While it is possible for democracies to possess authoritarian elements, they are somewhat opposites of each other. Authoritarianism is characterized by the rejection of political plurality, and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic voting. The US embraces plurality and democratic voting, and also has a separation of powers. The government of the US does have its flaws, but it is by absolutely no means authoritarian. You are thinking about another word. While I’m not sure what that word is, ChatGPT suggests that it could be “illiberally democratic.”
Comment on Hexbear federation megathread
DoiDoi@hexbear.net 10 months agoDemocracy and authoritarianism are not mutually exclusive
randint@lemm.ee 10 months ago
GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 10 months ago
ChatGPT failed you. In a political philosophical sense, the US is extremely liberal, maybe the most liberal country in the first world (at least if you are white and look cishet, etc). That, however, is exactly the problem, as liberalism places power in the hands of the wealthy.
commiewithoutorgans@hexbear.net 10 months ago
To add on here, the fact that liberalism is a bankrupt ideology which is fully represented by the US including its worst aspects can really not be shown in a comment in such a thread. Domenico Losurdo, in one of my favorite books ever, spends hundreds of pages detailing this in “Liberalism: A Counter History.”
A much more easily digested but still incomplete essay can be found here: redsails.org/between-liberty-and-slavery/
randint@lemm.ee 10 months ago
ChatGPT failed you.
Yeah, I guessed that when I saw it use the word liberal.
alcoholicorn@hexbear.net 10 months ago
The government of the US does have its flaws, but it is by absolutely no means authoritarian.
It has more people in prison than any other country, both in absolute and per capita. As for democracy, letting the people choose between two candidates that represent the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and pass laws accordingly, is not democratic. [This is evidenced by the actions of the that always benefit the capitalist class over the working class.](www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens homepage materials/Gilens and Page/Gilens and Page 2014-Testing Theories 3-7-14.pdf)
astral_avocado@lemm.ee 10 months ago
The USA is also one of the most authoritarian countries in the world.
Lol you people are literally the worst most delusional basement incels I swear
DoiDoi@hexbear.net 10 months ago
Thanks for your contribution to the discussion! Great stuff as always.
astral_avocado@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Just sticking to the normal level your people operate at!
DoiDoi@hexbear.net 10 months ago
Clearly not true, but I hope you’re having fun with whatever it is you think you’re doing here!
commiewithoutorgans@hexbear.net 10 months ago
I think you should likely expand more on this. Your replies are kinda low effort dunks, and we should be clearer about the why’s in such a thread where we are defending ourselves.
Don’t just describe a contradiction but how the world can be understood through that contradiction and its various aspects. Linking on authority is, of course, always relevant to these claims, but try just a bit harder or don’t post onto such a thread, imo. Or just link to another comrade talking about the exact thing, because I’ve read like 50 better explanations/replies in the past week from hexbear comrades.
commiewithoutorgans@hexbear.net 10 months ago
Like this one maybe: hexbear.net/comment/3738759
randint@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Thank you for your comment. I actually do want to know why some people do not view democracy and authoritarianism as opposites.
GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 10 months ago
Authoritarianism is a buzzword. All governments are organized around the exercise of authority or the threat thereof. In a genuine democracy, unlike the US, the authority is directed by the popular vote, but that doesn’t make it less of an authority. The state is the mediator of and apparatus for class antagonism, there is always going to be a class that uses it and a class that it is used against, the question in both cases is merely which class? The Marxist says that the state should be controlled by the proletariat (via democracy) and used against the bourgeoisie as the proletariat sees fit for the current conditions.
If you mean autocracy, oligarchy, or beauracracy, just use one of those words instead because it actually describes something
commiewithoutorgans@hexbear.net 10 months ago
Not really disagreeing with the other comrade there, but more adding for clarity: the word “authoritarianism” seems to attempt to distinguish some state (all of which are entirely defined by the fact that they have authority over the land/people to utilize violence in implementing the state’s dictates/laws) utilizing it’s authority vs not utilizing it, but the claim we make is that this distinction is meaningless and undermines itself always.
The fact that is that we can’t blow up pipelines because of property rights or else we will have violence done to us (put in prison, or killed if resisting that). This is authority over us. Chinese companies are not allowed to escape regulations within China without significant punishments (see the death penalties for CEOs who break environmental, finance, or labor laws). This is authority over them. These 2 examples are only distinct in who has the authority and who is prioritized in the interaction. But 1 is called authoritarianism and the other isn’t. Or compare: in the US, police who hurt journalists, imprisoned them, and saw absolutely no authority punish them vs the USSR, where those who has collaborated with the Nazi’s in WW2 were punished by being placed in a penal colony in Siberia to work in a mine. Again, the only real difference in authority is for whom and against whom.
I for one would prefer a world where oil company’s property rights were not protected by any authority until astonishingly large changes were to be made for the protection of our environment, and I see the interests of ONLY the capitalist class represented in that authority. Most cases where authority is utilized can be easily tied to the direct interests of a group of people. When a group of people have shared interests based in the basic structure of our economy (private property rights and the ability to profit being the basis here mostly, as well as the ability to sell your labor power as a worker), we call that a class. This is why we say that authority is always performed in the interests of a class (because all actions and decisions of the state either align with or against those interests, even if mostly tangentially or aligned with multiple at once).
This all just has very little to do with any understanding of democracy. The initial term of democracy was basically where everyone votes, but this term is not really used in the contexts we are talking about anymore and is restricted to small groups. We now usually understand democracy as either the sort of chauvinist version westerners use (where being a republic with votes where American observers are allowed is really the only criteria) or just a system which is able to take input from its people and perform in a way which the people approve. Whether this is direct voting, voting for a representative, or public caucuses and discussions is less material than the fact that the information is utilized and the outcomes desired are reached.
On these standards, both the USSR and China (as well as most other major socialist countries commonly called undemocratic) are much more democratic than the US or any western state. The approval ratings (even by western polls within these nations) are much higher than western nations. This is because both the authority and democracy is oriented towards workers as opposed to the owners (meaning that private property and owners/management profits is not prioritized over the workers/people who work for wages).