Caesarism is a form of political rule that emulates the rule of Roman dictator Julius Caesar over the Roman Republic, in that it is led by a charismatic strongman whose rule is based upon a cult of personality, whose rationale is the need to rule by force, establishing a violent social order, and being a regime involving prominence of the military in the government.
"Our Western world, America and Europe, is threatened with Caesarism on a scale unknown since the dawn of the Roman Empire. In order to see this threat in its proper perspective, we have to assess the relationship between America and Europe, and define their historical destinies. It is the contention of this book that expanding democracy leads unintentionally to imperialism and that imperialism inevitably ends in destroying the republican institutions of earlier days; further, that the greater the social equality, the dimmer the prospects of liberty, and that as society becomes more equalitarian, it tends increasingly to concentrate absolute power in the hands of one single man. Caesarism is not dictatorship, not the result of one man's overriding ambition, not a brutal seizure of power through revolution. It is not based on a specific doctrine or philosophy. It is essentially pragmatic and untheoretical. It is a slow, often century-old, unconscious development that ends in a voluntary surrender of a free people escaping from freedom to one autocratic master. New concentrations of power during the past fifty years of world wars, revolutions, and crises, have made this threat of Caesarism increasingly evident. Political power in the Western world has become increasingly concentrated in the United States of America, and in the office of the President within America. The power and prestige of the President have grown with the growth of America and of democracy within America, with the multiplication of economic, political,and military emergencies, with the necessity of ruling what is virtually becoming an American empire—the universal state of a Western civilization at bay. Caesarism is therefore the logical outcome of a double current very much in evidence today: the growth of a world empire that cannot be ruled by republican institutions, and the gradual extension of mass democracy, which ends in the destruction of freedom and in the concentration of supreme power in the hands of one man. This is the ominous prospect facing the Western world in the second half of the twentieth century (and 21st). But just as Caesarism could arise only in Classical Rome and not in Greece, it will, if left free to develop unchecked, arise in modern America and not in Europe. It is in Washington and not in London, Paris, or Berlin that the Caesars of the future will arise. It will not be the result of conspiracy, revolution, or personal ambition. It will be the end result of an instinctive evolution in which we are all taking part like somnambulists (sleep walkers). The evidence is all around us today, but to see it in its full magnitude we must step back into history and look at the present from a distance. We shall then have a clear perspective of the road on which we have been traveling for centuries—and a glimpse of the road that lies ahead. We shall then notice that, instead of forever inclining toward the republican left, we are in fact swinging toward the autocratic right and that it is our leftist leaders who, whenever they are in power, are unwittingly taking us in this direction. In fact, they have quite unconsciously been driving us around in a century wide circle, back to the point from which our ancestors started when they revolted in the name of liberty against the tyranny of absolute monarchs."
~The coming Caesars. . De Riencourt, Amaury
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id...
Soft Despotism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_des...
"Few mourned the old system in which urgently needed policies died in Congress or were diluted beyond recognition. Things needed to be done, and now they were done, by fiat rather than by law "
~MICHAEL LIND
http://www.salon.com/2010/08/31/lind_...
Book Available On Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Caesars-...
Blank Video for translation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwK-y6...
