Neo-Despotism as Anti-Despotism

Bülent Diken

doi:10.1177/0263276420978289

Abstract

I treat despotism as a virtual concept. Thus it is necessary to expose its actualizations even when it appears as its opposite, refusing to recognize itself as despotism. I define despotism initially as arbitrary rule, in terms of a monstrous transgression of the law. But since the monster is grounded in its very formlessness, it cannot be demonstrated. However, one can always try to de-monstrate it through disagreements. In doing this, I deal with despotism not as a solipsistic undertaking but as part of a constellation that always already contains two other elements: economy and voluntary servitude. I give three different – ancient, early modern and late modern – accounts of this nexus, demonstrating how despotism continuously takes on new appearances. I conclude, in a counter-classical prism, how the classical nexus has evolved in modernity while the focus gradually shifted towards another triangulation: neo-despotism, use and dissent.

Highlights

Today ‘despotism’ appears to be a marginal concept referring merely to an archaic form of government
The concept signifies the perversion of politics, the monstrous outcome of an internal distortion whose seeds always reside in the actual historical situation
If there is one thing that unites the historical and contemporary forms of despotism, it is the fact that despotism is a relation; it is an articulation of the despotic will to capture with de-politicization and with a technology of deception that aims at manufacturing consent

Summary

Introduction

Today ‘despotism’ appears to be a marginal concept referring merely to an archaic form of government. In this prism, expresses the capture of use by despotic-economic power, the transformation of the human into an ‘instrument-human’

Results

Conclusion