My opinion on this topic, so take it for what it is and nothing more
Libertarian versus Authoritarian isn't a left/right issue at all. You can have extremely left wing economic policy in a highly authoritarian government; you can have extremely right wing economic policy in a highly libertarian government.
Most of the people in the US lean libertarian, even if we don't really think of it that way. We take individual liberty for granted most of the time, and don't really think about it. We have a LOT of personal freedoms, and we tend to get really cranky when the government violates those freedoms. Much of Europe is a bit less libertarian than the US, but still wouldn't fall into the authoritarian side of the scale. On the other hand... North Korea is definitely very authoritarian.
Nothing is well defined, but where I've ended up over the years (with some influence from Political Compass a couple decades ago) is the following:
Left versus Right has a lot more to do with economic policy, and how much of a country's monetary system and policies are controlled. Left includes more regulation that governs how people are allowed to make money, how much money they can make, minimum wages and incomes, and a high degree of taxation. Right includes less regulation over how people make money, fewer wealth or income caps on both individuals and businesses, and lower taxation.
Libertarian versus Authoritarian has to do with how much the government controls our social life, sets laws around what we can and cannot do, what behaviors are deemed legally acceptable or not, including moral and religious structures. Libertarian governments tend to have very few limits on personal behavior, beliefs, and actions. Authoritarian governments tend to place more legal limitations on how people behave and comport themselves, are more likely to require a state religion with adherence (or to prohibit religion, think USSR secularism), etc. To oversimplify, libertarian views tend to focus on restricting what the government is allowed to do, where authoritarian views tend to focus on requiring what citizens must do.
These two sliding scales have been more or less established for a while now. Over the past few years, I've started to think we need another scale, orthogonal to those two: Conservative versus Progressive. This has less to do with the
direction of economic or social policy, and more to do with the
rate of change and
extremity of change of policies being put in place.
To me, the US is generally somewhat right economically, and fairly libertarian socially. We're not at the far end of either of those scales. And it's not a fixed position by any means. But generally, we have fewer and more generous regulations, taxes, and wealth restraints than other countries. Monaco might be arguably more right than the US economically... but it's a tough call because while they have no taxes on personal income, capital gains, inheritance, or wealth, they do have fairly tight government oversight of businesses. North Korea is far more left than the US in terms of economic policy - pretty much any planned economy where the government controls all aspects of income, money, and business endeavors is far left. We also have fairly high degree of individual freedoms compared to other countries, we have fairly well-established property rights, considerably limitations on how much the federal government is allowed to interfere in your life, separation of church and state, self-defense protections, and many other liberties. Switzerland is arguably more libertarian than the US. China is far more authoritarian, especially when you consider social credit scores and similar restraints on personal behavior. Any theocracy will be extremely authoritarian.
I've come to think that historically US republicans have been moderate right and US democrats have been moderate left. The degree of regulatory authority given the government, the amount of control over economics, and the level of taxation have been a significant divide between the two parties for a century. But they aren't as clearly divided when it comes to liberty and authority - they've flip-flopped many times in general, and each current party holds strong authoritarian views on some topics and strong libertarian views on others.
Right now... conservative versus progressive seems to me to be the strongest divide. Republicans are mostly (not completely) in the camp of "don't change things" and Democrats are mostly (not completely) in the camp of "change many things a whole lot". Most normal humans in the US (of which IIDB is not at all representative) tend to be moderately conservative (not opposed to change, but want to take it slow most of the time), moderately libertarian (do your own thing as long as you aren't hurting others), and moderately left (we need to fund the government and social policies, but don't get greedy about it).
IIRC, most of the long-term members on IIDB skew left-libertarian, but tend to be more left than the general population. I view myself as classically liberal - moderately left on economic policy, middling libertarian, and just slightly on the conservative side of the rate of change - I want to take it slow and make sure it works, especially when a bit change has a risk of causing harm that might be very difficult to recover from. A few of the members here are very strongly progressive, and far more left than I am... and they have a weird social approach that seems to be extremely authoritarian about forcing some liberties into place and I really struggle to make sense of that.
en.wikipedia.org
