The Minotaur State is the new form of democratic tyranny, the tyranny of public opinion, radically different from the old monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic tyrannies founded on violence. This tyranny was prophesied as possible by Tocqueville, who attributed it to the preference of democratic men for equality—a passion—and for liberty—a gift. Jouvenel, like Huxley and Orwell almost simultaneously, already saw it as inherent in the first totalitarian powers: the Soviet Marxist-Leninist and the National Socialist, the latter founded on biology. It is a state characterized, says Professor Zerolo, by insecurity; insecurity fostered by totalitarian legislation. Security is always in question or simply fictitious: the life that matters to the Minotaur is “bare life,” as Michel Foucault said, and property is always at the disposal of the Minotaur’s sustenance needs. Both depend directly on their power, directed by oligarchies similar to Michels's and "crystallized" like Pareto's, and administered by bureaucracies similar to Weber's, and extractive like Acemoglu's.

From the prologue by Dalmacio Negro Pavón