Well that’s the thing, contextualized with imperialist powers waiting in the wings, being auth-left is more functional. Contextualized into an environment with weaker/non-existent imperialist powers and the costs (in human harm) begin to outweigh the benefits, and so shifting to a more lib-left model would likely be better.

As to your second point, I think that being useful for oppressed people and being popular aren’t linked. Left populism, more likely. Right populism? Mostly gonna fuck over a large number of the adherents (along with quite a few others). I’ve already conceded that threatened people will find strength compelling, and auth-left/right will usually have more functional strength than lib-left/right. People will want more egalitarianism as they become more secure, I think this isn’t controversial? I’d even make the argument that there’s very basic psychological/evolutionary reasons why this would be the case.

I think different ideologies find traction for a variety of reasons and are successful or help people for a different set of reasons. (With some overlap). I also would argue that anarchism is pretty antithetical to state formation, so it’s a little unfair to use that as a measuring stick when we still live in a very threatened and dysfunctional world, maybe when we have generalized security for all people this will change? I would argue that some anarchist/libertarian principles have been implemented in various societies to the benefit of many. Democracies are more egalitarian than monarchies for one.