Small Is Beautiful: Soviet Classical and American Inverted Totalitarianism in the Malthusian Century and the Post-Growth Paradigm

Abstract

Experts warn that agro-techno-industrial civilisation has overshot the planetary carrying capacity, and that further growth is therefore undesirable, and will soon become impossible as the limits to growth and technological development are reached around mid-century, whereafter civilisation will contract or collapse as crises of growth and development emerge and converge, absent the unforeseeable, hence the Malthusian Century. This thesis aims to answer the research question of which inversion of totalitarianism delineated by Sheldon Wolin’s inverted totalitarianism framework, Soviet classical or American inverted totalitarianism, is more advantageous, if not more viable or appealing, in terms its relative ability to avoid or mitigate the unmanageable, and prepare for and manage the unavoidable in the Malthusian Century, as well as its inherent compatibility with, and ability to adapt to, the post-growth paradigm of the new millennium, as assessed through the lenses of neo-Malthusianism, environmental and happiness economics. Its findings are that Soviet classical totalitarianism failed to produce growth and development remotely comparable to American inverted totalitarianism, and collided with structural and organisational limitations long before hitting planetary boundaries, tending to stagnate in the vicinity of the thresholds above which further development is unsustainable and additional wealth does not correlate with increased wellbeing, and would consequently have generated such crises more gradually, if at all, allowing additional time to avoid the unmanageable and manage the unavoidable both rapidly and totalistically; moreover, many of its systemic failings turned into paradoxical advantages during collapse; finally, the post-Cold War trajectories of Cuba and North Korea demonstrate that Soviet classical totalitarianism is capable of surviving crises comparable to those expected during the Malthusian Century, and of contracting into comparatively sustainable, collapse-proof, and stationary states well-adapted for the post-growth paradigm, the like of which American inverted totalitarianism has no obvious parallel. The central conclusion of this thesis is that Soviet classical totalitarianism is the overwhelmingly more advantageous inversion of totalitarianism considered within its framework for the Malthusian Century and the post-growth paradigm, as assessed through its applied theoretical optics, even if it is not the most viable or appealing of the dyad, nor the only advantageous development model available, or indeed the best, most viable, or most appealing.