The other part of authoritarianism that’s less popular to talk about is that, in many ways, it works very well. In many parts of the “free” US, you can’t leave a visible bag in your vehicle for more than a few minutes because you’ll return to a smashed window. In places where that kind of petty crime is dealt with harshly, it’s almost non-existent. As trite as it sounds, Mussolini made the trains run on time.
So authoritarianism often gets a lot of the small stuff right at the cost of the big stuff while freedom often means sacrificing a lot of those small things to get the big stuff right. Having a society where you’ve got the best of both worlds is a really hard balance to strike.
And while it’s really easy to say that the big stuff is more important, the subjective feeling of freedom can be more affected by the small stuff because it’s much more a part of daily life. I don’t need to criticize my government on a daily basis, I only need to do that at critical moments. But I have to park my car multiple times a day, and needing to keep it safe becomes a front-of-mind concern that makes me feel less free.
> The other part of authoritarianism that’s less popular to talk about is that, in many ways, it works very well. In many parts of the “free” US, you can’t leave a visible bag in your vehicle for more than a few minutes because you’ll return to a smashed window. In places where that kind of petty crime is dealt with harshly, it’s almost non-existent. As trite as it sounds, Mussolini made the trains run on time.
Actually that semi quote is typically used in relation to the Spanish civil war and it's an old lady saying "the anarchists were certainly a weird bunch, but they did make the trains run on time).
Also the correlation between harsh punishment and lower crime rates is dubious at best. The US has harsher penalties than most other Western democracies, but higher crime rates. This applies in particular to murder, where the rates are higher despite the death penalty. To add some anecdotal evidence, the only place I was ever pickpocketed was in Shanghai (where punishment is extremely harsh) and I have visited places like Nigeria which has a much less functioning law enforcement system.
You can also get the same outcome (i.e. not smashed windows) without an authorization government. I'm not even sure these are meaningfully related, there are many countries which are both less authoritarian (in certain ways at least) than the US and also have less crime.
So authoritarianism often gets a lot of the small stuff right at the cost of the big stuff while freedom often means sacrificing a lot of those small things to get the big stuff right. Having a society where you’ve got the best of both worlds is a really hard balance to strike.
And while it’s really easy to say that the big stuff is more important, the subjective feeling of freedom can be more affected by the small stuff because it’s much more a part of daily life. I don’t need to criticize my government on a daily basis, I only need to do that at critical moments. But I have to park my car multiple times a day, and needing to keep it safe becomes a front-of-mind concern that makes me feel less free.