Musings on Evil Empires
As I was considering forms of government for my last timeline, my thoughts turned to the "evil empires" of alternate history - those societies specifically created to be the villains, and usually supposed to be credible threats, but which often don't quite match what they are supposed to do. To be a true Evil Empire candidate, a society should be the maximum possible threat to the rest of the world. To achieve this, a balance must be struck between pure nastiness - which makes conquest by this society something to be feared - and effectiveness at conquest and competition, which make conquest a real possibility. Thus I will consider how to keep a society oppressive and "nasty" while retaining the ability to compete militarily and economically in the industrial era and beyond. The following is a laundry list of characteristics which make a society more effective, and thus more capable of threatening others. You wouldn't necessarily want to have all of them in a fictional "evil empire" - with all of these traits put together, a society would be very effective at surviving and thriving, but it would also not necessarily be all that "evil". It would serve as an effective enemy, but not as a hideously nasty one - no more so than most European powers in the 19th century were, anyway. A big point of this essay is to show that there is a tradeoff between sheer stereotypical evilness, and actual effectiveness at conquering, absorbing, or threatening other civilizations.
There are several characteristics which are necessary to compete optimally with the sorts of economically and technologically equivalent free societies that are likely enemies. For one thing, social mobility (both upward and downward) must be present in the society. More specifically, there must be a way to ensure that high-class incompetents do not gain too much authority, and there must be sufficient mobility so that the various elite classes do not suffer from a lack of manpower.
The society should place the emphasis of social status on the various professions that are important to it. It's easy to postulate ultra-militarized societies, but all too often the social structure thus created will tend to suck talented people away from endeavours of learning necessary to keep up technological advancement, and from business endeavours that are essential to economic growth. For any reasonably modern society, this means that businessmen, even small entrepreneurs, have to be reasonably respected, and emphasis should never be placed on areas of economic endeavour that don't keep up with the times (landed aristocracies are a big example).
The society should be able to assimilate change rather than always being under threat of destruction from it. In particular, it needs to be able to maintain an intellectual cadre with enough independence to conduct useful scientific and technological developments. Equally important is economic and class structure - the foundation of the society should not be tied to specific modes of production which risk becoming obsolete. As an example, having the ruling class be the owners of large agricultural concerns is not ideal for the transition to an industrial society where technically skilled workers are more important than peasants. One of the big reasons that the old European aristocracies fell is that they were so tied into ruling farmers that the merchant class arose outside the established social order, and when its power grew the power of the old order was in competition with it rather than controlling it or being a part of it.
The society needs to have as broad a base as possible for intellectual talent. Great minds and innovators are rare, and a society who takes its scientists and inventors only from a small minority of its members is in trouble in the late industrial era of rapid technological development. It must be able to select truly talented people from as much of the population as possible, and have them work effectively at their jobs. As an example, allowing exceptional members of the "slave underclass" to be scientists is of limited use if they are mistreated and distrusted to such an extent that their productivity will be limited.
At the leadership level, the furthering of the goals of the society (whatever they may be) should be a cooperative endeavour. However the leadership/ruling class functions, that functioning must produce a net effect that furthers the society as a whole. Encouraging cooperation for the "greater good" by tying the gains of the ruling elite to the gains of the society as a whole is a practical necessity. The rulers themselves should also be somehow encouraged to consider the long-term goals of the society, even after their own deaths, and to be able to avoid situations where they would have to sacrifice the public good in order to maintain power. One effective way of doing this is to make obviously sacrificing the public good something that will tend to have them removed from power.
Destructive internal competition should be minimized so that it does not serve as a drain on the resources of the society. Destructive internal competition has many forms, from civil wars to political infighting and pogroms against minorities, but in general it is characterized by factions within a society struggling for dominance by doing damage to other factions. Any substantial amount of deaths caused by, money spent on, or attention diverted by destructive internal competition detracts from the effectiveness of the society as a whole.
Overhead related to oppression should be minimized. If a society must use oppression, it should use whatever means allows it to gain the most from the subject population while using the least resources. This means tailoring methods of control to what the subject is expected to do, and it means not having social structures than demand unnecessarily extreme measures to maintain control of the oppressed. For an example, take traditional slavery, where the oppressed are subject to every whim of their direct owners, live in conditions of misery and total lack of freedom, and are kept in line through harsh physical punishment. First off, this is ill-suited to anything but rote work whose output can easily be supervised, as slaves have little incentive toward expert performance at demanding tasks, and will tend to work as little as they can, even committing outright sabotage, unless constant watch can be kept on them. In contrast, "egalitarian" totalitarian systems are considerably more efficient at controlling workers at high-technology tasks. The workers are kept under reasonably good conditions, are essentially as free as anyone else in the society, and are not subject to harsh punishment in the normal course of events. Because they are given considerable independence which the state is organized so as to be able to tolerate, there is a similarly decreased need to watch their every move. The security apparatus must only act openly against a small minority, keeping the rest in line through fear, since they still have quite a lot to lose if they are targeted.
The ability to reward good servants at levels commensurate with their service is quite important. Communist totalitarianism was less efficient than what one could call the "optimally performing oppressive society" since, while the workers had a lot to lose for performing poorly or acting against the system, they had little to nothing to gain from exceptional performance. This suggests the importance of the ability to reward any member of the society for increased productivity (rather than just increased loyalty, which is what is actually rewarded in most oppressive societies). The rewards must be meaningful, and commensurate with service - the situation of the worker should always be such that if he works noticeably harder, he will receive some reward that he wants enough to justify the increased work. Since the incentive should always be present, there are some specifics to consider. First, some sort of graduated scale of reward would tend to work best. A system where there are only a few "gradations" of reward, which each require very substantial differences in productivity, will not encourage those workers who don't think they are capable of closing the entire gap to the next level of reward. Second, the reward should actually be worth it to the majority of the workers, but not worth more than the increased output is. This is harder than it sounds, unless the society is willing to give its rewards in some sort of universal exchange medium like money, and provide the opportunity for people to actually use it to acquire what they want.
A final factor to consider is international relations. This society must remain "nasty", conquering others and oppressing their societies. It must also avoid being too nasty, since it could presumably be destroyed easily if all of its potential enemies unified to destroy it. It must be capable of forming alliances, especially alliances of strategic convenience (since common ideology cannot be guaranteed). This is a substantial problem with many aggressive societies in alternate histories - they act in such a way as to alienate their neighbors, and in reality would tend to be overwhelmed by superior numbers.
Given all these aspects, what would an example of an effective "nasty" society be? An examination of the above factors should give us a list of characteristics which would help a society to be suitably nasty while possessing the ability to adapt to a changing world, military and economic competitiveness, and the ever-important ability to expand.
First, the nastiness. We want a militaristic, oppressive society that will work in recent history. One way to do this would seem to be a totalitarianism with what is effectively a class system, a stratified ruling "elite". This is automatically nasty for anyone who likes living in a free society, and who isn't a member of the elite class (unlike in Communism where anyone could voluntarily become a member of the elite by joining the Party and demonstrating adherence to it, for example). Totalitarianisms have various problems, but they are much better at maintaining unity of purpose through adversity and failures than conventional authoritarian regimes, which get a lot more ragged at the edges when the going gets rough. For bonus points, create a totalitarianism which meshes with the dominant religion of its society, adding an entirely new dimension to support of the government. This is harder than it sounds, since if the religion's power can't be controlled by the state the state will tend to act against it, and it's ideology needs to be compatible with whatever the state is based on.
Second, militarism and expansion. We want the state to be warlike, but also capable of acting within alliances and avoiding losing battles. This means that the ruling elite should obviously be driven to conquest and benefit from it, but that the potential for victory should not easily outweigh the hardships of war and the risk of defeat. They must be able to survive, even thrive, in peacetime! This means that conquest shouldn't be essential to the survival of the society. We also need the society to be able to expand successfully, so that they can assimilate and exploit conquered areas in an effective and timely fashion. Conquest should actually be profitable, and should not take an overly long time to bring the other society fully into the fold.
A combination of features can satisfy these concerns. First, we can tie the prosperity of the ruling elite to the total wealth of the society, so that any means of increasing this (including via conquest) will enrich them. This means that the wealth of a conquered nation must be to some extent be personally useable by those in power, rather than just strengthening the state. This could, for example, be accomplished by a corporate ownership tradition among the ruling class, with a subsantial portion of the assets and industries of the conquered nation being personally granted to the ruling elite of the conquerors. This is at odds with many conquest strategies where the conquered nation is placed under the direct control of a favored few, or of a puppet government, and most of the elite does not directly gain much from the conquered territories.
For successful expansion, we need the conquerors to be able to use most of the infrastructure and population of the society "as is", rather than requiring extensive rebuilding, retraining, or movement of people. As such, the conquering society must be able to place itself as a "superstructure" over the conquered, leaving the very basis of the conquered society intact while replacing the instruments of government. Again, a totalitarian state with a ruling elite distinct from the population at large, but with enough flexibility to give loyal members of the conquered society significant power, seems ideal. The former government can be replaced with the new government, using the new military and police apparatus to maintain control, while the conquered can mostly live in their old homes, work at their old jobs, et cetera, as long as they obey the dictates of the government. Ability to absorb typical enemy economies (especially capitalist systems) without having to totally restructure the economic fundamentals of the society is a substantial bonus.
At every possible turn, people should be allowed to maintain the illusion that they still have what is really important to them in their lives, as long as they obey. They should definitely not get the impression that the new government is arbitrary or capricious - if they can expect a risk of personal disaster even if they obey the new government, they will rebel. Not only do the conquerors want the conquest to be turning a profit for them as quickly as possible in terms of changing the government and the infrastructure, they wish to avoid mass rebellion. The approach of maximum brutality and violence is seldom the best one in this arena - no matter how much you oppress the masses, if they think they have nothing to lose they will not fear it. They should be allowed to retain those things which have the most value to them, as long as they obey. A good start is letting them stay with their homes and families, and do work the same as they always did (or at least quite similar).
This suggests that one kind of effective nasty society is highly class-based, with a totalitarian government and an economic system with substantial components of both capitalism and nationalized industries. For maximum flexibility, there should be multiple classes rather than just the rulers and the ruled. This allows the supporting of multiple levels of freedom, so that various groups can be given just enough independence to do their jobs effectively. There should also be substantial upward and downward mobility between the groups, especially on the basis of competence, so that those who can be and should be trusted with a given level of independent action, are.
The ruling elite should have to meet standards of overall competence, but should be not fear the results of a temporary setback, because risk must be allowed to promote innovation. As much as is possible, they should be given large incentives to be loyal and support the government, since relying on constant observation and fear of punishment discourages innovation and independence. The technical and scientific classes need access to a broad base of knowledge and the ability to question the strategy of the regime - the detrimental effects of this can be minimized by isolating them from political power, and granting them positive incentives to achieve in their work rather than becoming politically active. The bureaucracy and administration of the government should be very closely watched for disloyalty, because they cannot be given as many positive incentives as the more important, and they are in a position to do a great deal of damage if they do not support the government. Rote obedience should not be encouraged, but inefficiency and active sedition will need to be watched for. Unfortunately this reduces efficiency, but that may be unavoidable. The working classes need not be watched so closely, since preventing large-scale resistance and making a few obvious examples should suffice - propaganda should also be used to the greatest effect with this sector of society, since unlike the higher-ups, it is acceptable if they have little real information about the big picture. It is ideal if they are encouraged to simply keep out of politics, and are given the freedom to work in a capitalistic environment, furthering the economy of the state. An additional class of those who are effectively slaves may be present, allowing productive use to be made of those who cannot be trusted in any other endeavor.
Membership in these classes should be assigned by merit, revoked for incompetence or disloyalty. Assigning it by various standards that amount to "birth" is an extremely bad idea - it is incompatible with maximizing social mobility. Not only does social mobility allow the matching of the right people to the right jobs, but in an oppressive state allows the oppressed to aspire to being the oppressors, the oppressors to fear demotion to the ranks of the oppressed.
Now we have a basic structure for the society, a meritocratic multiple class system. It is based around a totalitarian government and a combination of capitalist and state-controlled economy, preferably with a religion that meshes well with this form of social structure. The ruling elite owns significant portions of the economy along a corporate model, and is granted additional portions of any conquered nation. Preferably, the state can rapidly assimilate other societies into its workings, selecting the loyal and competent from their midst as leaders, despite whatever cultural and structural differences that may exist. Now, however, we must define the nature of these segments of society so as to satisfy the other requirements.
One pressing problem is that of social status - too much respect si granted to certain types of professions at the expense of others, intelligent and competent people will not have enough of an incentive to fill these professions - and those that do may be alienated from the power structure, creating an important section of society which resists government control. Many oppressive, militaristic societies in the past have placed a large degree of favor on military and administrative prowess, leading to poor technological achievement and capitalist classes removed from the power structure. Associating membership in the political elite with wealth, in both directions (the elite are granted new wealth to manage, and those with large amounts of wealth find it easier to gain favor with the government, can be done by maintaining an effectively capitalistic economy. When the wealth of the powerful is based on arbitrary business investments rather than control of land, people, or money paid for political favors, business will tend to be a favored endeavor in society. An additional bonus is that since wealth from investments is much more adaptable to economic change than wealth from fixed assets, the power of the ruling class will not be threatened by technology that changes the means of production. As for technology, this is encouraged by making both practical innovation and education universal and respected endeavors. It should be possible to come to material gain through science, and people from all walks of life should have the education and career paths necessary for a career in science (assuming they have the capability).
In particular, the education of society should favor a traditional general education with heavy doses of science, not a minimalist education that keeps the people as ignorant as possible, or a focused education that streamlines large numbers into things like the military. Oppressive industrial states don't need universal military education, they can raise armies the same way everyone else does - volunteers, conscription, and reserves. The military will pretty much have to be a respected profession in a conquest-oriented society, but it should be respected as a profession that is heroic and to some degree selfless, not as an entire way of life that everyone who is anyone should automatically aspire to. The main concern of the society in maintaining militarism is maintaining the support for conquest, not in actually finding and training people to fight in the military.
Within the governing elite itself, how is the totalitarian government to work? There are several things to look for. First, the system must be able to survive a bad leader, and must also be able to select effective leaders, rather than compromises or non-threatening leaders. The worries of the leader about the loyalty of others should be minimized, so that he does not surround himself with incompetents to prevent a potential rival from arising. Those within the leadership should not often be in destructive competition, attempting to damage each other in order to gain power, and should in general be encouraged to act cooperatively for the benefit of the system.
That is all much easier said than done. In general, it would require a more formal and robust system than totalitarian states typically have unless they survive a significant period of time. Totalitarianisms are typically built by and around a charismatic leader, and make little provision for long term stability of the government. Often they also work to satisfy the idiosyncratic goals of the leader rather than those of the society, because the leader is supreme above all. For our ideal totalitarian system, we want something more like the late USSR, with substantial institutional structure, and something very unlike Nazi Germany, a chaotic pack of underlings striving for power, while Hitler made a habit of having things his way regardless of saner views. The leadership is a very important aspect of a state's long term success.
My thoughts on this are that the leadership should be organized around a formal political system, where power is attached to established positions and regulated according to agreed upon rules which are stronger than charismatic leaders. Even in totalitarianism, the stabilizing benefits of the rule of law and precedent at the highest level seem useful. Factionalism should be allowed, but formalized to minimize infighting and allow divisions to be settled legitimately. This means a rough analog of political parties within the highest level of government, perhaps with the ruling elite holding internal elections for general positions in the government, and the leader of the winning faction/party assuming power over the government (and thus being able to appoint the equivalents of all "cabinet" positions). The goal is to maximize effectiveness and stability, not any concept of freedom or representation, while allowing broad changes in the government over significant periods of time. All affairs of leadership and changes of government are legitimatized and formalized, the better to avoid fighting outside the system, but the system is constructed in such a way that the winning party always has a clear majority and the leader must have proven his effectiveness in leading his faction to victory. Competition and succession occurs within the political system, with the security apparatus available to enforce that, greatly reducing destructive internal competition, and allowing leaders to appoint competent subordinates without fear of being ousted. A leader can only be removed with the support of a majority of the government.
This concludes my investigation of the nasty but effective society, for now at any rate (some time in the future I will probably construct a timeline involving it). It already looks very different from most of the totalitarian governments of history and fiction. Anyway, what do you all think? One thing that strikes me is that the origin of most totalitarian states - revolutions and reactionary extremist movements - isn't really compatible with the more oligarchic, structured system I have postulated. The likely origin of this system would occur as an evolution from some other system, perhaps in the earlier parts of the age of nationalism from a former "enlightened despotism". The totalitarian aspects themselves could evolve as the ruling class attempted to maintain control despite societal changes and international influence leading to local opposition movements.