Mandates are authoritarian it is a governing body putting its authority on to you. It’s the literal definition here is a dictionary definition if it helps

It’s also authoritarian to mandate don’t commit murder or don’t steal.

This is a mandate from a governing body that strips away freedoms that previously existed. No idea where this idea of morality is coming from but it sounds like you might be mixing up fascism with authoritarianism. Fascism is an extreme form of authoritarianism with a heavy right wing influence as well.

I am not calling for a lack of uniforms

Socialism has a state which makes mandates upon those it has power over again text book authoritarianism but THAT DOESNT MEAN ITS BAD

I am not saying all authority is bad as it is needed but if you make a sliding scale of how much authority a governing body has and you take a neutral scenario like a school and you add a mandate that forces students to follow a specific dress code that’s a sliding of the scale to auth and away from anarchy