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Originally Posted by Detroitdad
I prefer my regulation to be economic rather than related to civil liberties.
Authoritarian is different than totalitarian. Totalitarian would be more like Iraq used to be or the Soviets or in Zimbabwe with Mugabe, with complete suppression of the press and civil society. Authoritarian societies do some suppressing and heavily control the content, but allow some press freedom within certain parameters.
Hong Kong and Singapore are poster societies for what is called the "authoritarian bargain" in which a regime makes promises of economic development in exchange for lessened civil liberties and frequently democratic rights. This is shopped as the Asian model of development, and many who buy into the theory beliieve that it is only suited for Asian societies with their purported emphasis on societal harmony over individualism. Less clear is how the authoritarian bargain will mesh with "revolution of rising expectations " another theory on democracy (which is borne out by quite a bit of empiricism) that holds that societies are willing to make these tradeoffs until they have reached a certain income level and as life improves then they demand more rights. This theory is the single biggest hope that the rest of the world has for China in becoming more open to human rights, etc.
As for the last paragraph, exempting some people from taxation is a form of progressive taxation because it requires some people to pay more while others pay nothing. Of course, the system that you advocate would be much less progressive, but it would still have progressive features.
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It has one progressive feature, an incentive for those who don't earn enough to contribute to taxation. In fact I have seen models where the closer you get to taxation level, you get benefits to encourage removal from welfare.