Getting to be king of the castle until it collapses.
Look at Russia
There isn’t an end goal. The authoritarian leaders just want to have and keep power for as long as possible. That’s it. It’s not more complicated than that. It’s just power for the sake of power.
kind of same “mentality” as cancer
Sure, but also all life. There isn’t a purpose to life except to reproduce and continue living.
at the expense of anything and everything else?
What’s the end goal of a virus?
sneez
The people in charge want to have complete control over everything, for their own benefit. They don’t want to have to see anything they don’t like. They don’t want to have to interact with people they don’t like. They want all of their citizens to have to do their bidding, either directly or indirectly, in order to survive. They don’t want any outside “interference” or inside opposition. They want to wield this power for their entire lives, and handpick the person who replaces them at their death. Basically, look at North Korea.
The actual endgame of a totalitarian country is inevitably collapse, though; every totalitarian regime has either fallen or is in the process of falling. Corruption and massive wealth inequalities always result in revolution. Repressive legal codes always produce martyrs to rally behind. Social oppression and persecution often end up with outside countries invading to depose the fascists; and if they don’t, the purity tests get more and more specific until everyone is “out,” leading to large enough blocs to challenge the leadership. The only way that any totalitarian leadership has ever avoided the deadly consequences of their fascism is by voluntarily (or, uh…“voluntarily”) giving up some power in exchange for their lives.
Historically, the only truly stable countries are ones that allow their people a significant amount of financial, social, and legal freedom and security.
I mean we have north korea and russia. Once you can’t suck any more out of the country you expand it if you can to suck out of more. If you take over the world im not sure where you go from there. Guess you hire musk at that point.
I think it starts as a means for making money and getting power and continues because those involved know that if they give up power they’re in deep trouble.
Soothing the egos of some very insecure, very rich people.
I guess it depends on the ones in power. There is a theoretical possibility that the ones in power acts altruistically for the good of the people.
History however has proven totalitarian countries as brutal regimes, before it inevitablably collapses.
One of the reasons it can’t be for the good of the people is that it needs to pay supporters a lot more.
If you are a dictator, you have to constantly bribe your supporters (military, oligarchs etc). If you don’t, they will replace you with another dictator that will. So the system will inherently be corrupt and not to the benefit of the people.
Any actions that benefit the people comes from a fear of riots and revolution. In other words it’s a delicate balancing act.
Things might be different now and in the future due to more advanced surveillance, personalized propaganda, drones and robotics. Different in that it can be more oppressive than previously.
Feeding the ego of those on top by ANY means necessary.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.” ― George Orwell, 1984
Everybody thinks they’ll be the boot, but spoiler, they’re a face.
people think they will be the boot?
Why do you think so many societies decided that women are inferior? When the lord beats the serf, the lord knows the serf will go home and beat his wife. If the man and wife were equals they’d be more likely to join together to kill the lord.
Oh yeah. The hierarchical thinking inherent to the Conservative mindset is one of authoritarianism. They want to know their place in the hierarchical structure, which they wholeheartedly believe places them above someone else. Even though they have a boot on their face, at least they have their boot on someone else’s face too.
They truly believe there must be a hierarchy. They can’t seem to envision a world without boots on faces or that maybe we should work for a place without boots on faces.
north korea: empower a few, enslave the rest, never be challenged for generations
total control of the populace
Power for the people in charge, and a combination of enforced stratification of society (with those who support the regime on top of course) and reduced status for, the removal of, or outright sanctioned violence against the people upon whom all of society’s ills are blamed.
What is the end of goal of a non-totalitarian country?
The most good for the most people, with enough leeway that those who feel unsatisfied can find a constructive outlet and/or isolate themselves. Look at Star Trek TOS for a good representation of what a post scarcity world might look like.
Ah so then the end goal of a totalitarian country would be the most good for a small group of insiders. I think this makes sense from a game theory perspective – the reason people would support the defector (in the prisoner’s dilemma) is because they think he has the capacity to succeed and they believe he’ll bring his supporters along with him into the group of beneficiaries of inequality. I think in most of human history it might have worked. So there’s some dysfunctional thing going on where the people support the party who is exploiting them in exchange for a hoped-for advantage over the other members of the exploited class.
My personal favorite Kurt Vonnegut book is ‘Mother Night.’ At one point the narrator is in an Israeli prison awaiting trial for war crimes. He has a conversation with one of his guards. The guard was a prisoner in a concentration camp. Every day the guard would hear an announcement, “Corpse carriers to the guard house.” Every day he heard it, and finally he volunteered for the job.
So you’re saying we don’t have any non-totalitarian countries?
If you’re going to put words in my mouth, please order me a large Diet Coke and some waffle fries as a side.
The question mark at the end of a sentence usually denotes a question. What you said seems to me to imply that we don’t have any non-totalitarian countries because I don’t see any that have these things as end goals (outside of empty promises from politicians).
For that matter, I don’t even know what an “end goal” for a country would be. That’s what I was trying to get at originally. Countries don’t have end goals, beyond “stay existent”.
The question mark at the end of a sentence usually denotes a question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question
Maybe you are unfamiliar with the term ‘rhetorical question’ so I linked you to an article explaining why you are confused.
In many cases it may be intended to start a discourse
Monarchies
