Towards a Total State: Interview with Auron MacIntyre
This interview was published in Éléments issue 211 (Dec 2024/Jan 2025) between Ethan Rundell and Auron MacIntyre, author of The Total State: How Liberal Democracies Become Tyrannies.
Translated by Alexander Raynor.
Towards a Total State: How Liberal Democracies Become Tyrannies
Interview by Ethan Rundell
We knew about the Deep State, less so about the Total State. This is the title of an essay recently published in the United States: "The Total State: How Liberal Democracies Become Tyrannies." Its author, journalist Auron MacIntyre, provides the first major synthesis of what is commonly called the American New Right (not to be confused with its French counterpart). Drawing from both classical references (Machiavelli, Joseph de Maistre, Carl Schmitt...) and more contemporary ones (Samuel Francis, Curtis Yarvin, a rediscovered James Burnham), this short book paints a portrait of American society transformed into an open-air experimental site. If there's one conclusion to draw, it's that only a radical and determined overhaul of the current American governance system could restore political responsibility.
ELEMENTS: What is the "Total State"? What distinguishes it from liberal-democratic governance as it was traditionally understood?
AURON MACINTYRE: The Total State is the transposition of politics into all domains of human existence. The Total State transforms everything it touches into an opportunity to reinforce and expand its power - every sporting, cultural, religious event... This ranges from books being revised to not offend minorities, to movie remakes being filmed to be more inclusive, to churches using services to promote immigration or gender causes, etc.
The development of liberalism coincided with the rise of the bourgeoisie, whose liberal philosophy embodied certain values. Among these was a relative level of political equality, which didn't exclude restricted voting rights - a restriction that was generally recognized as necessary to keep the baser instincts of the "populace" in check. With the development of mass democracy, having an apparatus like the Total State has become increasingly indispensable - assuming the ruling class wants to maintain its power.
ELEMENTS: You show how the Total State is largely a pathology of "managerialism" (in other words, the seizure of power by managers), in the sense given to this term by James Burnham, whose book, "The Managerial Revolution" (1941), described the bureaucratization of modern states through totalitarian examples. What makes managerial ideology inherently totalitarian?
AURON MACINTYRE: Managerialism derives its power and efficiency from the functioning of mass bureaucratic organizations. Consolidation and standardization generate productivity and material surplus, which guarantee the miracle of abundance. For the system to achieve this truly miraculous level of efficiency, workers, consumers, and citizens must be both predictable and interchangeable. Any culture or institution that doesn't conform to this organizational model sees its efficiency decline, while managerialism works to extend its influence to all human activities.
ELEMENTS: According to you, the Total State is a left-wing phenomenon, with progressivism as its ideological foundation. However, at first glance, managerialism has no specific ideological charge, if not being neutral. How does it come to coincide with progressivism?
AURON MACINTYRE: James Burnham didn't see managerialism as a phenomenon specific to the left, classifying Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in the category of managerial regimes. If managerialism leans mostly left these days, I believe this can be explained by three main reasons: 1) the phenomenon of institutional drift created by the "principal-agent" problem1; 2) the progressive slope or gradient of mass democracy; 3) the utility of progressivism as a vector of cultural hegemony. The "principal-agent" problem arises whenever an agent makes a decision on behalf of a stakeholder without sharing their interests. Large bureaucratic organizations are particularly susceptible to this drift because they are run by a professional managerial class whose interests differ considerably from those these organizations are supposed to serve. In my book, I dedicate a chapter to showing that institutional drift is its necessary result. Mass democracy is a game where the best strategy consists of undermining existing traditional structures and transferring-redistributing their resources, power, and prestige to minority groups. It lends itself to leftist and replacist politics. This is visible in settings as different as schools, healthcare systems, business world, military, universities, or media, transformed into sites of LGBTQ+ indoctrination and DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) programs. The progressive gradient, in its drive to destroy everything particular (including peoples) - that is, everything capable of resisting leveling - accelerates cultural homogenization, thus creating uniformized subjects and docile supports likely to respond positively to the implementation of managerial techniques. In this universe, China stands as a counter-example: a managerial Total State that is not a mass democracy and hasn't adopted progressivism as its governance formula. It remains to be seen if this model can compete with its Western counterpart, which has already conquered a large part of the world.
ELEMENTS: Every regime depends on the consent of the governed. The Total State is no exception. Given that it retains only the trappings of liberal democracy, how does it manufacture consent to its domination?
AURON MACINTYRE: Since the principle of legitimation rests on popular sovereignty, the ruling class's maintenance of power depends on its control over opinion. In totalitarian states like Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany, it was the official state organs that were responsible for coordinating all institutions with the sole purpose of maintaining power. In Western liberal democracies, however, a more subtle and sophisticated method has been adopted. The state extends its power through a decentralized network of institutions charged with manufacturing consent, such as news media, universities, government bureaucracy, and non-governmental organizations - a network that political theorist Curtis Yarvin has dubbed the "Cathedral." Just as in the Middle Ages all aspects of daily life were organized and coordinated in conformity with Church beliefs, the modern managerial class broadcasts its message in an almost choral fashion (without false notes, or with as few false notes as possible) through its network.
ELEMENTS: True, but the medieval Church had its pope and ecclesiastical hierarchy to enforce its decrees. Current Western states, however, have no comparable organization. So how do you explain the striking effectiveness that this "network of institutions charged with manufacturing consent" demonstrates today?
AURON MACINTYRE: The system also has emergent properties. The coordinated set of incentives (with perfectly aligned actors) is designed to promote this institutional consensus. The message isn't dictated by anyone, there can be internal struggles, but in the end, the desire to obtain status within the system pushes individual actors to conform to the consensus (once it's established). Naturally, this consensus isn't always forthcoming - just look at the reactions around the Gaza conflict and surrounding areas, which currently divides the political left - but once it is established, its power is all-powerful.
ELEMENTS: One of the most striking aspects of your analysis is how much power in the Total State is both distributed and autonomous. This makes it all the more difficult to combat, as no individual, group, or institution can be held solely responsible. Is there no escape from the Total State's grip?
AURON MACINTYRE: The distributed nature of the Total State makes it particularly difficult to combat. In the distant past, the king enjoyed tremendously great power, but in case of failure or crisis, his subjects knew exactly where to find the responsible party and which palace to march on. Yet, as we could see in the United States during the events of January 6, 2021, there was no risk that the angry crowd would seize power. No one entertained the illusion that the protesters would somehow take control of the government by seizing the American Capitol. Much more than in the government capital, power resides in universities and television stations scattered across the country. However, there is good news: while the ruling elites who oversee the proper functioning of the Total State are particularly resistant, they also have some major weaknesses. The form of power they must assume doesn't lend itself to decisive action and is in fact very vulnerable to disruptions in communications and logistics. At its core, the Total State is based on a biased model of human nature - humans are neither interchangeable nor fungible - and this constitutes a critical breaking point, source of numerous failures. That said, in the absence of organized dissident communities ready to assume the duties and responsibilities previously handled by the Total State, its collapse could prove just as disastrous as its perpetuation.
ELEMENTS: This interview is taking place just before the American election. All signs indicate that a victory for Kamala Harris's camp would coincide with that of the Total State as you describe it. But what if Donald Trump were to win? Can we imagine that a second Trump administration would be able to confront this State much more effectively than the first one did?
AURON MACINTYRE: As Machiavelli said, there is nothing more difficult nor more praiseworthy for a Prince than to successfully establish a new order (or restore an old one). This explains why we regard those who have succeeded as great men. While during his first term, Trump was able to modify certain policies or directions, he wasn't ready to establish a truly new system. Logically, he was eventually defeated by the Total State. In their campaign speeches, J.D. Vance, Trump's running mate, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican rival who rallied to Trump, both agreed that the Total State needed to be defeated, which shows a change in mentality. The possibility that Elon Musk might be charged with reducing the size of the federal government also points in this direction. But implementing such a policy will be difficult at the very least. It remains to be seen whether Trump possesses the necessary will to do it or if he will once again cede control to the system.
Auron MacIntyre, The Total State: How Liberal Democracies Become Tyrannies, Regnery, 2024.
The "principal-agent" problem is a theory in industrial economics that describes the problems encountered when the actions of an economic actor, designated as the "principal," depend on the action of another actor, the "agent," about whom the "principal" is imperfectly informed and which gives the "agent" an undeserved advantage or gain due to information asymmetry.