Asklemmy

Yes.

But slavery was also authoritarian.

Any situation where there is a power imbalance that can be enforced through physical or psychological means that somebody doesn't agree with is authoritarian. Employer/employee? Authoritarian. Parent/infant? Authoritarian. Bank/bank customer? Authoritarian. Doctor/patient? Authoritarian.

Probably the only reasonable definition of authoritarian would be something like, "To be ruled/governed by an authority." I've decided that Bill over there gets to be in charge of things, they're the authority. I don't always agree with the decisions they make but they're in charge. Which seems like it would overlap a bit with the idea of democratic centralism.

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.

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.

Yes, and it was good authority to exercise.

Your rights end at the point where they infringe on someone else's rights.

Like, it's my right to walk where I want but it's not my right to walk into your house. Because it's your right to own private property.

Secondly, authoritarianism is not about how many people the law affects. It's about style of governance.

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.

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?

Insofar as authoritarian is a useful metric (not very), Yes and it was good

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.

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.

Significantly less authoritarian than slavery.