Dictatorship of Minorities in Western Society

Karl Marx dreamed of a revolution initiated by the workers united as one, the international proletarian class rising against the perverse capitalist system, a revolution to replace capitalism with communism.

Marx developed the concept of class, most particularly class struggle – the struggle for political and economic power – and the oppression of the economic system (capitalism).

In orthodox Marxism, the oppression originates from those who own the means of production, the bourgeois class and is suffered by those who only have their labor force to sell, the working class.

In this philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is an intermediate stage, a phase between the capitalist economy and the communist economy in which the proletariat holds state power, seizes the means of production, and nationalizes their ownership (from private to collective). This proletarian state would need to exert rigid control in order to facilitate the transition and prevent any attempt at counterrevolution.

In the second half of the 20th century, the left abandoned the orthodox Marxism doctrine or rather translated its core concepts from social terms to societal terms. In this new left ideology, instead of originating from the capitalist system, the oppression derives from Western civilization and Christian values. The economic considerations in the discourse surrounding social inequalities were scrapped in profit of a commentary about minority communities reputedly being victims of systemic discrimination intrinsically rooted in Western societies.

The class warfare between bourgeois oppressors and oppressed proletariat was remodeled into the warfare between the oppressive heterosexual white Christian male and disparate minority groups perceived as oppressed (non-white, non-Christian, women, homosexuals…) interconnected in intersectionality.

In other words, the new left had converted class warfare into a multitude of societal warfare: misogynist patriarchy vs. women, racist whites vs. non-whites, homophobic Christians vs. homosexuals. The warfare between the (alleged) oppressive majority and the oppressed minorities is recognized as such because of their gender, race, religion, or sexual preferences.

In this dogma, the minorities replaced the indigenous proletariat as the agent of the revolution. They would rise against the oppressions inherent in Western societies.

As such, the left abandoned their traditional constituency: the proletariat, a class of people who find stability against the economic violence of the neoliberal capitalist system. In those institutions family and religion are deemed reactionary and oppressive.

Worst, over the decades that followed, a veritable demonization of so-called oppressors ensued thanks to dubious sociological concepts such as systemic racism, white supremacy, cultural appropriation, toxic masculinity, heteronormativity, etc.

Members of the indigenous proletariat ended up being victims of both the economic inequalities and the popular vindicate, the legitimation of taking (violent) actions against individuals or groups identified as oppressors.  In this “progressive” new left ideology, they represent all evils in the world.

Contrarily, the minorities united in intersectionality are the “good”, and righteous merely due to being the opposite of the named oppressors. They are deified by the new left (the liberal bourgeoisie) who interpret the immorality of deviant individuals among them – criminals, thugs, drug dealers, etc. – as a liberation from western societies’ systemic oppression. They are justifiably allowed to undermine the values system of the so-called oppressors; more important, they are authorized to reverse those values.

We can explain further with the concept of “Master–slave morality” developed by Nietzsche in the first essay of his book “On the Genealogy of Morality”. In his work, Nietzsche presents two fundamental types of morality: Master morality (the oppressors) and slave morality (the oppressed).

Nietzsche defines master morality as one that values pride and power while slave morality is formed in opposition. Master morality is “sentiment” while slave morality is founded on “re-sentiment” i.e. the devaluation of what the master values, reaction to oppression, a critic of the oppressors.

Slave morality does not aim to surpass this oppression (the masters) but to make everyone equal by making everyone a slave (Apex egalitarianism). The reactive force born from resentment, the “slave revolt in morality”, seeks to subvert master morality by promoting different values (e.g. parity instead of nobility). As an example, according to Nietzsche, the Roman empire’s master morality was defeated by the Christian slave morality.

Representatively, in Western society, the minorities (regarded as oppressed/slave) could ultimately reverse the values understood as being master morality, understood as oppression. They could eventually become agents of the revolution.

The resentment and sense of inferiority at the origin of the slave revolt in morality is directed towards the masters, i.e. the individuals or groups viewed as the roots of the injustice (whose morality is inseparable from their culture).

The desire for revenge against those individuals or groups is fuelled by the feeling of oppression. Those who dismissed moral suasion as ineffective would call for violent alternatives. Consequently, the sentiment of injustice legitimizes brutality. Upon seizing political power, the so-called oppressed (slaves) would lawfully be able to “punish” those branded oppressors.

Henceforth, instead of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the transitional phase to bring down the bourgeoisie as conceptualized in orthodox Marxism, the liberal left proposes the dictatorship of the minorities, a system in which a particular group identified as oppressed can wield power and legitimate taking (violent) actions against the silent majority either compliant or scared to oppose them for fear of public humiliation or physical retaliation.