Totalitarian domination exceeds utilitarian rule into the realm where everything is possible

Evidence

But wherever these new forms of domination assume their authentically totalitarian structure they transcend this principle, which is still tied to the utilitarian motives and self-interest of the rulers, and try their hand in a realm that up to now has been completely unknown to us: the realm where “everything is possible.” And, characteristically enough, this is precisely the realm that cannot be limited by either utilitarian motives or self-interest, regardless of the latter’s content. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 985

Categorization

• DEFINE: Arendt’s definitional core: totalitarianism replaces the ‘everything is permitted’ nihilism of older tyranny with ‘everything is possible’ — a realm unconstrained by rulers’ self-interest.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that totalitarian terror is not even self-interested — that it operates beyond the rulers’ own utility — is a genuinely paradigm-shifting distinction from all prior forms of domination.