Arendt wrote that totalitarianism “is…likely to stay with us from now on”

(Arendt, 22)—she was right. Totalitarianism can still be found in today’s world. One

example can be found in the ideologies of radical extremists, the ‘terrorists’ of the

September 11th attacks. We can also see totalitarianism in the various genocides of

Rwanda and Iraq. Totalitarianism in these forms is easily recognized, but there

exists a form different from that of the Nazi and Russian camps described in The

Origins of Totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is not something limited to the Non-

Western world, but has already infiltrated the West in the form of big business. This

will be verified through the analysis of the requirements of totalitarianism—an

ideology and a method—and by comparing Arendt’s descriptions of totalitarianism

with that of modern big business.

Totalitarianism requires an ideology to exist. Without ideology totalitarianism

is nothing more than tyranny. Totalitarianism “springs not from lust for power [as

tyranny does]…but only for ideological reasons” (12). Totalitarians may gain a

significant amount of power, but they do not strive for power in itself. Power is often

used to further proclaim their ideology. Hitler’s ideology that the Arian race was

superior to all others resulted in the Second World War and the Holocaust. Why he

had this ideology is debatable, but this is not the aim of our discussion. Totalitarians

believe that “everything is possible” (3), something utilitarian thinking or “’normal

people’ refuse to believe” (3). For Hitler, the ideology that the Arian race is superior

was possible, why it was possible is not essential. If everything is possible, then

being a superior race is possible. Big business also shares in the ideology of

totalitarianism. There is a popular misconception that big business only strives for

money and power. Big businesses, like totalitarians, strive only for ideological

reasons. Wal-Mart, for example, has the ideology that it is the superior store. Wal-

Mart makes hundreds of billions of dollars every year, more money than its owners

could ever hope to spend. To say that Wal-Mart strives only to make money is a
 2

ridiculous claim because Wal-Mart already makes more money than it needs. There

is no logical explanation of accumulating un-spendable amounts of money. To Wal-

Mart, money is only evidence that it is the superior store. Wal-Mart and Hitler share

in the totalitarian mindset that their ideology is flawless, that everyone must believe

in that ideology. The goal of the totalitarian is to prove to the world that their

ideology is true. Hitler wanted to prove that the Arian race was superior to all others

while Wal-Mart strives to prove its superiority as a store.

Totalitarianism demands total domination, not just the domination of those

willing to be dominated. The goal of the totalitarian is to “make the world

consistent, to prove its respective supersense has been right” (12). Every single

person, in the mind of a totalitarian, must believe in the ideology. Total domination

is not simply to have rule over people but is rather to have those people believing

that the ideology is true. Hitler did not simply want despotic rule over other races,

he wanted them to believe his ideology; he wanted the Jews to believe that they

were inferior to the Arian race. Likewise, big business shows evidence of these

totalitarian initiatives. Coca-Cola is not satisfied with the large number of people it

dominates as consumers of Coke products. Many people believe in the ideology that

Coca-Cola has superior soft-drinks, but Coca-Cola wants everyone to think that way.

Coca-Cola, like Hitler, has to find a way to persuade people to believe in its ideology.

But how do you make lovers of Pepsi products convert to your ideology?

Hitler was faced with a very similar question. How do you make a race of

people believe themselves to be inferior to the Arian race? To answer this question,

the concentration camps—“the laboratories in which the fundamental belief of

totalitarianism that everything is possible is being verified” (1)—were created.

These camps were designed to “liquidate all spontaneity” (11) in men, to make
 3

them less than human. Hitler’s experiments on the Jews proved very successful.

Through the three-step process of killing the judicial person, the moral person and

finally the individual person, men can be rendered into a “bundle of reactions….the

model ‘citizen’ of the totalitarian state” (11). Men who are transformed into these

model citizens are nothing “but marionettes…which all react with perfect reliability”

(10). Only in this state, “only when he becomes a specimen of the animal-species”

(11) can man be totally dominated. Men then become superfluous, only men-made-

animals are necessary. It is this system that totalitarianism requires to assert its

ideologies on a universal scale.

Big business again shows evidence of similar tactics, though notably to a far

lesser extreme than those of Hitler. Big businesses, like Coca-Cola, require total

domination—domination over every single person. It was “only in the concentration

camps that such an experiment [was] at all possible” (2), though there are modern

equivalents that do not require the physical aspect of those camps. The brutality

associated with the camps was designed to give the psychological process a more

profound impact. Coca-Cola and other big businesses focus mainly on these

psychological processes of total domination. Probably the most evident of these

processes is the power of marketing. Marketing is a billion dollar industry used by

big businesses to assert their ideologies. A major tool in marketing is advertising.

Through advertising, people are actively engaged in a process that aims to infiltrate

the psychological stronghold of a person and insert ideologies.

“Totalitarian regimes establish a functioning world of no-sense” (12) which

“utilitarian thinking is helpless” (12) to understand. From ideology stems logicality,

the process by which an absurd ideology (by utilitarian standards) starts to make

sense. Logical systems use science, history, philosophy or whatever else they can
 4

pervert to make the ideology believable. Propaganda, scientific evidence and

especially terror are just some of the logical systems by which the absurd idea of

Arian superiority could have made sense to normal, everyday Germans. Once a

person accepts the ideology, they become dominated by it.

Perhaps one of the most powerful tools of advertising is that of conformity. As

mentioned before, big businesses, such as Coca-Cola, are not satisfied with many

customers who embrace their ideology. They want to dominate everyone. By

focusing on conformity, Coca-Cola targets people who do not exclusively drink Coke

products. They often advertise that ‘everyone drinks Coke’ or ‘Paris Hilton drinks

Coke’ and so on. The goal is to establish the ideology that Coke has the best soft-

drinks. By using the power of conformity—that ‘everyone drinks Coke!’—the

ideology stems into logicality. For example, if everyone else drinks Coke then people

will question why they themselves do not do so. Like Nazi propaganda, advertising

makes big business ideology make sense. Health-wise, Coke is not a good choice. It

rots your teeth and too much will make you overweight. The insane ideology that I

should drink Coke starts to make sense through various forms of logicality such as

conformity.

Similar to the ideology of Hitler, not everyone will agree that Coke produces

the best soft-drinks. Some people will even fight against this claim. Hitler managed

to establish a system where even members of another race could be made to

believe their inferiority to the Arian race. Advertising aims to replicate a similar

result. For the totalitarian everything is possible, so there must be a way to make

the ideology of Coke acceptable even to arch-rival Pepsi. Traditional advertising is

limited in its power to make someone accept an ideology. Advertising can try to

persuade you that some products are better than others or that you need a certain
 5

product. In the end, the decision is ultimately made by the consumer. Unlike the

concentration camps, contemporary advertising is unable to force a human being to

accept an ideology.

New technology aims to change this shortcoming. Neuromarketing targets

the subconscious mind of the consumer, as opposed to traditional advertising which

is only capable of addressing a conscious audience. Through neuromarketing,

advertising will be capable of “getting us to behave the way corporations want us

to” (Kelly). By infiltrating the unconscious mind of people, big business will perhaps

be able to convince all people of their ideology. The problem is that they will be

capable of doing this without those people making a conscious decision. Coke may

perhaps be able to convince Pepsi drinkers that Coke is indeed superior. This up-

and-coming method of advertising is similar to those totalitarian techniques of

concentration camps insofar as they both aim for the superfluity of men. People will

no longer be targeted on a rational standpoint, they will be probed on a level

beyond their control. The results of neuromarketing will be same as those of the

camp: the capacity to universally insert reactions.

Totalitarianism’s “aim...is not the transformation of the outside world…but the

transformation of human nature itself” (12). Through this transformation,

totalitarian ideologies can be universally recognized and embraced. By transforming

human nature, humans become inhuman, and in the case of concentration camps,

“like the dog in Pavlov’s experiments” (10). Big business aims for a similar

totalitarian reality. Through advertising and its unborn child, neuromarketing, the

possibility for total domination is growing in a world where men—human beings with

a rational human nature—are in danger of becoming superfluous. The evidence is

 6

clear, totalitarianism has already emerged in the West through big business—the

uncertainty now lies in what will be done about it.