draconianism

noun

1. (uncountable, usually)A system of cruel or harsh laws.

   “When an organization has selected its mission and laid out its strategies for attaining it, the job duties inherent in those functions must be monitored to determined that they are being performed adequately. This aspect of monitoring may smack of draconianism or Taylorism, but it is not. All organizations that are successful over time monitor their progress and internal functions.”

2. (alt-of, uncountable, usually)Alternative letter-case form of draconianism.

   “What a store of shame and sorrow is he laying up for himself! I never much admired the vaunt of Draconianism, ‘And all this I dare do, because I dare,’ yet what but this is Lord Byron’s plea!”

   “This latter development is one of the most interesting of all Nazi Draconianisms. Under the Hereditary Farms Law of 1933, all farms up to 312 acres that are capable of supporting a family can never be mortgaged or sold and must be passed on undivided by the owner after his death to the eldest (in some cases the youngest) male heir.”

   “Keane could hardly have laid it on the line more eloquently in his press conference that week, that this was discipline rather than Draconianism. There wasn’t a trace of self-doubt from the manager over the action he’d taken.”

   “But, having seen what monumentally disastrous consequences the Draconianism of their papal predecessors caused, no pope since then could possibly be excusably ignorant of how evil such Draconianism is as a result of the consequences it is all too likely to precipitate regardless of whether or not it is a punishment not exceeding the crime.”

   “The endpoint of Draconianism may not necessarily have been the destination when Hair set sail but my, he got us there in the end, didn’t he? And though I warned of it, I never really thought that what I wrote would become vital in the vain hope of upholding civil liberty.”