Maria: Calling any state totalitarian is misleading: it implies total state control of all aspects of life  The real world contains no political entity exercising literally total control over even one such aspect  This is because any system of control is inefficient, and, ttherefore, its degree of control is partial  James: A one-party state that has tried to exercise control over most aspects of a society and that has, broadly speaking, managed to do so is totalitarian
Such a system' s practical inefficiencies do not limit the aptness of the term, which does not describe a state s actual degree of control as much as it describes the nature of a state' s ambitions
No state can be called totalitarian without inviting a mistaken belief.