An antithesis of democracy where it refers to an ideology that champions a system of government in which citizens are completely at the mercy of an autarchy; that is a system of government that not only eschews democracy in favor of an all-encompassing political dictatorship but considers the use of terror and violence as legitimate instruments to achieve its ends. Consequently, by definition, a totalitarian state is a tyrannical state because totalitarianism requires it to constitute itself as a police state—a good example of which would be a fascist state or even a communist state (but only in its Maoist or Stalinist incarnation). In fact, one can trace the etymology of this word to the Italian word “totalitario” first coined by the Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile in 1925 and later promulgated by the Italian fascist, Benito Mussolini. It is important to emphasize here that from an economic perspective, a totalitarian state is equally compatible with communism or capitalism—the latter well exemplified by Germany during the Nazi era. (Other words that can substitute for totalitarianism include despotism, authoritarianism, and absolutism.)