A totalitarian society is one that attempts to exert “total” control over everything that occurs within it, including the lives and opinions of individuals. Both Marxism and fascism were, they argued, instances of a larger pattern: totalitarianism. Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, Friedrich Hayek, and many other intellectuals worked hard to undermine the allure of Marxist ideology by linking it to fascism. This was certainly the case during the Second World War, and, afterwards, during the Cold War. The ideological theater encompasses a great deal of voluntary, spontaneous effort-often from well-established intellectuals. While warring governments certainly do try to shape the opinions of their citizens through propaganda, it would be a mistake to understand the ideological theater purely in terms of a top-down, coordinated system such as we find in military organizations.

From the perspective of history, there is another important theater: the ideological theater, in which the war of ideas takes place.

Military strategists divide large-scale conflicts into “theaters of war.” During the Second World War, for instance, Europe was divided into Western, Eastern, North African, and Atlantic theaters. I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.

Friedrich hayek the road to serfdom