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this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Bluntly, the definition of authoritarianism as any exercise of authority is far too broad to be useful, and is not consistent with actual academic discourse regarding political systems.
Excerising authority does not make a government authoritarian. If the law says "thou shalt not commit murder", and the government enforces this law, would you label that as authoritarianism?
The Chinese government has much higher approval ratings from its people (consent of the governed) than the U.S. and most any other western “democracy”. It uses less violence against its citizens (US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world plus high rates of police murder and brutality) as well as internationally (China hasn’t bombed or invaded anybody in like 40 years while the U.S. does so daily over the same time period). Objectively, for the word to have any meaning at all the US is far more authoritarian. It uses its authority more violently and malevolently. If you can’t admit this you aren’t engaging with reality, you’re just afraid of challenging the propaganda you’ve been indoctrinated with.
What does the enforcement of this law entail? Police, prisons, arrests, all measures you could simply label authoritarian with no context, no matter how much we might agree on murder being bad, and laws against it being good.
Then present a definition that isn't too broad to be useful, because so far you haven't.