“While the versions of totalitarianism represented by Nazism and Fascism consolidated power by suppressing liberal political practices that had sunk only shallow cultural roots, Superpower represents a drive towards totality that draws from the setting where liberalism and democracy have been established for more than two centuries. It is Nazism turned upside-down, “inverted totalitarianism.” While it is a system that aspires to totality, it is driven by an ideology of the cost-effective rather than of a “master race” (Herrenvolk), by the material rather than the “ideal.””

— Sheldon S. Wolin

Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought (1960, revised 2004), p. 591

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Sheldon S. Wolin 3

American political philosopher 1922–2015

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Sheldon S. Wolin 3

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