The Beast and Us

By Louis Perez y Cid
In 1945, Europe discovered not only that it had lost a war, but also that it had allowed itself to be drawn into absolute savagery.

Cultured, industrialized, and structured nations, endowed with prestigious universities and brilliant engineers, slid toward the abyss without the collapse initially seeming inevitable. The question, therefore, is not simply, who is at fault? But the more disturbing one: how could modern societies have consented?
Taking refuge in Switzerland during the conflict, the French journalist Bertrand de Jouvenel published *Du Pouvoir* (On Power) in 1945. He was not looking for an isolated monster, but analyzing a dynamic.
Political power, he explained, naturally tends to expand. He called it the "Beast."

The term is not excessive; it is precise.

The Beast does not refer to a particular regime, but to the logic by which power grows when circumstances justify it and when citizens accept it. History shows that this process never begins with brutality, but with necessity.

Every society aspires to security. Without it, there is vulnerability, disorganization, and chaos.
Security is not a comfort; it is a condition of existence. But it is also the most powerful engine of the expansion of power.
With each crisis—terrorism, pandemic, war, economic instability—the same sequence repeats itself: expansion of prerogatives, centralization of decisions, reduction of oversight mechanisms, and acceptance of exceptional measures.
These measures are often rational and necessary. The problem is not their adoption, but their accumulation. The repeated exception ends up reshaping the norm, and the norm transforms the balance between the state and the citizen. Power becomes faster, more present, more intrusive, and above all, more difficult to contain.

In this climate of uncertainty, sovereignty is once again becoming a political rallying cry.

In the United States, the MAGA movement around Donald Trump promises a return to control: borders, national decisions, and the primacy of domestic interests.

In Europe, the rise of the National Rally and Alternative for Germany reflects a similar aspiration: to no longer be subjected to dynamics perceived as imposed or uncontrolled.

It would be intellectually lazy to dismiss these movements wholesale. They arise from a genuine unease: downward mobility, cultural insecurity, and a feeling of abandonment.

But Jouvenel's lesson poses a more dispassionate question: when sovereignty becomes the central argument, what limits are we still willing to impose on sovereign power?
Sovereignty can protect, but it can also concentrate power. History teaches us that concentration, even when voted on and supported, permanently alters institutional relationships.

Twentieth-century states already possessed powerful tools. Those of the 21st century possess a far more extensive architecture.
Power can now aggregate massive amounts of data, map social networks, anticipate collective behaviors, and modulate access to information.

This isn't about fantasizing about total control, but about recognizing a new structural capacity, an increased demand for security, a strong assertion of sovereignty, and technology enabling permanent expansion.
The modern Beast doesn't roar; it calculates, optimizes, and rationalizes.

And because it acts in the name of efficiency, it encounters less resistance.

In the triangle of security, sovereignty, and freedom, freedom almost always becomes the adjustment variable. It isn't eliminated outright; it is redefined.
Certain criticisms would weaken unity. Certain checks and balances would slow down action. Urgency would take precedence over deliberation.

Nothing spectacular. Nothing alarming. But freedom is eroded by continuous friction. Societies don't collapse because they ignore the danger; they collapse because they become accustomed to minimizing it.

To claim that our democracies are on the verge of collapse would be an exaggeration. But democracies don't always fall through a coup. They can legally evolve toward forms of increased concentration of power. Gradual weakening of checks and balances, pressure on judicial independence, polarization making compromise impossible, confusion between national loyalty and loyalty to the government.
Each step, taken individually, seems defensible. Yet, taken together, they trace a trajectory. And it is trajectories that matter.

Mechanical comparisons with the 1930s would be simplistic and shed little light on the situation. Believing that modernity immunizes us would be a comfortable illusion. Security, sovereignty, freedom—none can be sacrificed, but none can be sacrificed cannot be absolutized.

The strength of a democracy is not measured by the power of its executive branch, but by its capacity to set limits on power, even when it seems necessary, even when it acts in the name of the common good.

The Beast is a permanent potentiality in organized societies. The Beast of 2026 is infinitely better equipped. What makes it powerful is not only coercion, but also support.
Jouvenel warned, "Power is never as strong as when it appears necessary." Therein lies the lesson: necessity is the Beast's fuel.

The Beast does not emerge roaring; it advances because the door is opened for it, in the name of order, efficiency, or protection.
The real question is not whether our era will repeat the past.

The question is more demanding: are we still capable of setting limits on the power we deem necessary?
For a democracy does not die only when it is attacked. She weakens when she stops monitoring herself.