Many countries include ‘Democratic’ or ‘People’s’ in their names, even though they are not democratic and do not serve their people. Examples: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Lao People’s Democratic Republic People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria Democratic Republic of the Congo And German Democratic Republic (East Side) in 1949–1990. None of these states are democratic, power and wealth are concentrated in the hands of a small ruling elite. Who are they fooling with these names?
Authoritarian simply indicates how much power the government has. There’s not a perfectly precise boundary, but you’d have to be crazy to say North Korea has the same degree as France. This sort of “all sides” argument is reductive and problematic.
The DPRK doesn’t put people in prison for having weed and does put people in prison for exploiting other citizens. Both governments have near absolute power, the main difference is how that power is used.
Every state is Authoritarian by that soft definition. That just leaves the question of who weilds the authority and who benefits from it.
The “reductive and problematic” argument here is the pro-fascist talking point that the dictatorship of capital is freedom and anything else is “authoritarian”.
If there is no reasonable way for a citizen (as in, somebody not currently part of the government) in the DPRK to influence the laws, then that is what makes it authoritarian. It’s about governance not capital.