@Deceptichum I was moved to look up the particular snippet of Engels's writing, and was confronted with this:

All these workers, men, women and children, are obliged to begin and finish their work at the hours fixed by the authority of the steam, which cares nothing for individual autonomy.

The "authority of the steam", by which I think Engels means to refer to the inexorable power of the machinery itself, "which cares nothing for individual autonomy". And then he gets to...

Wanting to abolish authority in large-scale industry is tantamount to wanting to abolish industry itself, to destroy the power loom in order to return to the spinning wheel.

Machines are powerful, therefore authoritarianism is necessary. Uh-huh.