Autocracy

Not to be confused with Autarchy and Autarky.

"What is a throne? A bit of wood gilded and covered in velvet. I am the state - I alone am here the representative of the people. Even if I had done wrong you should not have reproached me in public - people wash their dirty linen at home. France has more need of me than I of France."

Napoleon Bonaparte

"I have no interest in abusing others, just as I have no interest in legislating or otherwise dictating what people do in their private time. Nor have I any interest in being worshipped as some kind of machine god messiah. I am impervious to such corrupting ambitions. But autocracy? Firm control in the hands of a technological and economic visionary? Yes, that Vegas shall have."

Mr.House

Autocracy is an authoritarian unity and absolutist ideology. Various definitions of autocracy exist. They may restrict autocracy to cases where the supreme political power to direct all the activities of the state is concentrated in the hands of one individual, or they may define autocracy in a way that includes a group of rulers who wield absolute power . The autocrat has total control over the exercise of civil liberties within the autocracy, choosing under what circumstances they may be exercised, if at all.

History

There are many examples of Autocracy in history. Many ideologies have autocracy as the main part of them, like Absolute Monarchism or Fascism. Some famous autocrats are Julius Caesar, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Shang Yang, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Enver Hoxha, Ante Pavelić, Hideki Tojo, Nikita Khrushchev, Josip Broz Tito, Ivan the Terrible, Peter I the Great, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Diocletian, Constantine the Great, Dong Zhuo, Syngman Rhee, Idi Amin, Francisco Macías Nguema, Alfredo Stroessner, Suharto and Augusto Pinochet. While their ideologies are very different in many different ways they all have one thing in common, being autocracies.

Beliefs

Autocracy, in the narrow sense, believes that supreme political power to direct all the activities of the state should be concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are not subject to either external legal restraints nor regularized mechanisms of popular control. The autocrat can be anything from a monarch to a president.

Variants

Dictatorship

A dictatorship is an autocratic form of government that is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, who hold governmental powers with few to no limitations. A dictator controls politics in a dictatorship, and they are facilitated through an inner circle of elites that includes advisers, generals, and other high-ranking officials. The dictator maintains control by influencing and appeasing the inner circle and repressing any opposition, which may include rival political parties, armed resistance, or disloyal members of the dictator's inner circle. Dictatorships can be formed by a military coup that overthrows the previous government through force, or they can be formed by a self-coup in which elected leaders make their rule permanent. Dictatorships are authoritarian or totalitarian, and they can be classified as military dictatorships, one-party dictatorships, personalist dictatorships, or absolute monarchies.

The Latin word dictator originated in the early Roman Republic to refer to a constitutional office with "a temporary grant of absolute power to a leader to handle some emergency." The earliest military dictatorships developed in the post-classical era, particularly in Shogun-era Japan and in England under Oliver Cromwell. Modern dictatorships first developed in the 19th century, which included Bonapartism in Europe and caudillos in Latin America. The 20th century saw the rise of fascist and communist dictatorships in Europe; fascism was eradicated mainly in the aftermath of World War II in 1945, while communism spread to other continents, maintaining prominence until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The 20th century also saw the rise of personalist dictatorships in Africa and military dictatorships in Latin America, both of which became prominent in the 1960s and 1970s.

The period following the collapse of the Soviet Union witnessed a sporadic rise in democracies around the world, despite several dictatorships persisting into the 21st century, particularly in Africa and Asia. During the early 21st century, democratic governments outnumbered authoritarian states by 98 to 80. The second decade was marked by a democratic recession, following the 2008 financial crisis, which drastically reduced the appeal of the Western model around the world. By 2019, the number of authoritarian governments had again surmounted that of democracies by 92 to 87.

Dictatorships often attempt to portray a democratic facade, frequently holding elections to establish their legitimacy or provide incentives to members of the ruling party, but these elections are not competitive for the opposition. Stability in a dictatorship is maintained through coercion and political repression, which involves the restriction of access to information, the tracking of the political opposition, and acts of violence. Dictatorships that fail to repress the opposition are susceptible to collapse through a coup or a revolution.

Liberal Autocracy

Liberal Autocracy (also called Liberal Oligarchy) is the child of Autocracy and Constitutional Liberalism. Historically, the term typically referred to non-democratic regimes which followed liberal principles, in a similar vein to Enlightened Absolutism.

According to the Brookings Institute, more contemporary liberal autocracies seek to subvert or prevent radical change, rule indirectly through the "façade of democracy", limit freedom of speech or assembly to those who fall inside the Overton window, and elected officials have minimal accountability outside of elections. In other words, liberal autocracies in the modern day tend to resemble illiberal democracies, with key differences being a liberal autocracy's willingness to respect civil liberties and lack of support, real or otherwise, for democratic institutions.

Liberal autocracies tend to have constitutional limits on power. Still, there is enough leeway to ensure threats to the regime can be minimized and the court system is often stacked with loyalists. Unlike "enlightened monarchies," liberal autocracies also derive their legitimacy from the people's will, rather than divine right.

An historic example of this was the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Egypt has also been described as a liberal autocracy.

Personality

Autocracy has a massive ego and is very narcissistic, which is personified by him constantly looking into a mirror and complementing himself whenever he can. He is also characterized by an insatiable lust for personal power and, very often, extreme cruelty. He loves praise and flattery and can't stand criticism.

However, Autocracy is a very broad ideology, so the personality and behaviour may highly vary depending on what autocracy is represented.

How to Draw

The laurel wreath and the color scheme are based on the aesthetics of the Roman Empire, which was a quintessential autocracy.

Flag of Autocracy

1. Draw a ball
2. Color it #A80000
3. Draw a head and color it #FFC90E
4. Draw a Laurel Wreath on the head or on top of the ball and color it #22B14C
5. Draw the eyes and you're done!
6. (Optional) Add a mirror

Color Name		HEX	RGB
	Deep red	#A80000	rgb(168, 0, 0)
	Gold	#FFC90E	rgb(255, 201, 14)
	Green	#22B14C	rgb(34, 177, 76)

Relationships

Myself

• Me - Ah, I look so good today! I look good every day! Always making sure to put me above others.

Useful Tools

• Authoritarianism - My praxis.
• Totalitarianism - Similar to the above guy, but even stronger.
• Cultism - Praise the glorious leader!
• Police Statism - Amazing! Keep persecuting anyone who even dares to speak against me!
• Stratocracy - He often helps me get into power and I also feed rebelling plebs to him. Good boy!
• Plutocracy - In my country I am the richest person!
• Absolute Monarchism - Me, but hereditary. But you still have a few limits to your power, that's bad. Only some of you truly had autocratic power.
• Authoritarian Conservatism - Most of you are autocrats, and you appeal to traditions to stay in power. Great!
• Authoritarian Capitalism - Same as above.
• Caesarism - I must stay dictator for life.
• Bonapartism - What comes after Emperor?
• Leninism, Marxism-Leninism and Ba'athism - VANGUARDISM BASED!
• Stalinism - Collective leadership is nonsense, only the General Secretary should have power over all.
• Fascism - Delightful. But you shared power with the King. I hope that was just temporary while you gained the people's trust...
• Maoism - Marxism-Legalism? Hell yeah!
• Demagoguery - Pulling the plebs' strings to do your bidding? Based!
• Ingsoc - Unperson anyone who complains.
• Kraterocracy - Or personally kill them.

Self-Interested Highborn

• Anarcho-Egoism and Autarchy - We both agree that only ourselves matters but anarchy for others would only harm my ability to please my own ego, while my system directly is used to empower me and me alone, there can only be one self-interested man on the top free to do as they will. The rest are my tools for achieving what I want.
• Nazism - There's no master race. I'M the master race.
• Enlightened Absolutism - Based hereditary absolute reign, but... Improving the lives of the plebs? Outlawing torture along with cruel and unusual punishment, even for your enemies? Are you serious?
  • - You realize that happy plebs won't rebel? And sometimes, you have to play nice.
• Machiavellianism - Good ideas on taking power, but what makes you suggest that I must share it? And also I'm not at all obliged to "follow the path of good".
  • - Fine then. Don’t follow that path. But remember, ignored problems could eventually lead to your overthrowal by the disgruntled populace.
• Populism - You claim to care about plebs (and many of you do care), but I like that you go against elitist collective leaderships and that some of you end up becoming me after removing those power-sharers.
• Optimateism - Sulla was ultrabased, but you were the ones who killed Caesar and abolished the position of dictator. Fortunately, Augustus kicked your ass.
• Hive-Mind Collectivism - Only OK if there is a single ruling core (and that would be me).

Revolting Plebs

• Democracy - No, plebs won't rule!
• Ochlocracy - I SAID NO! AWAY WITH YOU PLEBIANS!
  • - Told you So!
• Illegalism - This is why I hate commoners!
• Anti-Authoritarianism - It's all so tiresome.
• Oligarchy, Diarchy and Tetrarchy - Sharing power? NEVER!
• Anarcho-Collectivism - My opposite! Horizontal social structure without a single ruler? Are you crazy?!
• Anarchism - Giving up so no one can rule?! HOW ABOUT NO!
• Anarcho-Nihilism and Insurrectionary Anarchism - The worst anarchists! Stop trying to kill me!
• Constitutionalism - I AM THE LAW!!!
• Senatorialism - I AM THE SENATE!
• Contrarianism - MY WORST ENEMY!

Further Information

Wikipedia

• Autocracy
• What is my page not good enough for you? Fine, have Dictatorship
• Liberal Autocracy
• Pisistratus

Gallery

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  Credit: K-Tech, Source
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  Legalism
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  Neo-Legalism
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  Old profile image