Authoritarianism of Code

By Zed A. ShawIt's my belief that authoritarianism is so ingrained in the fabric of software development that it has been internalized to such a degree that even the most anti-authoritarian people cannot avoid being authoritarian. This essay is an attempt to outline a framework for evaluating software development practices, organizations, and communities on the basis of authoritarian and totalitarian policies and behaviors.My goal in writing this series of essays on authoritarianism is to give people in the software development world--and specifically in open source--the information they need to make a fully enthusiastic, informed, consensual decision to continue to be a part of an authoritarian system. What I want is for people who are currently involved in a project to avoid wasting their life working for leaders and a community that ultimately will simply exploit them as all authoritarian organizations do.In short, I believe there is no such thing as a Benevolent Dictator for Life, and that by learning why that's true you can better decide to for yourself how you want to spend your free time.Caveat EmptorProgrammers have a propensity to use the Fallacy of False Equivalence to discredit or promote nearly anything. If you create a fantastic system for people to communicate, the people who hate it will says, "That's just Twitter." No matter how different your system is from Twitter, they will use False Equivalence to discredit your work by abstracting the definition of "Twitter" to be "Any system where people talk". However, if this Twitter hater invents a new chat protocol that they want to promote they will declare it a completely new invention of pure genius that is nothing like anything before. This random false equivalence allows programmers to use abstraction to redefine nearly anything they want to mean anything else they want.To prevent this fallacy of false equivalence I'm going to narrow the discussion to communities that do not gain Informed Consent for their authoritarianism. In fact, another essay will make the case that a defining criteria of authoritarianism is removing people's right to informed consent, so if a project is honest about being authoritarian, then they are most likely not authoritarian, even though the community may be.This means that if you're reading this, and then you attempt to apply the false equivalence trick to make it seem like everything is authoritarian, then you're wrong. Or, maybe you're right, but I'm narrowing this discussion to specific communities and projects that are:Attracting people to join without enthusiastic informed consent.Utilizing this disparity in information to create, support, or promote authoritarian goals.For example, if you want to say that all corporations are authoritarian, then while that may be true in an abstract sense, it wouldn't be true for this discussion because people who join corporations definitely know that they're authoritarian. Same would be true for an educational institution. People join universities and know that it is an authoritarian system by its nature. They're clearly informed before joining, and enthusiastically pay to be there. This changes however if the organization doesn't inform people of things that would have changed their consent.I will also separate analysis of authoritarian leaders from authoritarian communities. By separating the community from the leaders we can start to make a more distinct and accurate analysis of authoritarianism. We can have situations where the people in charge may be doing everything right, but the community is rampantly authoritarian. We could have the inverse where the leaders are completely authoritarian but the community is not behaving in any authoritarian way. It is frequently both, but there are a few instances where there's a separation. Once we understand where the authoritarianism is coming from then we can start to make plans to change the situation, or simply leave now that we are more fully informed.Not FascismYou'll notice that I deliberately use the word "authoritarianism" rather than "fascism" in this discussion. From a programmer's viewpoint I see fascism as a subclass of authoritarianism, and I want to discuss authoritarianism in a more universal sense. I also avoid the word fascism because it tends to allow authoritarians to dodge the substance of accusations against them with claims of conspiracy theory. The tactic is to wait for someone to scream "Nazi!" or "Fascist!" and then to say they are not a Nazi because they are not even remotely as bad as Hitler. They never killed anyone "you crazy conspiracy theorist!"Accusations of mental instability are a favorite of fascist regimes, so if you see that you know immediately that person is definitely a fascist. But, not being as bad at Hitler is easily the lowest bar possible for ethical behavior of a leader. If someone's only defense for their authoritarian behavior is that they didn't slaughter millions of people then that's no defense at all. It's entirely possible for someone to use propaganda, coercion and manipulation to convince a large population of people to follow their authority without murdering anyone. To avoid those in power using the False Fascist Defense I'm going to boldly claim the following:You're only a fascist if you killed people. Everyone else I'm discussing is an authoritarian.A Concise DefinitionWith that covered I can now devise a straightforward definition of authoritarianism:Any deference to authority given or taken without the enthusiastic informed consent of everyone involved.Notice this definition doesn't focus completely on authoritarian leaders. It also covers authoritarian communities with the "given or taken" part of the definition. It also doesn't rely on any specific behaviors such as propaganda, any patterns of authoritarianism from the past, any political ideals, or any requirements of death or genocide. It simply says that if someone gives or takes deference to authority, and they receive this authority without enthusiastic informed consent, then that's authoritarianism.Let's break down each part of this definition:Deference to AuthorityThe existence of authority doesn't really create an authoritarian system of governance. What does create authoritarianism is not questioning authority, or more specifically giving deference to authority. Deference is easily defined as "humble submission and respect", and manifests itself in various ways:Believing whatever someone in a position of authority says even in the face of clear evidence that it is false.Allowing someone in a position of authority to break the rules while everyone in the community is expected to follow them.Praising or forgiving the bad behavior of people in authority while simultaneously ridiculing anyone else doing the exact same bad behavior.Accepting any totalitarian punishment leaders give out even if that punishment is easily viewed as extreme or abusive.Attacking anyone who questions those in a position of authority.Relying on and trusting those in authority to provide safety and security.Given or TakenI want it to be clear that authoritarianism hides in leadership, but is easily observed in communities. Authoritarian leaders are desperate to keep their secrets a secret because if everyone found out what they really do then everyone would have informed consent and would most likely leave. We usually only find out about their bad behavior after their organization has completely died and those benefiting have come forward to tell the truth. Where you can very easily see authoritarianism is within communities and their behavior. That's why I add to this definition the "given or taken" portion. It separates the two halves of any authoritarian system into the behavior of the leaders and the community.Deference to authority "given" is where the community demonstrates deference to authority, even if you can't readily see any leaders actively "taking" authority. In fact, you may have leaders who are not actively taking authority, but are opportunistically allowing it to be given to them by the community. You may have a community that is just blindly authoritarian while the leaders don't actually act in any authoritarian way at all. At the same time, you may see people in positions of authority actively taking or demanding deference from the community through abuse of critics, secret dealings, secret enforcers, and reworking of the rules to favor their positions of power.Doing this eliminates the influence that authoritarians have by ignoring their propaganda and lies to focus on how their community behaves. It's authoritarian duck-typing, where we say, if the community quacks like an authoritarian duck, then the organization is authoritarian.Enthusiastic Informed ConsentEnthusiastic Informed Consent is the idea that people have a right to know everything before they give consent to authority, and that they can only give consent enthusiastically, or explicitly if you prefer. That means that consent cannot be taken, coerced, or acquired through lies and propaganda. This also means that authority is only given through consent, and that if the consent is removed then those in positions of authority have to step down. A clear sign of authoritarian leadership is they don't step down when it's demanded by the community.Enthusiastic informed consent is the standard we hold people to so as to reduce the chance that someone is exploited. If someone is fully informed of all of the secret rules, secret community enforcers, all past and future possible totalitarian punishments, and has an ability to vote on leaders and governance, then we can say they were informed and enthusiastic about it. However, if they never get to vote on leaders, never know of secret deals, don't know how leaders fill their pockets, and have no say on governance, then they were never given the information required for informed consent.The other purpose of