Utopian Abundance in Auth Empires

[Sverd]

Is there some actual reason why Authoritarians can't provide Utopian Abundance? I seem to distinctly recall literally every nation throughout history with a stated goal of 'we want to provide for every citizen's happiness' being pretty much by definition authoritarian and totalitarian. Or is this another paradox meme where they're arbitrarily treating 'Egalitarian', the virtue system intended to represent individualism and democracy for the most part, as some kind of bizzare ideal of a stateless commune except you're the state and you're also providing for everyone's needs?

Seriously though, the inability of Authoritarian Empires to provide Utopian living standards make absolutely no sense from either a mechanical or roleplaying perspective. It feels like somebody just thought 'Authoritarians are bad, so they could never even attempt to provide such high living standards for their citizens'. Like come the ♥♥♥♥ on paradox.

[Herr Kommissar]

Also a strong and successful authoritarian regime would have more government autonomy to do things that the government want instead of being held accountable by the people (or big corporations). Therefore, if their intentions are good, then a successful authoritarian regime can overcome difficulties that are usually considered impossible to overcome in democracies where government are heavily influenced by industry leaders or even controlled by a elite group who only focus on self-interest.

Examples of "successful" authoritarian regimes: Singapore and China
I'm not saying there arn't any drawback and weaknesses for authoritarian regimes. There are many potential drawbacks and weaknesses, but those are well aware by most people already.

[Herr Kommissar]

Originally posted by _ALuX_:

Originally posted by Herr Kommissar:

no, if it is communism, everyone will work and will have a very good life because there would be a material abundance. Communism did not work on earth because we were not ready among other limitations

Corruption tends to be a bit of a killer.

Yes indeed. But in a game where things can be made "perfect", and crappy complexities can be ignored, then I think its ok to assume something like communism can be given a chance to operate like how it was theorized.

[_ALuX_]

Originally posted by Herr Kommissar:

Originally posted by _ALuX_:

Corruption tends to be a bit of a killer.

Yes indeed. But in a game where things can be made "perfect", and crappy complexities can be ignored, then I think its ok to assume something like communism can be given a chance to operate like how it was theorized.

True.

[Army Pea]

Although I totally agree with the OP in principle (why couldn’t there be a empire whose subjects totally accept a class based society including slavery)

But I suspect the reason is balance.
Utopia living standard would be OP as all hell if you gave it to a mineral heavy slaving regime

[tempest.of.emptiness]

In the context of Stellaris, your Authoritarian empire won't want to provide its citizens with "utopian abundance" because that will cause selection pressure favoring Egalitarianism over Authoritarianism. It isn't that your Authoritarian pops are deprived; rather, they have what they need but not so much more than what they need that they forget that they owe all that they have to the state. The people are happy authoritarians instead of unhappy egalitarians, and all is right with the empire.

Besides, the game may not call their living standards "utopian", but ask any citizen of the empire and they will tell you that they are living in a utopia.

[Sverd]

I see I have sparked a meme discussuion about totalitarianism with my week old comment.

Before anyone continues with this, I'd like to define some terms:

TOTALITARIAN: of or relating to a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life.

AUTHORITARIAN: favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom.

Despite the rather slanted definitions, as you'd expect from an inherently anti-autocratic democratic nation, a close look at these two terms will reveal that these mean wildly different things. An *authoritarian* nation is one where you have a strong and largely unchecked central power, as you'd get in a dictatoral or oligarchical state. A *totalitarian* nation refers to a central government that attempts to control the lives of its citizens. Often, the two are the same, as consoloidation of central power tends to come with attempts to control citizen's lives at every level - but not always.

Augustus in the Early Roman Empire was undeniably an authoritarian leader, but in no way a totalitarian, Stalin was both, and the post-Stalin USSR was totalitarian but generally not authoritarian, as the central power (authority) was checked by complex machinations of a sprawling, oppressive bureaucracy instead of concentrated.

Please keep this is mind before talking about authoritarians this or hitler that. And yes, I know that Paradox probably just lumped totalitarianism in as an inherent part of authoritarianism - Lord knows 'egalitarian' is much more misused as a semantic term.

[ArcticISAF]

Before, the terms were 'Collectivist' vs 'Individualist' (or similar), and there was just as much debate about the semantics of what each means, and is it proper to have these bonuses for them, and so on. Tons of debate. Especially about the whole slavery part.