Neoliberalism is a fascist coercion deployment and the imperial Jingoism to Socialism’s more sentimental Maoism
The left is the right just called the left. They are one in the same. Bought by the donor epstein class. America is doomed.
Not true but it’s why Marx saw socialism as the necessary intermediary.
Capitalists are like cucks for billionaires. Think of the billionaire as a shark and the capitalists as Remora fish. /s
Neoliberals are right wing
All liberalism is on the right. The left starts at anti-capitalism. It’s been that way for quite a long time now. Liberals just like to act like they are “center-left” because it helps maintain the capital order.
Liberals just like to act like they are “center-left” because it helps maintain the capital order.
Also because liberalism started as the “left”; being anti-monarchy and advocating for a representative democracy. It’s well after when liberalism became the status quo that it became the default ideology and thus became the new conservative or right.
You can be anticapitalist and liberal at the same time, you just need to believe that people should have the right to live as they’d like.
People aren’t digging your comment because I think you haven’t distinguished between liberal social values of upholding personal liberty and free and fair elections, with the liberal economic value private ownership of capital. The former makes sense and non-negotiable. The latter is becoming obsolete overtime.
Technically correct, but this combination of beliefs only appears in people who have no political education or class consciousness.
You are free to have a personal definition of the word “liberal” that differs from the widely accepted academic definition. It’s just not helpful in discussion to assume everyone else uses that definition.
Okay.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
Yup. Checks out. Rights of the individual, government through consent, etc…sounda like I’m using the commonly accepted academic definition.
Are you perhaps using the American definition provided by Fox News/tankies, that the meme references?
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property, and equality before the law.
Left out a VERY important part of that definition there, bucko.
You fundamentally cannot be a proponent of liberalism without fundamentally supporting capitalism. It’s literally part of the definition of liberalism.
Correct. Prior to the concept of liberalism, all property was owned by the king and nobility. Liberalism includes the idea that non-nobles can own property. It also predates the distinction between private and personal property by a good 200 years.
You can be anticapitalist and liberal at the same time
No, that doesn’t even “check out” on the NATOpedia article. Even that article is explicit that liberalism is fundamentally a pro-capitalist ideology with private property as a core aspect. But it is fun watching you did a hole for yourself, step into it, then declare victory.
And how is the OP meme referencing anything “tankies” say, other than that the person speaking in the OP image is someone you would call a “tankie”? See that little hammer and sickle next to her name? You really are deeply confused, aren’t you.
It actually specifies property in general. Now, I know tankies like to see that and append “private” in front, but Liberalism has been around for hundreds of years longer than marxism, and prior to liberalism, property was handed out by the king, and owning property meant you were a noble.
The idea that non-nobility can own anything, including personal property, is a liberal idea.
Yeah, that’s like saying you live in a forest fire, but believe folks can decide to not just spontaneously combust
One describes the level of control authorities have over your life, the other is an economic system.
I know that conflating the two would really make tankie arguments much simpler, but unfortunately they are separate dimensions of politics.
That’s just pure ideology based in propaganda. Liberalism is inherently pro-capitalism, and you are deluding yourself if you don’t understand that. You can’t separate politics and economics, that’s why marxists use the term “political economy”.
This is quite the nothing-burger reply you’ve assembled. What’s the definition of Liberal you’re operating on?
Honestly, I’ve reread your first sentence so many times. I might make a hat with it.
Here ya go.
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property, and equality before the law.
Great, that’s the same one I follow, but you’re not the one I was asking.
If that is the definition you’re working on, it’s pro-capitalism.
Also, it’s a public forum, dillweed. Didn’t matter you didn’t ask me specifically.
If the idea that people should have the freedom to control their own lives is inherently capitalist, you’ve just convinced me that capitalism is inherently good.
You’re missing the part of the definition of liberalism that upholds the right to private property, which is the core foundation of capitalism.
There are other ideologies that uphold the right to control your own life that don’t also uphold private property, such as socialism.
The right to private property is also the core foundation of being able to own property of any kind without being (a) the king or (b) granted a title of nobility by the king.
The distinction between personal and private property arose a few hundred years later.
Uh huh.
Don’t forget to pay rent this month.
Rent? What’s that? Some poor people thing?
Very Free. Much Liberty!
Propaganda has burrowed so deep into your thinking. Capital accumulation is inherently oppressive.
I didn’t know that freedom to live your life as you see fit was the accumulation of capital.
Your continued conflation of personal liberty and capitalism is the core of your confusion. Fix that flaw in your understanding, and you might be able to reckon with the reality of political economy without these propaganda fairtales obscuring the truth.
Couldn’t agree more. They want to take from the working and give to the lazy. but dont worry they dont want kids so they wont be around for long
I go to work, company takes my labor and gives it to the lazy shareholder. Checks out.
Lazy is a lazy term.
More and more people have been working three jobs and living pay check to pay check and still can’t afford basic expenses. But i guess you will tell them that they should work harder nonetheless because your entire worldview is “fuck you, got mine.”
They want to take from the working and give to the lazy.
And who taught you that work vs lazy should determine who gets what?
Thinking of the world as two directions is literal one dimensional thinking. The real problem is a society willing to operate with just one neural weight.
that’s the american way.
Liberals share one central feature with fascists; they both support private property rights. So if liberals have to choose between socialism and fascism they will always choose the latter.
Liberalism doesn’t distinguish between Private Property and Personal property.
You’re conflating.
This is supported by history.
So you’d like it if this current government seized your property?
Private property are things that are held by shareholders and landlords, not your own possessions.
Socialists believe fixed public assets like utilities and bridges and hospitals, belongs to everyone not a small class of monied interests.
This is why they are hated by both liberals and fascists.
Private property is capital is the means of production. Socialists believe that the means of production belong to everyone. So factories, farms, financial institutions, etc. — not just hospitals and infrastructure, but the entire engine of the economy.
In leftist theory, there is a difference between “private property” and “personal property/belongings.”
Private property is property owned specifically for generating profit. For example, owning a home to rent it out, or shares in a company.
Personal property/belongings are things you use. For example, the home you live in, your car, your toothbrush, etc. Under socialism, if multiple people use something, then you all partly own it, e.g. you would also partly own the business you work for (“the means of production”). You own everything you use and nothing you don’t
The liberalism that is practiced in the US is neoliberalism, the same thing practiced throughout the developed world, and we don’t see ideological movements in power specifically because business interests have historically intervened to overthrow those governments in order to install friendlier regimes that let them plunder natural resources.
But then neoliberalism ultimately favors property rights over human rights, and as Marx observes in Das Kapital the owner class will influence the courts to favor property and business over the public good. It’ll also hack law to gain influence over the government to deregulate and protect the power of the wealthiest plutocrats and companies.
Democracies and leninist economies have existed. They just get put down before they have much of a chance to flourish. Even Wilson favored monarchists over communists.
In the US, we can’t imagine anything other than capitalism because of over a century of propaganda inserted into our primary schooling. That campaign has only gotten more and more conservative and now MAGA ideology is taught in class. This was deliberate, as the US education system was always regarded as an instrument of control and worker indoctrination.
Liberalism, in all of its forms current and historic, has always valued property over human lives. Property is the guiding principle of liberalism.
I’ll grant you that’s likely to be true for all forms of government informed by liberalism, but that’s because charters tend to be written by landowners (and in the US, slave owners), so we have a long run of people creating governments contrived to let its framers keep their property and political power.
But I suspect within political theory, there exist forms of liberalism in which the human rights of individuals outweigh the right to property, especially large scale ownership. In fact, economic theory has long observed that the extreme consolidation of wealth is corrosive to economic systems, to government, to the rule of law, and to society. Combined with the historic trend of wealth to consolidate upwards and eventually capture political power (discussed by Marx in Das Kapital), this means any such system will only be quasi-stable, ultimately leading to corruption of the government and collapse of the economy. It’s also the point of the game Monopoly.
According to Wikipedia regarding property rights, Controversy [centers] upon who is deemed to have property rights protected (e.g. human beings or also corporations), the type of property which is protected (property used for the purpose of consumption or production) and the reasons for which property can be restricted (for instance, for regulations, taxation or [nationalization] in the public interest).
Curiously, there is a stark contrast between the right to own possessions, and a right to own large-scale real-estate and capital (id est, the means of production) and it may be in the best interest of society to heavily restrict or even abolish the latter.
But as we’ve seen in the case of the USSR, we’d have to do that worldwide, as there will always be Wilsons out there eager to rollback such a government towards capitalism again, or create a doctrine of containment (Wilson called it quarantine ) and force a trade embargo. So long as there are plutocrats there will be militaries looking to conquer and annex. (Heck, right now, our current plutocratic class is looking to create robotic military forces that can be controlled by AI.)
Huh. It reminds me of the international response to the 1789 French revolution, which was to demand of France that they select and erect a new monarch, since a republic or a democracy that worked might incite revolts in their own kingdoms.
I get that these terms get tossed around without people knowing what they mean, and I’m not against language evolving. But liberalism was never really intended to describe wherever you are on a progressive-conservative spectrum.
Pulling from Wikipedia, but it’s a similar definition in most texts.
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property, and equality before the law.
Classical liberals just tended to look progressive compared to people who weren’t liberals, because, well, read the definition. The countervailing force to liberalism is authoritarianism. It’s more of a government legitimacy and structure philosophy.
rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property, and equality before the law.
One of those things is not like the others, and that’s the fundamental problem with liberalism. Private property is antithetical to liberty, equality, and consent of the governed because it enables the exploitation of labor and creates a class hierarchy. By defending the individual’s “right” to private property liberals betray every other value they claim to uphold.
I’m only replying because I think this is a situation of conflicting definitions.
In terms of liberalism, private property is the legally recognized right of individuals or non-governmental groups to own, control, use, and transfer land, goods, and assets to the exclusion of others.
I think folks should be working off the same definitions in a conversation, or at least clarify their working definitions and identify differences. E.g. private vs personal property. If you believe in your right to own a toothbrush, or a painting, or a mattress, and have control over its use or exclusion of use by others, then whether you call it private property or personal property rights, I think you are on the same page, in principle, with most folks. After that, the difference is a matter of extent to common societal infrastructure.
But not clarifying the words we use and what we mean them to be makes everyone feel further apart on these issues.
Just my two cents.
The definition you gave - and that liberals use - makes no distinction between private and personal property, and therefore encompasses both. Because of that it becomes a matter of interpretation whether limits to what a person can own infringe on their right, and when the power in society lies with those who own the means of production and use it to exploit labor there is an incentive to interpret the right as being without limits. That’s why I believe that establishing a “right” to property is fundamentally problematic. It would be better instead to cover the things a person ought to have with other rights such as a right to shelter, a right to basic needs such as food and water, a right to be secure in their personal effects, etc.
The only comment I’ll make, is that being clear with definitions and which part of a definition you disagree with is helpful to discussions. I agree that private property is a superset of personal property. But in your response you didn’t introduce the distinction nor explain the part of the definition you find antithetical to liberty. I think most people wouldn’t know the different definitions and would have a knee jerk reaction to what you are saying, potentially interpreting your statement more strongly than you intend. Unless you intend to say you find individual ownership of toothbrushes antithetical to liberty.
That’s all. Have a great day!
I get where you’re coming from and I agree that it’s important to speak in a way that gets your meaning across clearly to your audience, but in this case since I’m commenting in a political memes community on a platform used mostly by leftists I expect people to have some familiarity with the concept of private vs. personal property. I would communicate differently - and I do - when talking to people in other settings.
I really like this way of looking at it.
One thing though, the countervailing force to liberalism is illiberalism. Authoritarians can be liberal even if in theory they oppose individual rights. This is seen in liberal autocracy and ordoliberalism.
That’s fair, illiberalism is the proper countervailing force here, it just has some Venn diagram overlap with authoritarianism where the latter curtails political freedoms. It is easy to conflate them!
How do you oppose individual rights while supporting the individual right to self determination?
Liberal autocracy is an oxymoron, unless you define liberalism along the progressive-conservative spectrum. Which is what the capitalists and autocrats and tankies would like you to do.
Dictatorships which doesn’t enforce some specific social order, but which does aggressively stomp out criticism. See - people who moved to UAE and thought it was a free country until their government didn’t like what they said anymore.
…that is an example of enforcing a specific social order…?
Maybe I should’ve specified culture / moral
Well, if we’re adding qualifiers, then NK is an example of freedom and liberty. As long as I specify that we’re talking about pooping only. I don’t think thats illegal.
I think you may be confusing authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
As some other people have pointed out liberalism can be across the spectrum and does not really define political leaning.
I think you perhaps hold liberalism to higher ideals when in reality it has always been the propaganda the wealthy use to obscure their actual goals.
Well. Yeah. All politics is the application of high-minded ideals to the real world. Communism is supposed to lead to the dissolution of the state, and it leads to a different group of wealthy people in charge. Capitalism is supposed to give the common man access to wealth, and it leads to a group of wealthy people in charge. Case in point:
Authoritarianism is the ideal implementation of a hierarchical structure in society. Totalitarianism is what it looks like in practice.
Liberalism is the idea that everyone should have the right to live how they see fit. Of course everyone is going to try and co-opt that.
I can agree with a lot of that except for capitilism. A byproduct of small business capitalism is it does an okay job at distributing wealth. This is not the goal of capitalism, but a side effect of its initial stage.
Liberalism is the propaganda the wealthy class use to maintain control.
That’s kind of the point. Everything in the ideal sense helps the common man, and everything in reality is co-opted by the wealthy into propaganda used to maintain control. Some things work better than others.
The concept that people have the right to self determination is, in my opinion, more resilient to co-optation by the wealthy, because even the most ardent modern bootlicker still fundamentally believes it is their choice.
I agree, but with the caveat that the concept and reality are two different things.
The definition of liberalism changed a lot, especially thanks to right-wing entryism.
Words lose their meaning over time. Once “alt-girl” meant a woman specifically into alternative rock, and not an umbrella-term also involving metalheads, goths, punks, etc. Once cuck meant someone with a cuckoldry fetish, now it’s a pejorative used against people who (at least supposed to) bend over and do nothing in situations really bad for them. Once LARP meant Live Action Role Playing, now it used to demean “fake” fans.
Liberalism once stood for liberty, equality, and paternity. But paternity stood in the way of capital, so liberalism split into three main groups: socialism, moderate conservatism (neoliberalism, classical liberalism, you know the rest), and social democracy.
For the cuck one, it’s not so much that they bend over and do nothing, it’s that that actively invite it. That’s the parallel to the fetish - just doing nothing but also not consenting would be adultery. Consenting and facilitating it is what makes someone a cuckold.
The LARP comment when I’ve seen used as a pejorative is mostly in “stolen valour” type situations. For example, ICE officers LARP as real cops, cops LARP as soldiers, etc. It’s use as an insult is to imply that someone is pretending to be/do something they’re not and likely could never aspire to be.
That’s a self-contradictory definition.
For example, ownership of limited resources (something which fall inside that “right to private property” part) actually reduces the “liberty” of most people (which is another part in that definition) because it means a few control access to those resources, something which is painfully obvious in the current prices of housing.
And don’t get me started on how the natural positive feedback-cycle that comes from the “right to private property” - whose ultimate effects can be described in simple terms as “the richer you are the richer you get” - in practice ends up subverting pretty much all of the rest: the rich aren’t treated by the law the same as the rest (because even in the fairest of Justice Systems they can afford better legal representation that those who aren’t as rich), they have far more political power than those who aren’t as rich (because they can buy politicians, which the poor can’t) and it’s a lot easier for them to ensure their rights are abide by than it is for those who have less money for lawyers and courts.
In fact that whole definition feels like the kind of thing concocted by a Think Tank or Marketing Agency to swindle those who can’t think their way past vague flowery positive sounding verbiage.
Liberalism is functionally as much pro-Liberty as the National Socialist Party Of The German Worker was functionally pro-Worker or the Democratic Republic Of North Korea is functionally pro having citizens freely choose who governs their country.
You’re comparing the “right to private property” thing to capitalism and communism, and considering it from the economic vantage, which is precisely what the OP was saying isn’t what the term was for.
Compare it to feudalism. “You’re allowed to have things that are yours, and the king can’t just take your farm”.
There are certainly systems that can be described as free that don’t acknowledge the concept of exclusive ownership, but they usually have to carefully define terms to handle why you can’t take your neighbors wedding ring while they’re showering.
The term is not without economic connotations, of course, but that part was not meant to imply a specific unlimited right. You could address everything on your list and be well within the definition because “you can have possessions” isn’t contradictory with public ownership of scarce or critical resources.
If the definition is so open-ended that just that specific part can be have almost diametrally opposite effects depending on how it’s interpreted, then it’s meaningless and we can only determine what Liberalism really is by looking at the praxis of what it actually does when those who claim to practice it are in power.
The practice of Liberalism is invariably a system were in the more visible and direct ways (mainly the way Justice is enforced) people are given more Liberty than in other systems, yet at the same time that effect is entirelly offset by the second order effects of the resource allocation practices supported by Liberalism and the de facto implementation of the “right to private property” part, since the capture by a few of limited resources systematically restricts the Liberty of most people and the passing of such property from ancestors to descendants keeps such capture (which generally reflects either first-mover advantages or the multiplicative effect of previously held wealth) locked for generations, potentially forever.
I think the plight of Afro-Americans in the US is a wonderful example of how Liberalism in practice works: on one hand Liberals loudly demand equal rights and treatment under the Law for Afro-Americans (this is the visible, positive side), yet at the same time they support and reinforce the very resource allocation systems and interpretation of “right to private property” which keep the poor and downtrodden and their descendants poor and downtrodden, something which in practice seriously affects those who were previously discriminated against, which in America are overwhelmingly Afro-Americans since their ancestors were almost all Slaves: as they were discriminated against including in their access to property, their ancestors did not capture anywhere as many limited resources as the ancestors of those who were not discriminated against, and because how that “right to private property” that the Liberals enforce works, that means that their descendants today are far more likely to be poor, and because of the very system of resource allocation supported by Liberals, poverty means not getting to eat as good food, have access as good healthcare, live in as good housing, sleep in as good beds.
Mistreatment at the hands of the authorities will severely hurt and harm some Afro-Americans at some point of their lives, maybe even for years. Poverty because of “respecting the private property” of those who themselves or their ancestors captured limited resources harms most Afro-Americans 24/7 their whole lives (unsurprisingly, people in poorer areas even have a life expectancy of at least 10 years less than people in richer areas) - overtly Liberals demand “equality” of treatment whilst in practice they support the very systems than locks in the inequality from past discrimination and transform said inequality into life-long suffering.
(To add insult to injury, poverty itself also increases one’s likelihood of being mistreated at the hands of the authorities and increases the hurt and harm caused by it)
Liberals claim to want equal treatment for Afro-Americans whilst making sure the very system around them, because of their ancestors having been severely discriminated against, de facto treats them far, far, worse than most others whilst that specific manifestation of injustice (suffering merely because one was born to poor parents) is put forward as “the way things are”.
No, it really isn’t “the way things are”, it’s the product of how “right to private property” is interpreted.
I wasn’t talking about judging the system, advocating for it or against it.
My entire point was “you can own things” encompasses “no one can take your house” as well as “privitazation of every aspect of public life”.
You’re arguing against a strawman based on the assumption that a broad principle can’t be judged on principle, but must instead be judge on the worst outcomes of the worst implementation of those principles.Much like how “Democracy” encompasses a wide array of systems that are attempts to implement “people are ultimately in control of the systems that govern their lives”. Democracy also has open ended results, and applying the same criteria and judging the concept of Democracy based on observed negative outcomes with positives accounted for leads to the conclusion that people should not be in charge of the systems that govern their lives.
If you invert the principles of liberalism as stated above, you end up with a pretty bleak sounding world that I would not like.
That doesn’t mean that I’m a proponent of the specifics of modern free market liberalism.What’s your notion for what a world would look like without a right to own property, no right to self governance, no right to equality before the law, no right to political equality, and no right to liberty?
What I’m hearing you say is that you’re opposed to failures to live up to the espoused principles, and opposed to cases where taking one of the principles to an extreme undermines the others. I readily agree. The implementation of how private ownership has been enforced and interpreted has been problematic very, very often. I do not think that means I should have no ability to own things, but rather that we need to make it clear the right isn’t absolute to the individual.
It’s terminology derived from the conversation surrounding “people” versus “kings”, as opposed to “individuals” versus “society”. Flipping it around creates friction because an outcome you would accept from a vote and fair trial is different from what you would accept from royal fiat.
My point is that “right to private property” is a far too vague “principle” for something which covers a huge number of often very different situations (from ownership of objects and pets, to that of other people and land), some of which have massive implications on another principle of Liberalism (which is supposedly the main one) - Liberty.
That “principle” alone can nullify everything else in that definition depending on interpretation, making the whole thing flawed because it includes such a massive trap.
I would say that the praxis of how Liberalism is implemented proves that point when it comes to, for example, Land Ownership which is invariably inheritable (which is actually stretching the definition of “right to private property”) - something that is key in entrenching wealth (and hence liberty) inbalances across generations - as well as tending towards the highly individualistic “the owner of the land has supreme power over it” and away from accepting limitations to such supreme power when in the common interest (though, granted, in the US there are actually pretty weird cases which are the opposite of it, in the form of the power that Housing Associations have in the US, plus in other countries there are laws that allow Land to be forcefully purchased to, for example, make roads).
Anyways, I’m not saying that Liberalism has “failed to live up to the espoused principles”, I’m saying that the combination of principles it is made up of per that definition in Wikipedia does not even add up to a coherent set of principles that can be achieved together because it contains inner contradictions - it cannot live up the espouse principles because if you increase some (most namelly “right to private property”) you reduce others (“liberty”) - in other words, to have more Liberty for more people you have to limit the rights of private property is various areas (the most obvious in past times was the when treating people as property - i.e. Slavery - whilst nowadays Land Ownership is key in reducing the Liberty of the many because it makes a world were most people are born landless and unable to acquire land).
To use a methaphor, you cannot claim that an assemblage of sprokets setup in such a way that some work against others, is a “machine” for making all the sprokets turn, since it will never be able to do so.
So what would you have instead of the right to private property?
Do you think that government derived from the consent of the governed is equally vague?
I’m not persuaded by the argument that taking one part to the extreme resulting in issues makes the whole thing invalid. To adapt your metaphor, you can press the clutch and shift a car into 1st on the freeway. Many bad things will result. This isn’t an argument that cars are fundamentally flawed, but that you shouldn’t do the bad thing.
to have more Liberty for more people you have to limit the rights of private property is various areas
Totally agree. That’s not a contradiction to the concept of a right to private property, that’s an invitation to a more nuanced discussion about what the management of property should look like in society.
Well, if the principles of Liberalism have to be picked and chosen - “some more of this some less of that” - rather than all being objectives to be maximized, with very different policies and outcomes for a political governing body depending on they picked and chose to maximize and minimize, then that definition itself isn’t sufficient to define a Political Ideology.
When you wheel out this definition and claim “this is Liberalism” in the context of politics you’re not actually presenting a political ideology, rather you’re presenting a bag of ingredients to make political ideologies with, quite a broad range of political ideologies even since some of the ingredients in that bag don’t actually work well with each other.
It makes total sense in the context of discussing politics for other people to point out concrete implementations of Liberalism as being “Liberalism”, since those things are the actual political ideologies cooked from the Liberalism bag of ingredients, though in all fairness it would be more correct for them to say “this is what’s made with with Liberalism” rather than “this IS Liberalism”.
Anyway, this circles us around to my original point that when talking about politics you can’t just point out to the Wikipedia definition of Liberalism and claim that’s the one true definition of Liberalism because what’s there is not a political ideology but just a bag of ingredients which can be used in quite arbitrary ways - that’s kind of like pointing out at a bag of fruit, sugar, eggs and flour and claiming it’s the one true Cherry Cake to dismiss other people pointing at actual cakes.
What makes a progressivist changes depending on the society they are in.
When liberalism was first invented, it was extremely progressive. People that deny it today are extremely regressive. But yes, it’s not progressive anymore, it’s just the bare minimum.
That’s just not true. Nearly every liberal revolution that occurred in the West was followed by at a century of abject mass poverty. This is because Liberalism posited that everyone who wanted a good life could work hard and get it so there was no need for the wealthy to contribute to society if they didn’t want to. Conservatives (not American conservatives who are actually liberals) said this would be bad and that one reason to maintain the monarchy and the aristocracy was to maintain the system of nobilesse oblige which had been developed to provide for the common good.
The people who spawned liberalism were all ultra wealthy and they hired people to write treatises to make their ideas into palatable systems. John Locke worked for the Earl of Shaftesbury and personally held investment in the Royal Africa Company, England’s slave trading monopoly.
In so far as liberal ideas were progressive, that was primarily their propaganda to get peasants turn on their lords, join the rebellion and fight for the merchants. Once the merchants were in charge, Liberals crushed any populism with the military.
I like this framing as liberalism is just the trojan horse the wealthy used to justify their takeover of the aristocrat class. It is the propaganda used to placate the masses because they don’t know what is actually going on.
No wait. That’s not it at all. Liberalism is the whole thing. It contains within it the myths and propaganda to motivate the masses to its defense, but it is not identical with those things.
Liberalism is, fundamentally, a political movement of, by, and for commercial interests. Commercial interests were international and thus could have greater span of control than national interests. But commercial interests could not be totalizing because national interests were locked into monarchical/noble/aristocratic structures that explicitly locked out commercial interests.
The idea of personal autonomy was absolutely felt earnestly and genuinely by the merchant class because they had gone out, many risking their own lives, and managed to find that one deal that made them an eye-watering fortune and then they had to work politics tirelessly to keep their wealth. They genuinely felt that they should be free by virtue of their wealth, so when they said men should be free to pursue their interests, they genuinely meant it.
They weren’t being devious by defining men to be white European men. That was in-built to their culture already. The Overton Window, so to speak, didn’t include a position that black people were men.
But yes, they ALSO said to the peasants “you can one day be as rich as us” and they sort of meant it
Oof, if you believed that last line that you can be rich you might just have fallen for propaganda.
You are very generous to their motives.
I don’t believe it. I’m saying they actually believed it and saw themselves as heroes. They didn’t really consider the poor to be worth thinking about and fully believed they would produce a utopia with their ideals.
Of course, you were just explaining their point of view.
got a source to back this up? Am genuinly curious.
Capitalism and extreme poverty by Jason Hickel
The Great Transformation by Polanyi (About England)
“What about the Poor?” From France
There’s a bunch more I am not familiar with regarding Latin American liberal transitions and there are others about different European countries.
But also, this is why Marx and Engels got anywhere at all
I feel like this all ignored the complete bastardization of any sense of language or definition in American politics. None of these words mean anything and engaging in it is playing party to the fucked up games people have invented to delay any sort of growth or action.
“Neoliberal conservativeism” was a thing. They’re all nazis now. ‘Liberals’ is a slur against anyone who isn’t left enough. ‘Liberalism’ is the blood-shy self-blind median our parents and grandparents wanted for us so we didn’t have to watch our friends die in imperialists wars in Asia. Libertarianism was supposed to be a rejection of any of this and got coopelted by some of the most evil freaks in the system. The Left represents the most meaningful and poplist messaging we can mannage and is still consumed by bickering from people who can’t walj and chew gum or breathe at the same time.
Stop trying to argue the labels.
The truth is dead. There is no democracy, there is no politics. Just rich people throwing bones.
USA is just an oligopoly.
And they’re using a.i. to make it a sloppy oligopoly.
Challenge: say ‘sloppy oligopoly’ six times really quickly.
It rhymes too well. Makes it easier to say. A good tongue teaser has similar sounds but not in a way that they rhyme.
You would say that you dirty capitalist liberal scum.
Representative democracy is worthless anyways. It favors short term, short-sighted solutions to problems that require long term, sometimes painful corrections. But the party that implements such policies will be heavily punished as soon as the public feels that pain. So instead the public continues to vote in short-sighted but temporary joy seeking politicians.
An epistocracy combined with a civic service model would be far better. To be able to vote you must demonstrate a baseline capability of intelligence and rational thought along with having performed civic service in some way. Otherwise you cannot vote and simply live life normally.
Democracy is simple and instinctual, democracy has the mechanisms to solve the issues you mention, that is what the parliament is for.
But democracy requires good faith, unity and solidarity. The oligarchies have bombarded the baseline of those three by means of the new technologies.
I have hope thought, this conflict between the few against the majority is always there. Twitter made Obama president, Twitter made Trump president.
It doesnt help when the people acting ingood faith, unity, and solidarity have immoral intentions. You can have a fully functioning government that is completely evil. There has to be some inherent conflict to keep us continously evaluating societys trajectory.
Who gets to decide where that baseline is?
Top comment:
Stop trying to argue the labels.
Rest of comments arguing labels.
But, I think we need a banner to gather under, don’t we? Maybe it’s “proletariat”, but not many people know what that means. Your typical American family hasn’t a clue. Most of us aren’t arguing about labels on social media. Most of us are posting TikToks of our dogs, and watching Mr. Beast or Cocomelon(?), apparently. And, whoever-the-hell Charli Grace D’Amelio is. They know “socialist bad” and capitalism is money and they like money. They know Rs on the ballot let them have guns and promise lower taxes.
Man, looking at Nextdoor where I live is disheartening.
That is the issue. I want to say people need to operate on more of a policy facing. “What do you support?” “Affordable housing and reasonable weath distribution”, sick. Easy vote. Don’t care if they’re D, don’t care if they’re a liberal, don’t care. Obviously that’s very simple and naive. You have to do some labeling.
The problem is people have just given up on identifying the doublespeak. Trump got elected promising no new wars and some mediation on Gaza and was just straight lying. The median voter felt no reason to question it and a lot of well meaning people said ‘this is better than silence on a genocide’, and that was it. The thinking stopped and we threw the world’s easiest choice the the most belligerantly narcississtic, indigent, and negligent person on the planet.
Now these dumbfuck tankies who crowd all of our pleasant fringe online communities are taking the bait again and using their refusal to acknowledge context to feel some kind of superiority about it. I’m so tired.
Edit because my typos were out of control.
But, I think we need a banner to gather under, don’t we?
Your typical American family hasn’t a clue… They know “socialist bad”…
This is why the specific banner probably doesn’t matter very much. The association “socialist → bad” just comes from a long-running campaign by Western Capitalists to make sure that the peasants make that association. It basically goes,
- The USSR is bad, and
- they are socialists, and therefore
- socialism is bad.
And that’s enough for most people. It’s easy to highlight a country’s flaws and convince someone that the country is bad, so 1 took hold, for reasons both reasonable and unreasonable. And 2 is free because they have socialism in the name. And 3 is a common logical fallacy, but it works, because it turns out people aren’t very rational.
If we picked up the “Proletariat” banner instead, the same thing would happen.
- The USSR is bad, and
- they implemented some of Karl Marx’s ideas, and so
- Karl Marx is bad, and so
- the proletariat are bad.
It’s not a marketing problem. It’s a problem with who gets to control all of the marketing narratives.
‘Not a marketing problem, it’s a problem with markeing’…
Look I don’t want to drag you too hard here but you do have .ml in your handle so I’m gonna just do this as briefly as possible:
You are referencing a 70 year old political movement as if we haven’t had 70 years of history happen since then. We are so far past red scare tactics that everyone who found out how fucked it was died and now they’re trying it again but stupider.
We have a crazy unbelieveable opportunity happening right now, actively, in New York, where someone openly referring to themselves as socialist is making massive moves where they are proving that Government can actually be leveraged to make improvemnts for the working class and can also remove incentives for weath hoarding. People are actually paying attention to the DSA and D’s are actively campaigning against ‘themselves’ with more effert than we’ve seen them use in 10 years against Trump.
So no, not a marketing problem, it’s an availability to actually express power and follow through on actual governance problem. I know you haven’t said anything about electoralism so I will take ownership for bringing it up, but it’s effective electoralism that is going to keep this door open. It’s happening.
It’s not a marketing problem. It’s a problem with who gets to control all of the marketing narratives.
‘Not a marketing problem, it’s a problem with markeing’…
It’s clear to me that I said two different things. Is there anything about either that you would like me to clarify?
Compare: “It’s not a strategy problem; it’s a game-design problem.”
You are referencing a 70 year old political movement as if we haven’t had 70 years of history happen since then.
I’m explicitly referring to it because of the 79 years of history. 79 years of history tends to have an effect on the public consciousness.
We surely don’t believe that the average person formed their “socialist → bad” association from exposure to socialism, right? Then, why do they believe that? Most Americans can’t even accurately describe what socialism is. How did it come to pass that they are so convinced that “socialist → bad”? If this is about the USSR, then surely the organic version of this is that everyone would be convinced “USSR → bad” instead, right?
The only reason it’s worth mentioning in this context is the resulting 79 years of shaping public opinion.
We have a crazy unbelieveable opportunity happening right now, actively, in New York, where someone openly referring to themselves as socialist is making massive moves
Yes, that’s great. I’m happy that people have the opportunity to see the impact that well-managed social policies can have. I would say that the marketing is quite good.
and D’s are actively campaigning against ‘themselves’ with more effert than we’ve seen them use in 10 years against Trump.
Yes, and that’s part of what I’m referring to when I say that it’s a problem with who gets to control all of the marketing narratives. We have a two-party system, and both parties are actively stacking the deck against anyone campaigning on good social policy.
Consider how the average person gets their political information. If both major parties have decided that it’s better if everyone believes “socialist → bad”, that’s simply what most people are going to be exposed to, and what most people are going to believe.
Mamdani is an anomaly: he happens to be so likeable, with ideas that are so popular, that this didn’t stop him from winning anyway. It also helps that paying a few thousand influencers to spam anti-leftist content can be somewhat counterbalanced by paying 200 influencers to spam pro-Mamdani content.
Hopefully driving this point home: the marketing strategy for these ideas is good, because people generally like good social policy. However, the marketing environment is biased toward whoever spends the most money.
So yes, to be clear, you’re saying two different things but I feel like if you’re going to invoke something like marketing you need to acknowledge that marketing itself is not ever going to be the thing we use to fight something like capitalism, in which the very concept of marketing is like ‘we’ll take the giants fingers and crush his own windpipe with it.’ The master’s tools’ and all that.
Think about everything ICE is doing that isn’t being televised. Think about what Gaza would look like if this was 1990 and we only had the same kind of coverage available as we did with the Gulf War. Yes, obviously the people in power are only going to let us see the events and definitions they want to implant in the median voter but it’s so much bigger now than in the McCarthyist era.
And obviously whoever spends the most money in the marketing arena is going to win. But even then the cracks are showing. AIPAC has made itself known and we’re starting to see people, Mamdani included, who are overcoming the money in lieu of principle. Of course he’s likeable and persuasive and all of that, he’s an effective politician who understands strategy and optics. We just need more.
Ah, the Great American lie. Well one of them. The idea that American liberalism is somehow different. And yet when you actually start examining it it looks exactly the same. I mean you just said that liberalism in America is Anti-Imperialist and anti-war. If you’ve never opened a history book I suppose you might have come to that conclusion. How else you do it I have no fucking idea.
If you actually read what I said it’s what out parents and grandparents wanted to achieve in lieu of imperialism and war. They were wrong because they couldn’t face the truth that the country their parents died for in WW2 would go on the put a boot on the neck of any country that tries to challenge their one sided control over worldwide economics.Then they died in droves in Korea and Vietnam for an ideal they just couldn’t believe mislead them.
If you actually read it, of course.
well yes it is capitalism with regulation
better that that populist bullshitters that have no idea what they’re doing
look at this magical dream! every time we get in control and try to get to it, it turns into a genocidal nightmare. yipeeeeee
Can you type it again? I am unable to read what you typed.
Reading this comment indicates you have a lsss-than-desirable understanding of politics.
I want you to literally get a dictionary and encyclopedia and look up each term you just used. You’re about to learn some wild shit and become slightly less chauvinistic and ignorant.
You noticed you got downvoted, and I’m going to explain this for you very slowly, but if you can show me where in any real execution of the terms in our national political discourse you can find a unanimous adoption of your ‘dictionary definition’ of these terms then I’ll concede you are so, so much more smarter than me. I don’t think Fox news has ever spit at a dictionary. You missed the fucking point.
No point was missed. You demonstrated, during your rant about how people misuse words, that you don’t know what most of those very words mean.
I’ll say it again. If you open up an encyclopedia of your choice and look up these mystifying words like “libertarianism” and “socialism”, you’ll actually get a real, concrete meaning for each of them, which would help a LOT in your quest to point out that others pervert political vernacular.
But go ahead, say it again reeeeeal slow for me. I rather enjoy when chucklefucks try and fail to patronize me.
Actuall I will not. You’re bait and too stupid to get it anyway. Bye.
Yeah, this tankie (cloeobroken or whatever the fuck) needs to fuck off. I see it’s not just me that they like to harass.
Good try little buddy.
It’s 2026 and any talk of political labels outside an academic setting is useless.
Hitler wasn’t a Socialist; North Korea isn’t a Democratic Republic; the Chinese Communist Party has numerous billionaires.
Pick actual candidates and vote for them without tying yourself in knots over what they call themselves.
Second, stop pretending there’s some giant ‘Left’ majority in the US. Mamdani won NYC with 51% of the vote; Harris got 65%. She got more total votes and a higher percentage than the guy who called himself a Socialist.
I like Mamdani, and I voted for him, but if he gets re-elected it’ll be because he’s a savvy pol, not because of some Left wave.
He won 51% of a three-way race, which means moderate Democrats and independent voters had another option that wasn’t a Republican, and he still kicked both of their asses with a majority.
I support what you’re trying to say but your argument is built around a very disingenuous framing of the election outcome.
A better argument is that Mamdani won DESPITE being a known socialist. He won despite the tag. Just like he won despite his religion and name.
Understanding why he won despite those things is how we can best use his election to inform our other candidate and voting choices.
He won despite running against a known sexual predator and a radio shock jock.
The argument I keep hearing is that there’s a giant Left majority that stays home every election because they can’t stand voting for corporate Dems.
When the time came for these folks to show up and vote for a Socialist they didn’t vote?
Mamdani won NYC with 51% of the vote; Harris got 65%. She got more total votes and a higher percentage than the guy who called himself a Socialist.
What Harris are you talking about? Kamala Harris? And what election? Because if you’re talking about the presidential election, she got like 48% of the popular vote. And what do you think the effect of cuomo ratfucking the election and splitting the vote was, on Mamdani’s performance?
I think you misunderstood them, aren’t they referring to the vote in NYC? Harris won in NYC by a good margin
Thanks for the clarification, that wasn’t very clear indeed! Then OP’s argument is stopped dead in its tracks by the fact that the mayoral election had more than two candidate, and the presidential election did not.
Yes, I was referring to the NYC vote.
I thought that would be obvious, but apparently some folks need more explanation
Thanks for replying to them.
Yeah no that wasn’t very clear. Still it’s a very misleading (or ill thought out) argument. As others have pointed out, you’re comparing apples and oranges here because the races had different number of realistic options for the electorate to choose from.
Actually, it’s an either/or option.
Either you vote for the Democratic Socialist, or you don’t.
Mamdani was running against Andrew Cuomo, who had to resign as NY Governor after being outed as a sexual predator. The GOP candidate was Curtis Silwa, a radio shock jock with zero government experience.
If there was a big Socialist majority in New York, it chose to stay home.
And exactly one person couldn’t figure out what I was talking about, so I think it’s more on them than I what I wrote.
It’s a big conundrum:
- On one side, most people when told actual policies which are generally considered left-wing (say, Free Education) agree with them
- On the other side, most people don’t have the attention span to read long lists of policies (hands up anybody who ever read the entire electoral program of even just one candidate in an election they voted in) so even the most well-intentioned politicians end up using short political terms with vague-ish definitions which are easily subverted, to describe their own set of policies or those of others.
So we end up with Liberal this, Socialist that and if you try and get down to tightly defined nitty-gritty details of their meaning, no two people fully agree on the definitions.
Any fool can see the difference between Black and White.
The trouble starts when we start arguing over ‘eggshell’ vs. ‘clouds’ vs. ‘salt.’
Find the actual candidates available and pick the best one.
NYC Mayor Ed Koch wasn’t my favorite politician, but I love this quote.
"If you agree with me 51% of the time, just vote for me. If you agree with me 100% of the time, talk to a psychiatrist.’
Second, stop pretending there’s some giant ‘Left’ majority in the US. Mamdani won NYC with 51% of the vote; Harris got 65%. She got more total votes and a higher percentage than the guy who called himself a Socialist.
Ok, but now suppose you were to alter time and space and switch them so that each is now running for the other’s office.
We’d have President Mamdani and Mayor Cuomo.
Yeah most Americans wouldn’t call themselves leftists. But most Americans would agree with leftist policies. Anything less than that and Americans will just be voting by party, name recognition or by how bad the Republican candidate is.
You tell me how to alter time and space and then I’ll consider it.
Judging from the hammer and sickle, OOP thinks North Korea is a Democratic Republic, and the billionaires in the CCP are all self-made unlike the ones in the GOP…
True leftism doesn’t threaten a damn thing because they can’t stop killing each other long enough to agree to start killing the right.
Yes, that’s what we need now more than ever as we approach the general election in the US: More in-fighting amongst anti-fascists.
idk if i’d call liberals antifascists; not credible as that. they specialize in losing to fascists while blaming everyone but themselves
Motherfucker we are the og antifats you better get your shit straight
Eighty percent of all nazi casualties were inflicted by the Red Army
Holy historical revisionism.
What shit did you smoke to have you spout such bullshit?
Historically, liberals enabled and worked with the fascists to disenfranchise the communists and the anarchists, ya know, the actual OG antifascists.
we are the og antifats
The funny thing is there’s a comment from just a few minutes ago saying the auth-left definitely doesn’t oppose fascists either.
So if we want to play games with terms and further the exact infighting I’m criticizing, I guess nobody apart from anarchists is against fascism? Doesn’t make any sense, but I guess you don’t have to make sense if you’re just here to bicker.
you simultaneously accuse me of bickering and try to get me to defend a caricature of a position… that you constructed for me
i said liberals are not credible opponents of fascism. my reasoning being they are not really opposed to fascism as much as upholding capitalism.
MLs oppose both, i can work with them on those things at least. with liberals i have to worry that they’re going to turn me into the police.
The ridiculous part of this that you don’t seem to see is that liberals oppose fascism mildly and you refuse to ally with them to get rid of fascism.
Fascism is just over there in the corner smirking, glad you hate liberals too.
Liberals oppose fascism mildly
Free Palestine.
liberals oppose fascism mildly
mildly
I feel like the argument here makes itself. The point of post is that liberals don’t actually do anything significant to oppose fascism, or as you put it, only “mildly” opposing fascism.
oppose fascism mildly
What does this mean?
Because their opposition does not work.
Let’s look at Germany, their favorite example. The liberal position was to compromise with the fascists, and attempt to put in Hindenberg as the stop gap. The problem was that Hindenberg was unwilling to EVER accept liberal or social democratic (SPD) government. And so when he couldn’t find conservatives to keep power, he put the Nazis in power.
The “mild” opposition of liberals is only for fascism - they’re very good at holding down the left while they let the fascists take power, and that’s exactly the problem.
my issue is that liberals aren’t going to resolve fascism because they create the material conditions for fascism.
fascism doesn’t appear from nowhere, it emerges from the immiseration and instability that capitalism produces, something liberals are content to ‘manage’ without resolving.
Okay, imagine someone is blasting your house with a high-pressure hose, breaking all its windows, flooding it, etc.
Your argument is to target the people who make plastic because that hose nozzle has plastic, rather than either convincing them to stop selling hoses to psychopaths or targeting the psychopath with the hose.
Again, the guy with the hose is just glad you’re focusing your efforts elsewhere while he destroys everything you have.
liberals not make a silly metaphor to defend their failing position challenge: impossible
that metaphor is incoherent and doesn’t really engage anything i said, so i’ll pass
By my understanding, the left seeks to diffuse political power as widely and evenly as possible, while the right seeks to consolidate it.
Communism works only if there’s a mechanism to assure that the command economy actually serves the public and not the political class. So when we look at USSR, it was authoritarian since Stalin.
Similarly the Democratic Republic of the Congo was a Leninist Democracy until France came in and installed a puppet dictator. It’s still called the Democratic Republic, I think.
Reagan did the same thing to Grenada in 1983. That was especially conspicuous since there weren’t any major resources or strategic points involved. It was about black folks making a public-serving government work.
This is why I don’t understand what Tankies are, unless they’re to the left what Christian Nationalists are to Christianity.
So when we look at USSR, it was authoritarian since Stalin.
That’s a popular view, promoted most by Troskyists and Orwell.
That said, the original bullshit of dissolving the Soviets by the claim the Party was the voice of the people was actually done by . . . Trotsky.
Makes sense actually.
Similarly, the seeds of the dissolution of democracy are built into the Constitution of the United States, in the preservation of institutionalized slavery and safeguards against mob rule is est, the loss of white male landowner power to poors, blacks and women as they respectively gain suffrage. It was meant all along to be democracy but not really.
Isildur should have thrown the damn ring into Mount Doom when he had the chance.
Totally. There’s a great book called The Founder’s Coup, which goes into exhaustive detail about how the Constitution was absolutely designed to stop democracy - most specifically, that which could threaten debt collection. See Shay’s Rebellion, a very ignored topic on much US casual history.
By my understanding, the left seeks to diffuse political power as widely and evenly as possible, while the right seeks to consolidate it.
No, that discounts the Auth-Left, who consolidates power in the form of a Vanguard Party and/or autocrat.
Communism works only if there’s a mechanism to assure that the command economy actually serves the public and not the political class. So when we look at USSR, it was authoritarian since Stalin.
It was authoritarian before that, but Stalin was definitely the cherry on top.
The rest of your comment is true; capitalists have an extensive history of installing pro-capitalist dictatorships.
This is why I don’t understand what Tankies are, unless they’re to the left what Christian Nationalists are to Christianity.
To me, a “tankie” is more or less the Auth-Left, more or less a Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist, in the sense that they believe that as long as the goal is ostensibly some form of socialism (or “socialism”), no amount of brutality, cruelty, or immorality can be too far.
On lemmy.world, they hail from @lemmy.ml 99% of the time, and you’ll see them doing mental gymnastics to defend Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and denying things like the Holodomor and the Uyghur genocide. You’ll also see them making moves to take down the USA rather than reform it for the better, no matter how many people suffer and die in the process. There’s a lot of overlap with accelerationism in my opinion, as I suspect a lot of the people in this thread and others are trying to convince people the DNC isn’t worth voting for because it will help the GOP win, bringing on a second US civil war and/or a massive and bloody world-wide class-war/revolution, killing millions or even billions but possibly resulting in a socialist government faster.
Tankies will claim that any non-tankie slaps “tankie” on any socialist or communist, but that’s not true for any reasonable person, hopefully myself included.
Surprising no one, the tankies were very upset by being described here, including one whom I’ve blocked that replied something below.
Go ahead, ask them if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is imperialist or if China’s oppression of the Uyghurs is a genocide, and watch the definition of “imperialism” and “genocide” change before your very eyes.
The common theme is “as long as it somehow opposes western capitalism, nothing can be immoral.”
Well, the classic definition of right and left is in accordance with or opposition to the king, respectively.
I think it moved from there to pro- / anti-monarchism when the notion of monarchy was challenged in the 19th century.
After the French revolution, foreign neighbors demands France select a new king under threat of war. The War of the First Coalition results and Napoleon shows them what’s what. Then Napoleon declares himself emperor and declares a bunch of civil rights to get everyone on board. Later, during the Bourbon restoration, Charles X rolls those rights back necessitating a second revolution. It’ll take about seventy years or so before France establishes a proper republic, and another thirty-ish years to re-establish rights. And there are some controversies today, such as the right to practice Islam and wear a burqa.
These days, we see multi-party democracies as the most liberal, but voters can be manipulated, as per the Southern Strategy. Today, a massive far-right propaganda machine runs in the US 24/7 using the same brainwashing techniques used on US soldiers in Korea. So it’s possible democracy is already obsolete due to modern communications and… well, they call it messaging.
One option is sortition, that is, election by lottery. This drastically increases the odds we won’t get officials like Ted Cruz or JD Vance (fhat is, shapeshifters who have no principles but can say anything, feigning confidence and sincerity to stay adjacent to power). We’ll need redundant checks against corruption and incompetence. We might also need a system that sorts experts from lobbyists, to provide our citizen-officials complete information and a public-serving mandate.
That said, I can’t imagine what else leftism can mean. It certainly doesn’t refer to command economics such as socialism or communism, since those, on their own, more authoritarian than a free market.
Tankies will claim that any non-tankie slaps “tankie” on any socialist or communist
Except they do. I don’t know which of you taught the liberals that word, but it was a very very bad move. Now it means “anyone who criticized Joe Biden while he tried to start WWIII”.
idk if I’d call tankies antifascist. They just think it’s the wrong color
The auth-left does oppose the auth-right, so your pedantry is both unnecessary and unappreciated as it drives the exact divisiveness among [whatever preferred term you choose for the group we both know I’m talking about] that I’m criticizing.
Tankies don’t have left aligned values, only left aligned appearance.
Frankly this is some No True Leftist stuff. Tankies want to bring about socialism via an intermediary step of brutality. You could definitely argue that such a step is not True Socialism, and I think you’d be right, but I took a shit today that wasn’t True Socialism so does that mean the next thing I did was not socialism?
For the record, I don’t like tankies either, but there’s plenty of space to push back against them without relying on bad faith arguments.
They want their label of socialism, not yours. And it’s a rather brutal one.
You aren’t browsing their coms. They want to put leftists “on the wall” -sic, too. Everyone’s pretty fortunate that they don’t go outside and stick to ordering delivery
So what? Whether the auth-left or the auth-right, talk about pedantic. It’s the auth. IT’S THE AUTH.
and I don’t appreciate your lack of appreciation
I’m well-aware both flavors of hyper-authoritarianism are bad, I’m pointing out that your picking fights with people who oppose fascism is the exact counter-productive bickering I was criticizing.
There was this dude at work I was trying to get to watch the first couple episodes of andor season 2 because the bickering in the woods rang so similar to liberals and leftists arguing, especially online. The rebels capture Andor(literal revenge driven super antifa spy and movement leader) by chance while he’s undercover and proceed to bicker among themselves and split their ranks in half while an ambush draws closer. Too busy with vanity and their purity tests to find common ground with their allies
Fascinatingly, just like in Andor, peace-makers between the bickerers are vilified too.
Pretty dumb, but then again we’re not that different from the lesser apes.
Liberalism is therefore a right of center, a.k.a. conservative, ideal.
When Liberalism requires and promotes directing money towards a commons used to lift and/or equalise people in need, that’s where it’s starting to touch upon left of center.
Conservatism is not just right of center. Conservatism is monarchism. Liberalism is mercantilism. Communism is class dissolutionism.
When Liberalism requires and promotes directing money towards a commons to aid the poor, it’s still not on the Left, it’s just trying to prevent rebellion. They’re called concessions.
In this context you’re wrong.
OP talks about the economic distribution scale of politics (for capitalism to be relevant), where (fiscal) conservatism stands in opposition to socialism.
There are plenty other ways to divide ideologies, but capitalism is irrelevant to most of them, including the one you’re proposing (power distribution?)
Conservatism is a very specific political philosophy. Liberalism is a very specific political philosophy.
“Conservative” the adjective that is not about politics is about reducing risk. “Liberal” the adjective that is not about politics is about reducing restraint.
Conservatism the political philosophy emerged as a response the development of Liberalism the political philosophy. Liberalism’s position was that the source of political power should be private property. Conservatism’s position was that the source of political power should be heritage/lineage.
Separating economics from politics makes very little sense conceptually and it results in mass confusion, like we have in the USA today. There are no (or very very few) Conservatives in the USA today. The USA is split between two factions of Liberalism. On the one hand you have Liberals who wish to reduce restraint on individuals with wealth and power. These would be classical Liberals. On the other hand you have Liberals who wish to restrain individuals with wealth just a little bit as a concession to the masses and to offer the masses a few concessions, most of which are symbolic and not pragmatic, to ensure that the masses do not revolt.
There are no fiscal conservatives in US politics. Republicans have almost never reduced spending when they take office. They shift where the budget goes, but they don’t spend less. That’s not fiscally conservative, it’s factional priorities. Democrats do not spend more than Republicans when in office. That’s not meaningfully different. They prioritize other allocations. Again, factional priorities.
Fiscal conservatism does not stand in opposition to socialism. Liberalism stands in opposition to socialism, because Liberalism situates the source of power in private property and socialism is a private property abolitionist movement.
Capitalism is not irrelevant to the separation of ideologies. How could it be when literally the feudal economic system literally could not manage the economies of states sufficiently which gave rise to the capitalist mode which needed a political power system that allowed it to function which monarchy could never do? Capitalism and Liberalism are fundamentally interconnected.
You are missing the forest for the trees.
In the US political landscape there is de facto a group identifying themselves as conservative, in contrast to other groups identifying as liberal, libertarian, socialist, among others.
Your models and perspectives might be self satisfying, but are for this context irrelevant — reality doesn’t agree with you.
Missing the forest for the trees means missing the bigger picture for the smaller specifics. In this case that applies to you, not me.
The history of Liberalism is older than the US and spans more countries. The forest here is political philosophy. The USA is a tree.
To assume that the USA, which is only 250 years old, and it’s local use of the word “Conservative” which has not even been for 200 years, is “the forest” in this metaphor is exactly the sort of skewed perspective Americans have on the world.
The USA’s usage of the terms Liberal and Conservative are local, short term aberrations. It is the US that is missing the forest for the trees. And this is important. It’s why people in the US who are fighting the Republicans think they are “on the left” and why they get so confused when actual leftists won’t make common cause with them.
If conservatism was monarchism and liberalism was mercantilism that is what they’d be called. They’re different and it matters especially when discussing these concepts specifically together.
It’s like calling pink red or turquoise blue. They’re related but they are not the same and we don’t call them the same for a reason.
If conservatism was monarchism and liberalism was mercantilism that is what they’d be called.
I understand why that would appear to be the case. But it’s not. Conservatism and Liberalism are political philosophies and movements. Monarchism is a system of governance. Conservatism the movement supports Monarchism the system. Liberalism the movement supports Capitalism the system. Just because they are one-to-one doesn’t mean they are identical.
it matters especially when discussing these concepts specifically together.
It does matter indeed, I agree with you, and it’s important that we understand that Liberalism cannot lead to universal liberation because it is foundationally tied to private property. Eliminating private property is an illiberal move, and it is the foundational move of communism. Moving from aristocracy to private property ends Monarchism and it is the foundational move of Liberalism. Conservatism fought against private property in favor of the old system. Liberalism fought for private property in favor of Capitalism. And Communism fights against private property in favor of universal liberation.
Conservatism the movement supports Monarchism the system. Liberalism the movement supports Capitalism the system.
It doesn’t. That’s a complete misunderstanding of all four of those terms.
And Communism fights against private property in favor of universal liberation.
I think you have your head twisted a tad.
Liberalism also fought in favor of universal liberation. Not understanding that or how liberalism lead to conversations for socialism is a glaring hole in one’s historical understanding. Either both Liberalism and Communism fight/have fought for universal liberation or, following your logic, Communism fights for a specific system structure as well because “universal liberation” actually doesn’t mean anything you could define. With that in mind it probably would read more like, Communism fights for Authoritarianism.
Communism demands extreme power towards a central point, it relies extensively on what you’d call the state having the first and final say in things. Whether that state is successfully run by “the proletariat” or not is a whole other conversation. But historically stacking all that power in the center begins to circle back towards monarchism maybe without a hereditary line but still you’re handing all power to a single political entity and that’s some heavy Authoritarianism.
You can’t just say it’s a misunderstanding of the four terms and then not present any argument to the contrary. What am I supposed to do? Provide you the historical context of Liberalism emerging during a time of increasing trade and promoted by people working explicitly for the large merchants and bankers? Or provide you the historical context of how Conservatism emerged as a response to Liberalism in defense of monarchy? Like, I have no idea how ignorant or knowledgeable you are on this topic, only that you think I misunderstand. Give me something.
Liberalism also fought in favor of universal liberation.
It absolutely did not. John Locke was a major shareholder in the Royal Africa Company, the slave trading monopoly of England. He wrote the constitution for the colony of Carolina, and explicitly wrote that every “freeman” would have total control over his “negro slaves”. Does that sound like the father of Liberalism fighting for universal liberation? No. It does not.
Not understanding that or how liberalism lead to conversations for socialism is a glaring hole in one’s historical understanding.
So now you’re moving the goal posts to “liberalism led to conversationa for socialism”? You think I don’t understand the history of philosophy and how we build on what came before? You know what led to conversations about abolition? Slavery. Slavery itself brought about conversations of abolition. Would you say that the institution of slavery is somehow the progenitor of the abolition movement? No. You would not.
The conversation about socialism emerged because of the failure of Liberalism to actually achieve its lofty rhetoric. And when analyzed materially, it was shown that Liberalism cannot lead to universal liberation because of it’s fundamental attachment of private property and thus it is inescapable from capitalism. This is not only theory. It was theory used to explain why Liberalism was sold the masses on universal liberation and near-utopia promises and yet a century or more of Liberalism resulted in prolonged horrible terrible conditions for the vast majority of people.
Either both Liberalism and Communism fight/have fought for universal liberation or, following your logic, Communism fights for a specific system structure as well because “universal liberation” actually doesn’t mean anything you could define.
This is ridiculous. Like straight ridiculous. I have to imagine you’re having an emotional reaction where you feel like I am insulting or attacking you because I cannot understand how you can write these words with a clear head.
You’re saying that because I don’t think Liberalism was structured on universal liberation because it privileged white male Christian land-owning Europeans and everyone else was either genocided, enslaved, or left to suffer and die of neglect and poverty, that somehow this means Communism is not fighting for universal liberation? Like, it doesn’t make any sense at all.
How do we know Conmunism is for universal liberation? Because it analyzed the failures of liberation, identified a root cause for the failure (class society) and then developed a theory to eliminate class society, and then executed it. Because when communists overthrow liberals they immediately set to work addressing mass poverty and eliminate the majority of it within 10 - 30 years. Because they developed the theories of national self-determination that the entire world now uses as a framework against settler colonialism. Because Communist theory explicitly states that a society built on limited liberation is doomed to fail as the contradiction between classes sharpens until there is a collapse and communists movements never set out to build a society that they know will collapse eventually.
With that in mind it probably would read more like, Communism fights for Authoritarianism.
This more than anything makes me think you have no idea of Liberal history. During the first 100 years of any liberal society they were constantly crushing workers rebellions with their military. The Americans, the English, the French, all had Liberal revolutions and then spent a century repressing their working population to force them work under intolerable conditions. Honestly, it wasn’t until the Bolsheviks were successful that progressive Liberalism really started to take root because suddenly all the Liberal robber barons were afraid that the workers would actually try to win.
Communism demands extreme power towards a central point, it relies extensively on what you’d call the state having the first and final say in things.
Yup. That’s how a democracy would be run if it were designed to enforce universal liberation instead of allowing robber barons to hire private police to beat striking workers to death. The central point is required for democracy to actually have an effect at the national level and the first and final say is required to override special interests.
But historically stacking all that power in the center begins to circle back towards monarchism maybe without a hereditary line but still you’re handing all power to a single political entity and that’s some heavy Authoritarianism.
Ok, jackass, now I’m upset. You think I don’t understand political philosophy terms but you’re going to sit here and say that communism trends toward monarchism? Are you high? Could you read fucking book on the topic before running your fucking mouth? Christ why do I even bother to assume you people are arguing in good faith.
Fuck off until you read something.
https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/country-studies/china/
Modern slavery in China
Estimated number living in modern slavery:
5,771,000 (4.0 per thousand)
https://www.endslaverynow.org/act/action-library/learn-about-forced-labor-in-china
Great Communism you got there. Hope it stays the fuck away from me.
“cOmMunIsm LiBeRaTEs”
“bUt jOhN lOckE oWnEd StOcks!!!”
You wrote an entire manifesto just to prove you can be confidently wrong at an exceptional length, embarrassing.
Apparently “historical context” means picking whichever examples tickle your fancy and declaring everything else irrelevant. You accuse me of not understanding political theory while casually collapsing liberalism, capitalism, democracy, and authoritarianism into whatever argument you need at the moment. If your position requires this much profanity and condescension to survive basic scrutiny, maybe the books you keep telling me to read aren’t helping as much as you think? Shame.
Ok, jackass, now I’m upset. You think I don’t understand political philosophy terms but you’re going to sit here and say that communism trends toward monarchism?
Wow. Someone is triggered. What do you call a consolation of wealth, eliminating dissent and turning your state into a personal checkbook? Have some kids to take power and you’re a monarchy. Pathetic Korea has already done this, Cuba is sorta on the fence of doing this with Raul Castro. Let’s see how the others are doing, Laos has the Siphandone Family, and the Phomvihane Family hm weird how much of their cartel holds power. How about Vietnam, what’s that? Con Ong Chau Cha? You say that means “Children of the Father”? It’s basically slang for nepotism and insider coercion of privilege kids? Hm where have I seen that sort of structure in the government before…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy
Enjoy your reading you angry little troll.
…what do you think the conservatives conserve?
Liberalism is based on the word liberty, i.e. the right to self determination. Mercantilists are generally liberal. As is anyone that isn’t trying to conserve the monarchy.
…it depends who or what you’re talking about doesn’t it?
Monarchism is pretty clear about what it is, support of a monarchy or basically a bloodline that rules the government. Conservative is a broad political outlook that depends entirely who or what topic or group you’re talking about. You can be a social conservative, you can be fiscally conservative, National conservative. None of those have anything to do with a monarchy.
Mercantilists are literally not liberal at all. Mercantilism and Liberalism at a time were completely opposed to each other, you know laissez-faire capitalism and whatnot. Mercantilism is about government regulated trade where Classic Liberalism was about unregulated trade. A social liberal has basically nothing to do with Mercantilism. Then you have neoliberalism which is a rehash of classical Liberalism electric boogaloo style.
Honestly China’s system is closer to being like mercantilism than the neoliberal governments today because of their focus on exports and heavy handed government intervention but you wouldn’t really call what they’re doing mercantilism.
So it’s all pretty different. Words matter you know?
Oh, no, no, no. There is a very specific thing that conservatives conserve. Its like the people that claim the US civil war was about “states rights”–states rights to do what?
Conservatives are traditionally an explicitly monarchist party. They just didn’t call themselves monarchists, because the French were getting a bit choppy when it came to kings back then. Liberals were the anti-monarchists. Even now, modern conservatives all seek to implement some sort of hierarchical power structure, economic, social, whatever.
Mercantilism is a rebuke of government controlled trade. Hence mercantilism–from merchant. Regular folks could become merchants and make fortunes that were not the purview of the crown.
No they’re not. In some countries conservatives might embrace those ideas but that is not true across the board. I’d agree conservatives generally support power structure but claiming they’re monarchists just isn’t true. Conservatives in China for instance have absolutely nothing to do with a monarchy.
Mercantilism is literally not a rebuke to government controlled trade. It is government controlled trade. Like you can literally Google this and read about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism
It was intended as a means for the crown to have even more control. It maximized wealth and authority of the central state which is why the term laissez faire came about. You’re literally mixing up a core belief of Liberalism with Mercantilism.
…fair enough. I was looking at mercantilism as more state-adjacent trade. State-chartered corporation type stuff, East india company and such. I guess it was more directly centralized outside of Britain. I still see it as the beginning of the decoupling of the economic system from the crown to some extent, as it implied trade could happen without the direct involvement of the king.
I don’t think you can ignore that conservatism was developed as a method of reinforcing the control of the aristocratic feudalist system over society in the face of anti-monarchists change. Sure, it ends up with a slightly different flavor in every country, but the fundamental push towards a central authority and “knowing your place” in a rigid hierarchy is pretty much monarchism in practice. I’m pretty sure the thing that makes it a monarchy is that the hierarchy is justified by the divine right of kings.
