> Earlier forms of authoritarianism like absolute monarchy didn’t necessarily include those elements. Mostly because the technology and bureaucratic mechanisms

> Earlier forms of authoritarianism like absolute monarchy didn’t necessarily include those elements. Mostly because the technology and bureaucratic mechanisms were not yet sufficiently developed to implement it. It's not as though kings wielding absolute power, ostensibly justified by their god, were champions of liberalism. Maybe a handful liked to think of themselves as liberal humanists, but that was just vanity. More often, these kings had every inclination to be an overt absolute tyrant but simply lacked the technical and organizational means to control large populations in the ways which were developed in the 19th and 20th centuries.