Authoritarian is a meaningless pejorative used by the unintelligent and uneducated to avoid class analysis. Every state exercises coercion. The question is which class benefits. China’s legal system has demonstrably reduced corruption and constrained capital’s excesses in ways other (Western) systems have not. If your ideal “leftism” cannot account for who holds power and how law serves that power, then your ideal is simply fantasy.
Authoritarian is a meaningless pejorative used by the unintelligent and uneducated to avoid class analysis. Every state exercises coercion. The question is which class benefits. China’s legal system has demonstrably reduced corruption and constrained capital’s excesses in ways other (Western) systems have not. If your ideal “leftism” cannot account for who holds power and how law serves that power, then your ideal is simply fantasy.