Mr @jacobtothe i am so glad and surprised to see your sentence:

how would you want to live without some authoritarian breathing down your neck?

This is exactly what i say to my friends in short, that we humans somehow have a lot of fears in ourselves by default and then other fears are injected by society. Insecurity about future, health and wealth makes us so weak that we look for a stronger person who can lead and dominate us. Well said :)