Asklemmy

As in, is any law that restricts people’s freedom to do something

The problem of this approach is that in that case you refuse any law. Even anarchist would agree that a stateless society need people to agree on common rules.

Speed limit ? restrict your freedom to do something, private property ? Restrict your freedom to go where you want, does restricting your freedom to commit murder feels authoritarian ?

Now what's more authoritarian ? having the state protecing your right to have slave ? Or having the state protecting people freedom by not letting someone enslave them.

I think you are lost in the language. There are no absolute rights, in any legal systems. So any "law" necessarily restricts someone's "rights".

Therefore, you need to think about what "authoritarian decision" means, because if all law restricts someone's rights, all laws are authoritarian by your definition.

Also: terrible example to begin with.

No. Protecting human rights is not authoritarian.

Authoritarian doesn't mean exercising authority. Banning slavery did exercise authority, of the law, over slave owners, but it was anti-authoritarian. It took power, and authority, condensed wrongly in the hands of a few and, in theory, distributed it to the many, however effective it actually was.

It is literally removing authority.

No, it was anti-authoritarian, as it removed the authority slave holders had over their slaves.

There’s no such thing as consensual slavery, so I’m gonna go with no. You have to draw the line somewhere, and drawing the line at forcing other people to do things seems like a good place to draw the line.

Natural language is inherently imprecise. You're going to have to add a contextual definition if you want this to have a single answer.

If making someone do something is always authoritarian, abolition is authoritarian to slavers and anti-authoritarian to slaves. If implementing a law with no checks and balances is authoritarian, it was authoritarian when Louis XIV did it, but maybe not in other cases. If a policy that upholds any kind of hierarchy is authoritarian, it's always anti-authoritarian.

Yes it's autharitarian to ban slavery. Kind like a revolution is autharitarian. Don't really get the people who don't want to impose , what ya gonna do? Ask nicely?

This sounds like a semantic argument, so... definitions.

Authoritarian - 1) of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority

Slavery is blind submission. Forbidding authoritarianism isn't authoritarian. Kinda like how destruction of the self (suicide) cannot be selfish, despite what some will argue.

No. A nation that allows slavery doesn't practice human rights. For human rights to exist they have to apply to everyone, which can't work if some people are considered property.

No amount of gotchas, or arguing semantics is going to make slavery okay, and the way you're replying to peoples answers makes me think you fundamentally don't understand the question.

Significantly less authoritarian than slavery.

Authoritarianism is all about concentrating power around fewer people. That what authoritarianism IS. Giving more power to the least powerful people is always anti-authoritarian. Yes, there are always trade-offs, no they're not always as obvious as this one, but more power to more people is never authoritarian.

I think it is a bit unfair to give you shit for your question.

it is normal to confuse authoritarian system with restrictions of freedom. Because generally that is how it works. But not in this case...

Because it is the paradox of tolerance all over again. Technically it is authoritarian to ban slavery but it would be more authoritarian to allow it as people would own people... So on the scale of how authoritarian an action is, banning slavery is as anti-authoritarian as it gets and allowing slavery is as authoritarian as it gets. (Of course, a world without slavery and without any rules would be less authoritarian but... I think we know better than trying that with slavery)

I hope this helps in actually understanding the reason instead of being told what it is.

Authoritarian is a very small portion of people made decision and control the majority, where in democracy the decision is made based on the majority.

Is the decision to end slavery a majority decision? Then it's democratic.

Yes i.e. the paradox of tolerance

Maybe. I guess authoritarianism is good sometimes.

This sounds like another version of the “definition of freedom”.

Is freedom being unrestricted from doing whatever you want? Or is it protection from people doing whatever they want that would otherwise injure you?

I guess I’d argue that banning slavery in the middle of a culture that embraces it is, in fact, authoritarian. Similarly, enabling slavery in the middle of a culture that rejects it is also authoritarian.

It gets more interesting when the population is split on what they want policy to be. I think Prohibition is a better comparison since it’s less emotionally charged.

Was enacting Prohibition authoritarian? Sure seems that way, even though it had a lot of support. Was rolling it back also authoritarian? The people who originally supported it and now see it taken away probably feel it’s authoritarian.

IMO as long as people are happy to argue with each other about basic definition of words, the answer to the original question is “it doesn’t matter”.