alt Hacker NewsWhat I find confusing about this comment is that to me, authoritarian and libertarian are opposites, but have only to do with individual freedoms, not the political system.
With these definitions, you can have a democratic or non-democratic system, and both can give rise to libertarian or authoritarian societies.
Democracies tend to produce more libertarian systems than dictatorships, but only to some extent, and in fact, they are often authoritarian in various aspects. All it takes to oppress some people in a democracy, even when they are not causing harm, is the majority of people wanting to do so.
Vice versa, a dictatorship with some enlightened, incorruptible, and perfectly mentally stable dictator that acts as a night-watchman so that individual freedoms are respected would be more libertarian than a democracy, but it's unlikely you'd get such a dictator.
>What I find confusing about this comment is that to me, authoritarian and libertarian are opposites, but have only to do with individual freedoms, not the political system.
"Do whatever the F you want as long as you don't challenge the state" isn't that incompatible at first glance and might work ok if you have a low touch state. Where it gets obviously incompatible is when you have eastern european style oligarchs and western style administrative state and state favored businesses and industries that leverage state violence to stifle competition.
I don't think it's possible to have an authoritarian government in a modern society that doesn't trend in one of those directions.