Compared to my father's generation who went through Great Depression and fought WW2, compared to the pre-Prague Spring world I was born into, with Cold War, Soviet Bloc, apartheid, US segregation and student rights riots in Paris and London, and the assorted dictatorships. Err, no I can't say we currently have an excess of authoritarianism lately.

We have a slight lean back after seventy years of steady post-WW2 liberalisation, decline of deference and increasing freedoms. Economically we could have had a more interesting conversation... :)