Sliding Scale of Libertarianism and Authoritarianism

As stated in the Strawman Political article, in the real world, everyone is the hero of their own story, and this extends to their beliefs, especially political. This can influence authors' work to lean in one way or the other. Note: this does not refer to economic neoliberalism, which in the US is often referred to as "libertarianism", but simply the absence of authority

One of the dimensions of politics is the libertarian/authoritarian axis.

• Libertarianism is about the individual having freedom to do whatever he likes. "As long as he isn't hurting anyone else" is often, but not necessarily, part of the description. In Western society, there tends to be a positive portrayal of such societies.
• Authoritarianism is about things being best if someone (preferably someone good) is running things for the good of all. The state will control things for the greater good. In modern society, these tend to be portrayed negatively, though they don't have to be.

Please note: This list is ranked with Libertarian examples near the top and Authoritarian examples near the bottom. The lower on the list, the more Authoritarian the example.

Also please note: This list refers to "libertarianism" only in the social sense, leaving arguments about economics out of it. And to limit the Internet Backdraft and disputed listings on this page, please list only societies in fictional works. No straight Real Life examples, please; Wikipedia has plenty of those.

Examples of Sliding Scale of Libertarianism and Authoritarianism include:

Most Libertarian—Almost no rules.

• The North American Confederacy in The Probability Broach carries its libertarianism to almost ridiculous levels. When they discover that a faction is smuggling nuclear weapons from our timeline in order to set up a dictatorship, they refuse to act directly because the right to keep and bear arms is sacred. (Incidentally, this is not a parody; the NAC is the author's ideal society.)
• Data Angels from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
• In The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Luna, both while it is "ruled" by a Lunar Authority which only expects grain exports from its citizens and lets them handle their own affairs otherwise, and during the period between freedom from the Lunar Authority and recognition by Earth.
• JC Denton in Deus Ex is moderately authoritarian at the beginning of the game, but he progresses into this. He can be either very authoritarian or very libertarian depending on the ending you choose.
• Rapture began as this, but unfortunately was run by a Hypocrite Control Freak and quickly began dropping down the levels when the leader felt his control over "his" city was threatened. By the time of The Sequel, Rapture's in the "most authoritarian" category because its newest dictator holds the exact opposite political philosophy to its founder, and practices what she preaches.
• Galt's Gulch in Atlas Shrugged is a free-market anarchy. The world outside of it, on the other hand, is anything but.
• The planet Anares in The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin is a libertarian socialist society where a state, government, prisons, and even money don't exist. People do jobs simply because they want to help keep things running and the only punishment that exists is social stigma.
• In an increasingly rare dystopia example, Natasha Yar's home planet of Turkana IV was a near-lawless hinterland filled with factional warlords and roving rape gangs. Not a nice place for nice people, as evidenced by her gruff younger sister, Ishara.
  • Camor V, home of a man who was genetically-altered to look like Picard's long-lost illegitimate son, had been devastated during war with the Cardassians and also became a lawless hinterland filled with violent outlaws.
• Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution series gives us not one but two anarchist Utopias, although only one of them was Libertarian (the other was Communist).
  • Technically the anarcho-communist utopia was just as libertarian as the free-market one in the original sense of the word "libertarian"; which was actually coined by an anarcho-communist all the way back in 1857.
• Carried to its logical conclusion in an early episode of The Simpsons, when Springfield takes a self-help guru's message too far. Everyone only does what they want and waives any kind of responsibility. Hilarity Ensues.
• A∴A∴, the secret society beyond all secret societies in the Illuminatus-trilogy believes in absolute freedom of thought and action. They very subtly influence the society in order to maximize individual freedoms, but they're crippled by their primary dogma that forbids them any direct interference with the normal society. Though their leader is old and wise enough to know that in the long term almost everything will work out, even if it means waiting for the civilization to collapse and rise again.
• Ron Swanson of Parks and Recreation is a self-described Libertarian. In his own words, "My idea of a perfect government is one guy who sits in a small room at a desk, and the only thing he’s allowed to decide is who to nuke. The man is chosen based on some kind of IQ test, and maybe also a physical tournament, like a decathlon. And women are brought to him, maybe... when he desires them."
• The Culture of Iain Banks' novels is an interstellar post-scarcity anarchist society in which there is no government and no formal laws. Fashions, fads, customs and etiquette are the closest thing it has to them, and they play a big role in its citizens' lives (often simply to alleviate boredom). As Banks described in a newsgroup post:

"The Culture doesn't actually have laws; there are, of course, agreed-on forms of behaviour; manners, as mentioned above, but nothing that we would recognise as a legal framework. Not being spoken to, not being invited to parties, finding sarcastic anonymous articles and stories about yourself in the information network; these are the normal forms of manner-enforcement in the Culture. The very worst crime (to use our terminology), of course, is murder (defined as irretrievable brain-death, or total personality loss in the case of an AI). The result - punishment, if you will - is the offer of treatment, and what is known as a slap-drone. All a slap-drone does is follow the murderer around for the rest of their life to make sure they never murder again."

• Slaadi from Dungeons & Dragons and proteans from Pathfinder, fittingly for embodiments of chaos.
• The United States in Jennifer Government. Taxes of any kind are considered "socialist", and all functions of society are run by private companies. Schools are funded by corporations, hospitals are either privatised or religious charities, the Police (Inc.) are a Private Military Contractor. There are laws, but the only things we see that are actually branded as illegal are murder and destruction of property (insider trading is explicitly mentioned as perfectly legal), and if you can't pay to have crimes against you investigated, you're out of luck. The only punishment that exists is fines, paid to the victim or his/her dependents and if you can't pay, you're sent to a forced labour facility (which can get you even deeper into debt if you don't earn enough to pay for your food and board). In the end, the corporate high-ups decide that a lawless capitalist anarchy is worse than having some outside checks.
• Extropia in the game Eclipse Phase. Libertarians colonize planetoids in the Asteroid Belt. Everything is based on the free market. When visiting, you are strongly advised to hire your own security, insurance, etc. A micro-credit system governs every interaction, and there is no central government, only slightly dominant companies.
  • The Anarchists scattered across the outer solar system are only slightly less libertarian with a Post-Scarcity economy distributed by A Is but still no government. The Titanian Commonwealth is a slightly centralized direct democracy with the same economic model.
  • The 'slightly dominant' security corps. are actually a bit of Author's tract on how such a society cannot work due to powerful competitors not wanting to actually compete with up-starts and instead ruin their rep. or buy them out.

Authoritarian-Light—More Control

• Traveller is an odd-ball compared to the other examples here. Despite its massive battleships and it's lavish aristocracy the Imperium actually has a libertarian ideology and style of government, necessitated by the vast space it rules over. However the Imperial government will not take nonsense and can play pretty rough when it wants to. Local worlds vary in their "control rating" as do states outside the Imperium. Commerce is regulated but not particularly restricted and the Imperial law deals mostly with crimes regarding interstellar commerce (piracy, etc), crimes in specifically Imperial territory (normal crimes in a Starport), and crimes specifically against the Imperium (treason, murder of a Noble or his retainers while in Imperial service, etc), and so on. The Imperial government however, interferes little in local customs unless it feels them outrageously abominable and even allows minor local wars to be fought as long as they don't make to much of a mess. It would probably be classed as libertarian normally but authoritarian at given times and places.
• Earth in Larry Niven's Known Space has Population Control.
  • Later stories in the series reveal that Earth has a dark underside with a very authoritarian government, while pretending to be libertarian on he surface.
• Ankh-Morpork from the Discworld books is run by Manipulative Bastard extraordinaire Havelock Vetinari, a dictator who prefers to arrange matters so he hardly ever has to exercise his absolute authority.
• The Earth Alliance in Babylon 5. At first glance it is a respectable republic but there is many a Government Conspiracy.
• The Federation from Star Trek, which tries to strike a balance between its ideals and combating enemy civilizations like the Borg.
• The Planetary Consortium of Eclipse Phase is an oligarchy posing as a democracy controlled by the Hypercorps.
• Most of Robert Heinlein's "good" societies that aren't anarchies. Though given his distaste for democracy most are government types that would normally be a bit higher on the scale.
  • Starship Troopers: The Terrain Federation only allows military (and other risky forms of civil service) veterans to vote. However, unlike every real country that has service as a requirement for citizenship (i.e. Switzerland) it is not mandatory and they never institute a draft. Rico's non-voting civilian parents were quite wealthy.
    • Overall, nowhere near as fascistic as in the In Name Only film adaptation.
  • Secundus in Time Enough for Love was founded as a "constitutional dictatorship" where the chairman has few rights and the people, "bless their flabby black hearts", get none.

Authoritarian-Moderate—For the good of the many.

• The entire Tau philosophy in Warhammer 40,000 is "for the greater good".
  • Ironically, in the setting they are one of the most progressive races.
• The Ministry of Magic from Harry Potter, although by the seventh book it's nothing more than a front organization for the (extremely authoritarian) Death Eaters.
• The Alliance from Firefly is a free and democratic society, but with a huge number of rules that they are very serious about enforcing. Like every government, good and bad, the Alliance has some dirty laundry: it practices human experimentation on its citizens without their consent.
• The Klingons, Romulans and Cardassians from Star Trek, which are authoritarian but at least encourage competition for power.

Most Authoritarian—One organization controls the majority of life.

• One State in We
• San Angeles in Demolition Man.
• Redliners novel by David Drake
• The Hive from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
• Alpha Complex from Paranoia—only there, your pathetic lives belong to the Computer.
• Formians from Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. (And Bee People in general.)
• V for Vendetta's Norsefire.
• Oceania in 1984. The rival superstates of Eurasia and Eastasia are implied to be no better.
• The Imperium of Man from Warhammer 40,000. However, the Imperium is, by necessity, hugely decentralized, on account of the huge number of worlds. Because of this, the Empire allows individual worlds a great amount of latitude in governance (each planet has a planetary governor, but the way each planet selects it's governor runs the gamut from free, open elections to Trial by Combat) The Imperium does, however, always enforce tithes (basically planetary taxes to the central government, including a quota of psychic humans) and religion, mainly in the persecution of heretics and psykers.
• The totalitarian and collectivist Borg from Star Trek.
• The Galactic Empire from Star Wars.
• Panem and the Capitol from The Hunger Games
• In Eclipse Phase the Jovian Junta Republic is essentially a Latin American military Junta on the moons of Jupiter. They're also one of the few polities in the solar system that attempt to make 20th century capitalism work with Nanofabricators.