> We do not live in authoritarian societies Then why do we have cops, tribunals, prisons and military? Why do people decide for others and have an armed wing t

> We do not live in authoritarian societies Then why do we have cops, tribunals, prisons and military? Why do people decide for others and have an armed wing to detain or exterminate those who dissent? Isn't that an obvious example of authoritarianism? You may be confusing authoritarianism (hierarchical power structures) with totalitarianism (the State has total control over individuals). Although our western "democracies" are not far-off from totalitarianism: as history has shown, "human rights" only exist for the well-off, and the people in power will not hesitate to use manipulation, torture and terrorism as means of exterminating political dissent. On this topic, you can read about CointelPro [0] in the USA or more generally about counter-insurgency doctrines [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterinsurgency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterinsurgency