The Hijacking of Concepts

The Hijacking of Concepts: From a Flawed Analogy to a 21st-Century Authoritarian Playbook — How Politics Became a Business Model

Introduction: The Legacy of Conceptual Sabotage

As explored in detail in the companion essay, "From Marx’s Theory to 21st Century Systems," a primary tool of modern authoritarian regimes is not the invention of entirely new ideologies, but the "hijacking" of existing historical concepts. This process traces back to Bertrand Russell’s influential but flawed analogy which framed communism as a religion—a conceptual error that unintentionally laid the groundwork for the 21st-century technique of conceptual sabotage.

While the previous analysis demonstrated how the term "communism" was stripped of its theoretical meaning to become a stigmatizing weapon, this essay examines how that same logic is applied to "liberalism" and how this "software" supports a new authoritarian "hardware." In contemporary propaganda, "liberal" and "communist" have become interchangeable identity codes, used not to describe political philosophies but to mark moral deviance and justify exclusion.

Building on that theoretical foundation, this analysis turns to the practical application: the operating blueprint of the new illiberal governance (primarily the Orbán model) and the transformation of politics from a vocation into a pure industry.

1. A 21st-Century Blueprint: The Orbán Model vs. Classical Fascism

While contemporary illiberal regimes are often compared to the fascism of the 1930s, modern authoritarianism—pioneered by leaders such as Viktor Orbán in Hungary—represents a structurally different and, in several respects, more insidious model of power.

It rejects the overt brutality of its predecessors in favor of a subtler form of legalistic and linguistic control. This 21st-century model functions by preserving the formal architecture of democracy, while systematically hollowing it out from within.

A comparison with Mussolini’s classical fascism highlights the key innovations of the 21st-century model.

While the system of government in classical fascism (20th Century) was characterized by an overt dictatorship, the 21st-century model operates as a managed democracy. Regarding ideology, the former relied on an explicit manifesto (such as corporatism), whereas the new system employs a narrative mosaic that is flexible and opportunistic.

The primary tool of control has shifted from physical force and open coercion to legal and linguistic disciplining. Similarly, media control is no longer enforced through direct censorship but rather through ownership and financial control.

Finally, in terms of the pace of transformation, the rapid radicalization and social shock of the classical model have been replaced by slow normalization and public adaptation.

The central innovation of the 21st-century model lies in its use of language. Its primary project is the preservation of democracy’s vocabulary—elections, parliament, rule of law, constitutional court—while stripping these terms of their substantive meaning.

Elections are held, yet the media landscape and campaign financing rules are manipulated to guarantee a predetermined outcome.
The rule of law is invoked, yet legal frameworks are applied selectively: to reward loyalists and punish opponents.

2. An Exportable Logic: From the Danube to the Potomac

What is exported from one political context to another is rarely a concrete ideology or a list of historical grievances. What travels well is a logic of operation—a universal blueprint for acquiring and consolidating power within democratic structures.

The Orbán model offers precisely such a blueprint, and its structural parallels are visible across political movements in the Western world, including the MAGA movement in the United States. The shared operational logic rests on several key tactics:

“The People” vs. “The Elite”: Politics is relentlessly framed as a moral struggle between a virtuous, authentic people and a corrupt, detached establishment. This generates a constant sense of crisis, which in turn justifies extraordinary measures.
Delegitimizing institutions: Independent sources of authority—the press (“fake news”), the judiciary (“activist judges”), and even the integrity of the electoral process—are systematically attacked to remove any constraints on the leader’s power and narrative.
Narrative occupation of state functions: The aim is to absorb independent legal and administrative bodies into the ruling political narrative, transforming neutral arbiters into instruments of the governing power.

It is essential to note that the parallel does not lie in specific historical contexts or political outcomes, but in the underlying dynamics: how a populist leader mobilizes grievance politics to erode institutional trust. The decorative elements may differ, but the structural logic of power consolidation is strikingly similar.

This approach is far more stable and resilient than classical fascism. A society that has learned to survive an empty ideology through ironic detachment may be uniquely conditioned not to resist but to adapt to a system advancing through slow, legalistic normalization.

The strength of this new model lies in its adaptability and—most alarmingly—its exportability. Modern illiberalism has thus created a distinctive political industry: the professionalized practice of acquiring, maintaining, and converting power into economic resource. In this industry, it is no longer ideologies that compete—but business models.

3. The Industrialization of Politics

What Do Politicians and Shoemaker-Entrepreneurs have in Common? How Politics Became a Profession and Ideologies Became Hollow

Over the past century, the very meaning of what it is to be a politician has transformed. Until the mid-20th century—especially in Europe—the political elite largely embodied strong ideological convictions. Political action was driven by ideology, a coherent value system defining the desired direction of social and economic development.

One classic definition of politics—“the peaceful means of enforcing economic interests”—originally referred to the real material conflicts among classes and social strata. The political struggle at that time aimed to address structural inequalities: land reform, labour rights, education, welfare, and property relations.

By the turn of the millennium, however, the meaning of politics shifted fundamentally. Ideological motivation increasingly gave way to the industrial deployment of partisan economic and power interests. The modern politician does not primarily represent an idea, but manages a position.

Politics increasingly follows market logic: every party searches for its own “consumer” group from which loyalty, votes, and resources can be extracted. In this industry, ideology is often just a label fitted to target audiences:

Conservative actors seek out market niches tied to national identity, religion, and traditional values—transforming these emotions into political products.
Liberal actors target socially marginalized groups, minority communities, and cultural outsiders—frequently offering an over-marketed expansion of freedoms.
Actors calling themselves left-wing seek to secure the market offered by employee classes.

Yet these are often merely slogans and marketing clichés, as party programs no longer necessarily reflect these supposed missions. In every case, however, the operating logic is similar: politics functions as a business, converting social divides into market segments and building a corresponding client base.

Thus, the modern politician:

identifies a target group,
builds a strategy to acquire it,
converts loyalty into power capital.

The parallels with an “entrepreneurial” model are clear: both manufacture products, expect profit, advertise through the same channels, and aim to capture the largest possible market.

The modern politician:

does not practice a vocation of ideas, but builds a career,
does not represent classes or communities, but the economic hinterland of their party,
thinks not in terms of values, but in terms of resources, media, and market influence,
and has a primary goal: obtaining and retaining power.

The acquisition of power has become part of the profession itself: aggressive campaign technologies, data-driven manipulation, ownership and domination of media, hollowing out institutional checks, and the constant delegitimization of the “political enemy”.

In this environment, the politician has become a trained professional—educated, examined, and mentored like any other specialized actor. But professional ethics have largely disappeared: the end justifies the means, many of which are incompatible with democratic norms.

Hence the ironic analogy of the chapter title. The essential message is that politics has lost its public-good-oriented legitimacy, becoming a profession that serves only itself. This process directly connects to the earlier analysis: modern political power diverts and empties concepts. After language, now the role is hollowed out: the democratic politician as representative dissolves into the politician as professional operator of power.

Conclusion

The trajectory from a flawed philosophical analogy to a sophisticated political weapon reveals how ideas can reshape reality once they are distorted.

This “hijacked concept” (originating from the "communism as religion" fallacy) has become not a tool for understanding history, but a means for demonizing today’s opponents. When ideologies are detached from their original meaning, they no longer serve as frameworks for substantive debate; they become the language of identity conflict. Stigma replaces discourse.

This technique of conceptual sabotage has become the operational code of 21st-century authoritarianism: politics is no longer about addressing real social conflicts but about the continuous dramaturgy of enemy construction.

Power structures have adapted accordingly: the form of democracy remains while its content is hollowed out. In parallel, politics has shifted to an industrial logic: social divides become market segments, ideas become value propositions, and representation becomes client management. The modern leader no longer embodies an ideology but runs a business model: the packaging of conviction matters more than its substance.

The question is no longer whether we can recognize this process—its mechanics are fully revealed—but whether we can reclaim the language before the outer shell of democracy is left standing without any inner meaning.