.

[Katrina Oniseki]

+1 Well said.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

Very insightful post.

I might, personally, classify the State as Authoritarian rather than Totalitarian usually, based on the ability for each of the Big-Eight to pursue their own corporate culture and laws, but under the CPD it could be argued that this is changing.

CCP Falcon paints an interesting picture of the Caldari increasingly being forced to try and look past what they are assured are short-term abuses of Heiian in favour of the Provist agenda, so this transition is not at all assured or non-contentious.

[orange]

I think some of us IC have claimed that the Federation has been tyrannical -  tyranny of the majority.

[Sepherim]

I have to disagree. From the point of view of political science, those terms are not defined in that way, and thus your results would end up a bit far from their correct place.

The Amarr Empire is not a State (which is a modern term), but an Empire, and empires have different elements. You mention the rule of law, but such a rule is not complete: imperial law changes under different planets due to Holders being different, as each Holder can rule his planet as he wills. And even Jamyl Sarum reached the place of Empress without following the proper paths to it, thus breaking the law. Thus, the political model for the Empire would either be some sort of monarchy or empire (probably some of the versions of Monarchy from around the XVIIth century, with power starting to center around the monarch but still not in full control of it).

The Caldari State is not totalitarian, but authoritarian, or even a tyranny (under your definition, as Heth has changed arbitrarily several laws to his own benefit and for the wellbeing of the war effort). The only case in history of totalitarism is Nazi Germany, because totalitarism is not a movement of power from top to bottom (that is authoritarism) but from the bottom up: Hitler obtained the power not from his decision alone, but due to the faith and continuous movement of the Nazi society, that was willing to follow his vision voluntarily. He didn't rule through fear like the Latin American dictators, nor through oppression alone, but to a degree he did rule out of loyalty and "love" of his society (I'm being "a bit extreme" on this, just to make the issue clear without having to write a 20 page essay on the difference of authoritarism and totalitarism). Thus the Caldari would probably be a failed state (the rule of law doesn't apply appropriately to the rulers), or a authoritaran state, or a tyranny (under your definition, tyranny is not a political model in political science as far as I know).

The Gallente is a classical liberal federal democracy in full, so you are right on that.

As for the Minmatarr, it is a complicated one. A failed democracy? A confederation of tribes? A coalition of tribes? I'm not sure, I don't know the Minmatarr lore well enough to be sure on how to define it. Probably a failed state without doubt, but going beyond that is a bit out of my grasp.

[Gesakaarin]

I'd say both the Caldari State and Amarr Empire are command and control societies that have elements of both authoritarianism and totalitarianism within them. The difficulty is that they often seem to be slapped with the RL negative connotations of those labels and left at that without an introspection into just how their systems work or how their people view the world in order to support that system. It almost has that view of, "Oh, they're all indoctrinated and don't know how awesome freedom and liberty is," which just casually ignores that in regards to the fiction they're both culturally rich, vibrant and complex societies that in their own ways are just as successful as that democracy in the Federation -- which in many ways goes against some modern opinions that democracy has triumphed over all and we're at the end of history.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

It almost has that view of, "Oh, they're all indoctrinated and don't know how awesome freedom and liberty is," which just casually ignores that in regards to the fiction they're both culturally rich, vibrant and complex societies that in their own ways are just as successful as that democracy in the Federation -- which in many ways goes against some modern opinions that democracy has triumphed over all and we're at the end of history.

+1

[orange]

I think it is very possible to use the Federation and Republic for foils to the dangers of democracy.

The Republic has an understandable over-current of majority hate towards another culture and this impacts their governance.  The Federation's population is left divided by various media outlets telling them what to believe when.

[Gottii]

My view of the Federation is that is not exactly a utopia, its a post-utopian society, which is an entirely different thing.

How jaded would one become if you never had to work for much, what kind of "entertainment" would you indulge in just to feel anything at all?  How hard would it be to relate to those who have to struggle?  How much would you overreact when you are actually faced with something dangerous, and how far would you go, what would you stoop to, to protect your supposedly idyllic life?

Gallente are pretty much set up to follow the heroic ideal in EVE, but when done right its the heroism of say Homer or Shakespeare, striving for epic virtues but often ending up destroying much of what you hold dear.

[Aria Jenneth]

Sepherim:

I don't think there's a term in contemporary poli-sci for what the Caldari State is. Aside from competition with other megacorps, about the only check on a megacorporation's power is intense social pressure to uphold and abide by Caldari law and tradition.

I'm not sure there's a word for that power structure.

[Sepherim]

Probably not yet, Aria. It would be a neoliberal economist's dream come true, but fortunately we haven't gotten there yet. "Cyberpunk" would probably be the closest term, and it isn't very poli-sci at all. xD

[Gesakaarin]

about the only check on a megacorporation's power is intense social pressure to uphold and abide by Caldari law and tradition.

What has always amused me greatly is the legitimacy of the CPD and Tibus Heth is premised primarily on the fact that there exists wide-spread support in Caldari society to prevent the perceived and actual corruption and abuses of power by the shareholding elites, upper management and executives of State Megas.

The great irony it seems to me that if a Caldari supports the labour reforms of the CPD then there's also the condoning to varying degrees of Heth's ultra-nationalism, yet if one opposes Heth on that point and to an extent the CPD with it then it's essentially handing the Megas back over to the old families and company executives whose only functional check on their power recently is in fact from the CPD and the support of the average citizen across the State it enjoys. Because once a Caldari becomes part of that elite 1% in the State they really are beholden to almost no-one except others in that 1%.

[Gottii]

Framing the Caldari system as Geas and Aria did brings to mind the Roman Republic (really an oligarchical political system with a strong herediary component based on a nebulous mix of law, tradition and culture) and its overthrow by Caesar's rise to power as head dictator by leu of popular support among the masses and the common soldiers frustrated by the prior social order.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

I'm not at all sure that you can categorise the Federation as a post-utopia, post-scarcity culture which is currently held back solely by ennui and apathy.

The tech base of the State is described as being, on average, higher than that of the Federation. If they were truly a post-utopia society verging on post-scarcity they'd look something more like Iain M Banks' Culture society.

[Mithfindel]

The highest-level cities in the Federation are described to be essentially post-scarcity. Don't ask how this works with earlier PF of different city levels: I interprete that as "in the highest level cities, the average level is utopian". The bottom rungs even in those cities are probably less glorious. And some third- or fourth-rank cities (most of the fourth category aren't even tracked by the Federation?) are described as slums.

All in all, I personally think the description of Federal city categories in Evelopedia is just plain bad due to "if it's a megacity, there's chocolate milk and kitkats for everyone, if it's a small place, it's a slum" because, while the big cities might have better services in the central areas, realistically I'd expect more or less planetary province spanning less developed areas around them. Or perhaps it's a Federal bureaucratic trick, the slums and suburbs are not counted to be a part of the city, and the likely homeless people & other less well-off fortune seekers who've come to the Big City aren't officially considered to exist.

Phew, offtopic enough?