If socialism isn't authoritarian, that means that people can opt out of social benefits, own their own property and things, and not have to pay taxes to cover others' social benefits, right? Without going to jail, right?
If not, then I guess we're talking about some form of authoritarianism.
To talk about "socialism" in a sense that doesn't break the non-aggression principle (necessary for non-authoritarianism), you need to think of volunteer communes. IOW, use pooled money (just think of it as a necessary evil) to buy 1,000 acres, build a master-planned community, and offer residency to people who pitched in to buy it, and then use socialism as the guiding ideology within that commune. If it doesn't work and people want to leave, they can leave.
That's a non-authoritarianism version of socialism. If you think there are others that exist in practice, I implore you to look into every true socialist country in history, including the currently failing state of Venezuela, wherefrom there is a mass exodus underway.
In which case every nation on earth is authoritarian, and the word has no more useful meaning when discussing governments than the observation that governments attempt to maintain a monopoly on use of force. Both are universal. Doesn't matter if you're suppressing fraud in a balls-out capital-dominated economy or offering healthcare in more mild social democracies, someone disagrees and the jackboots come out.
So now we've established that capitalism (the real thing, mostly practiced by large cartels), "capitalism" (the U.S. mixed economy), socialism (I'm not stepping in that one) and "socialism" (the mixed economies of western Europe) are all authoritarian. Can we move past this boring, useless debate point, please?
If capitalism isn't authoritarian, that means people can opt out of state application of property rights to land, right? Without going to jail or getting shot, right?
> If socialism isn't authoritarian, that means that people can opt out of social benefits and not have to pay taxes to cover them, right? Without going to jail, right?
The same argument goes for the US. All developed countries have taxes and most people agree that they are necessary. I Besides, I don't feel Sweden is more authoritarian than the US because it has higher tax rates or more public services.
Who said anything about the United States not being authoritarian?
This is the problem with these uninformed, emotionally-driven debates about ideologies; everybody thinks it's "me vs you", rather than trying to understand anything in depth.
If not, then I guess we're talking about some form of authoritarianism.
To talk about "socialism" in a sense that doesn't break the non-aggression principle (necessary for non-authoritarianism), you need to think of volunteer communes. IOW, use pooled money (just think of it as a necessary evil) to buy 1,000 acres, build a master-planned community, and offer residency to people who pitched in to buy it, and then use socialism as the guiding ideology within that commune. If it doesn't work and people want to leave, they can leave.
That's a non-authoritarianism version of socialism. If you think there are others that exist in practice, I implore you to look into every true socialist country in history, including the currently failing state of Venezuela, wherefrom there is a mass exodus underway.