here’s hall-of-fame poster aimixin. he’s in conversation with a libsoc but don’t get hung up on that, the focus of the argument is on the nature of the state and how it reveals the emptiness of the word

Every government is authoritarian. You only consider it not to be “authoritarian” when you support its use of authority. Anarchism is authoritarian as well, yes I’ve read up on libertarian socialists. Do you think the anarchists in Catalonia who had labor camps were not “authoritarian”? Were they wholesome democratic labor camps?

Every state seeks to preserve itself and so every state will use authority when it is faced with potential destruction. This is not inherently a bad thing, it obviously depends on the government in question, and who is trying to destroy it, and why. People always justify the use of authoritarian means used by whoever they support, and then those who are intellectually dishonest pretend that somehow their use of authority isn’t “authoritarian”.

And obviously anarchism and libertarian socialism exists. I don’t see how that contradicts with me saying “authoritarian” is a meaningless buzzword that can always be replaced just with “something I don’t like”.

Is the US “authoritarian” when it bombed Vietnam back into the stone age and Eisenhower himself said they refused to hold elections because they knew the US occupiers would only get 20% of the vote? The Vietnam war, the Afghanistan war, the destruction of Libya, or the US prosecution of Julian Assange, or the Smith Act Trials, Operation Earnest Voice, Operation Condor, Operation PBSUCCESS, Operation Ajax, Operation Mockingbird, etc, etc, were not “authoritarian”?

Maybe you’d agree these things are “authoritarian”, but either way it proves my point. Plenty of people like to insist the US isn’t “authoritarian” not because it actually isn’t but because they support what it does.

If you never desire to leave your cage, you might feel incredibly free. Liberals who never genuinely try to challenge the authority of the liberal state they live under have a tendency to believe that there is no authoritarianism, because they have never once even desired to challenge that state’s authority. (Yet, ironically, they will always support the state’s authority when they see it used against those who do try to challenge it.)

“Libertarian socialism” doesn’t escape this. “Authoritarianism” is a meaningless buzzword, the only real tangible difference between “libertarian” socialists and ordinary socialists is that “libertarian” socialists prefer a higher level of decentralization. But decentralization in no way inherently entails a lack of authoritarian means, as they’ve always used them in practice to enforce their system.

part two:

You aren’t paying attention. Democracy is authoritarian. It is the means by which the democratic will of the people express its authority, by means of force. What happens if someone picks up a gun and tries to oppose the democratic consensus? Do you just sit by and let the democracy be destroyed? No, the democratic state uses its own authority to oppress the opposition.

There is no such thing as a distinction between “democracy” and “authoritarian”. It’s a meaningless buzzword. The opposite of a democracy is an autocracy or an oligarchy, not “authoritarian”. That’s just something westerners fling at other people’s democracies which they don’t like for daring to vote for something against US interests and want to see them blown up and millions killed and displaced.

Always has been, mate. It’s basically a synonym for “I’m a hypocrite”.

“Authoritarianism” is everywhere, from the natural to the man-made. I obey the very material authority of mother nature here in Alaska by not driving like a jackass in winter when I’m going to work, then I’m forced to obey my shitty bosses in order to get enough of the wealth I make for them back in order to keep a roof over my head and not starve for a week and rinse and repeat while they watch their portfolios soar.

Here’s Engel’s little blurb on Authority too if you want to read more.