The rise of totalitarianism, both in its fascist variant (which has for
the moment been destroyed, though we have no grounds to think that
it might not reappear in the future) and in its communist variant (which
is going from strength to strength) obliges us to re-examine democracy.
The widespread view to the contrary notwithstanding, totalitarianism
does not result from a transformation of the mode of production. In the case of German or Italian fascisms, the point does not have to be
stressed, as they adapted themselves to the maintenance of capitalist
structures, whatever changes they may have undergone as a result of
increased state intervention into the economy. But it is important at
least to recall that the Soviet regime acquired its distinctive features
before the era of the socialization of the means of production and of
collectivization. Modern totalitarianism arises from a political mutation,
from a mutation of a symbolic order, and the change in the status of
power is its clearest expression. What in fact happens is that a party
arises, claiming to be by its very nature different from traditional
parties, to represent the aspirations of the whole people, and to possess
a legitimacy which places it above the law. It takes power by destroying
all opposition; the new power is accountable to nO one and is beyond
all legal control. But for our purposes, the course of events is of little
import; we are concerned with the most characteristic features of the
new form of society. A condensation takes place between the sphere
of power, the sphere of law and the sphere of knowledge. Knowledge
of the ultimate goals of society and of the norms which regulate social
practices becomes the property of power, and at the same time power
itself claims to be the organ of a discourse which articulates the real
as such. Power is embodied in a group and, at its highest level, in a
single individual, and it merges with a knowledge which is also
embodied, in such a way that nothing can split it apart. The theory -
or if not the theory, the spirit of the movement, as in Nazism - may
well turn everything to account as circumstances demand, but it can
never be challenged by experience. State and civil society are assumed
to have merged; this is brought about through the agency of the
ubiquitous party which permeates everything with the dominant
ideology and hands down power's orders, as circumstances demand,
and through the formation of a multiplicity of microbodies (organizations
of all kinds in which an artificial socialization and relations of power
conforming to the general model are reproduced).