Do any of them know what the word “liberal” actually means?
wait until you learn about fiscally liberal vs socially liberal.
Would him putting on the Darth Vader armor be an analogue to many “toxic” leftists using doxxing sites dominated by the far-right to try and ruin the lives of people that aren’t 100% into Stalin?
putting on the Darth Vader armor
doxxing sites dominated by the far-right
Yes. Becoming an unkillable cyborg space wizard and outting someone paying for a message board full of Nazi copypasta are the same.
I am the only true leftist. The rest of you are posers and/or feds.
Hey, I’m neither of those. I’m an op!
look, tankies aren’t leftists, they are fascists wearing the skin of the lefties they killed
Fascism isn’t just authoritarianism. It is a certain set of conditions that can essentially be boiled down to as “colonial violence against the imperial core” but it is incredibly more complicated than that.
Words have meaning, and you should look up those meanings before you start just throwing them around.
Words DO have meaning, and you just butchered so many of them it’s not even funny.
fundamentally, fascism is the belief that social hierarchies are not only natural but preferable to any other social system that attempts to disrupt said natural order, all other aspects of fascism stem from this one line of understanding
Social hierarchies are always going to be present, even anarchists believe that. Fascism just assumes that they are natural and inherent, while leftists beleive that those hierarchies should be voluntary or chosen by the people.
Just becauae you haven’t done any political reading doesn’t mean i don’t know what words read.
the entire idea of the progressive moment is to abolish these hierarchies, then again the American “leftist” understanding is so fucked at this point that I can see you believing this, as most “communists” in the states are tankies, that would also explain the horrible misunderstanding of fascism along imperial lines, because you literally don’t have any other larger critical lens in the states, as most of you aren’t upset about the existence of hierarchies, but just have the feeling that you are not in your deserved spot of said hierarchy
The political spectrum is not linear, but circular and fascism and communism sit on the join but with different lie.
Coming from a country that experienced both several times in the past century, I hope the real people tankies would just shut up and move to Russia to learn a life lesson.
nope, the Marx Leninist idea of a vanguard party doesn’t even purport to be communism, rather the idea that you must go through a phase of state capitalism to grow the nation’s capital after a revolution (revolutions tend to destroy capital) before you can enact communism, it’s just that during the age of ML Fascism was the popular new political ideology, and Lenin did heavily base the idea of the vanguard party on a lot of the same basic understanding as the fascists did.
and of course the fascists did what they do and killed the lefties
fascism and communism sit on the join but with different lie.
Don’t leave us hanging.
Fascism has nothing to do with colonial vs imperial, wtf
Can’t have fascism without a strong national identity and an activist military.
Which again is an entirely separate thing from colonialism. The two may go together but they’re not necessarily linked in any way.
Which colonial power lacks a politically influential profit-seeking military?
that’s a stupid definition of fascism.
tankies aren’t leftists
Counterpoint:
The Other Kind of Leftists
Please tell me this tweet isn’t real
Godammit
I ‘am’ an anarcho-communist and I don’t like libtards. Libtards to me are ‘progressive capitalists’ that have no systemic insight what so ever and think all it takes to bring upon heaven on earth is to try and be nice.
You are not going to soy latte your way outta this my dudes.
I don’t like libtards.
You can just call them liberals. You don’t need to meld the term to a slur.
I mean, you should try and be nice obviously
By shaving the first two letters off an r-bomb? Come on, guy. I get what you’re saying, but this is an awful way to phrase it.
Libtards
Is a right wing fascist term. I don’t think you’re an anarcho-communist. I think you’re a right wing pretending to be leftist to try to suppress the Democratic vote. You guys have tells.
Friend I’m not a friend of liberals myself but can we please not use ableistic terms that end with “-tard”?
Reserve that shit for the right wing
> is anarcho-communist
> accuses others of lacking systemic insight
Who doesn’t hate those dang rightwingers, The Liberals?
Not what your voting record demonstrates if you’ve been voting for liberal establishment figures.
Remember a politician’s talk < actions and campaign finance.
yes but you don’t participate in riots and vote for joe biden instead of third party, therefore you are no better than transphobes
/s if it wasn’t obvious
You’re confusing liberalism with social progressivism, and leftism with social programs.
At the end of the day, Capitalism is right wing, Socialism is left.
👍
to be fair, the word “liberal” has lost its meaning in the US, because there no differentiation between economic liberalism and social liberalism. the guy in the meme would be a classic socialist in europe. we do have liberals here too, but they are the economic liberalism-type and more in line with the US-Republicans in economic questions, like tax cuts for the rich and businesses.
It’s as meaningless as any words that hang on the notion that there’s a “spectrum”.
You either you accept what works and fosters human well being and liberty, adjusting your politics accordingly to reality as we learn more about the world, or you’re conservative, a fundementally irrational denial of reality.
This is why seemingly different groups like Marxists and end up at the same place ultimately; they’re unwilling to give up on failed ideas. It doesn’t matter what label one applies, if you’re still trying failed ideas after they’ve produced untold amounts of harm then you’re just on one road to fascism or another.
It’s a binary, not a spectrum.
Lol thats great, i came under a “biden bad”-post just a few hours ago to the same conclusion. the best friend of a left-authoritarian isn’t anyone on the left wing, its an right-authoritarian.
i’m a socialist with anarchism as an ideal in some aspects, and for quite a while i couldn’t understand why anyone on the left side of the spectrum would actively lobby against biden in the upcoming election until i realized that.
Biden literally supports genocide, so it is reasonable for people to not want to support him even if it comes at a cost to themselves. If you’re unable to understand that, even if you disagree, I very much doubt you are aligned with the kind of goals you purport.
You clearly don’t understand that America as an institution has supported genocide your entire life and longer, it’s just more in your face right now than it’s ever been, Biden may support genocide but so did Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Ike, Truman, FDR, Hoover, and on back. This isn’t new shit and yes we desperately need better, but the genocide of the people you are arguing for will continue either way, but it will be faster with Trump. If you feel this strongly about stoping the US support of genocide regardless of who is president, I suggest you look into direct action, if you don’t have the backbone for that shut the fuck up.
Your vote isn’t a declaration of loyalty, love, support, or condoning. It never has been in this country, what it is is a small expression of which of the two directions presented to you is preferable. In this iteration we are presented with the maintenance of the status quo, which is fucking so stupid and I in every other circumstance would fight tooth and nail against it, but the other option is authoritarian christofascism which will culminate in at the very minimum of a constitutional crisis when blue states refuse to enforce the Gilead bullshit while thousands are murdered in red states. You want to stop genocide in Gaza? Me too, it’s gonna be hard to do that when there’s a cleansing happening in the US.
It’s a fucked up system, I hate it too, but again the only other option than these two ancient assholes is direct action and that has a lot of other consequences even if they are worth it in the long run
So I’m going to just tell you this; what you’re doing above is not convincing anyone.
Given that factual reality, you then have to ask yourself, as someone who probably likes to believe that you’re pragmatic and worldly; if your strategy for convincing millions of voters to support Democrats inspite of their increasingly fascist, right-wing tendencies is not working, what are your other practical options for actually helping Biden win.
And remember, this might involve changing your politics, or getting off the fence and actually doing something etc.
In any case, it’s a rhetorical question, since I’ll be blocking you. Think about it though, think about 2016 and how badly your political strategy failed this country then. Consider changing.
Leftists literally threatening the country with a fascist takeover if Dems don’t bow to their impossible demands.
We’re not trying to win your vote. We’re trying to stop you from infecting more undecideds. You people are rotten and need to be cut out of the process before you kill us all.
Lol
There’s a huge differentiation between social and economic liberalism! Liberals in the US means almost exclusively social liberalism. Liberal in the us is progressivism.
Economic liberalism is a Republican position, not a Democrat one.
@[email protected] I promise this is the last one, I’ve made my point
You’ve made it clear that you believe words do not have meanings, and are just vibes, yes.
300 million people having the same vibe
9 billion having the same vibe as me.
Multiple definitions of words can exist. When 300 million people agree on a definition, that’s a valid definition.
Also, the RIDICULOUS ARROGANCE of Europeans never fails to astound me. 9 billion people? You really do think you represent the whole world lol. News flash, the colonial era is over, you lost your empires. Just stop, you’re embarrassing yourself.
I’m not a European, lol. The entire world and the entirety of academia understands Liberalism the way most people on Lwmmy use it, ie to refer to a pro-Capitalist ideology.
Just throw workers owning the means of production on there and we’ve got a
stewreal progressive.
don’t usually agree on that much
Where have you been the last 8 years
Yeah Tankies/AuthComs are just such an odd mixture of accelerationists, “own the libs” and just general stupidity of “a strong man makes strong men” bullshit that they support any fascist if it means maybe someday they might not be on the chopping block.
If Tankies were an actual voting bloc they’d be somewhat impactful for the first time since maybe 1949. That would imply going outside however.
Remember, men who want a strong man want to be dominated, therefore they are themselves weak
I’d say they both agree on the main point of both philosophies “everyone has to follow every ridiculous rule I come up with except me”
Conservatives, fascists, and Auth-Communists just disagree on what color the flag should be, and the name of the party in charge handing out the police to dispatch onto the people.
Right? Some people say it’s horseshoe theory, but it’s more just a pallette swap.
I mean, there is a reason why redfash is sometimes used as an insult for authcoms
Good things and bad things are exactly the same. A justice system that enforces the will of the capitalists is exactly as bad as a justice system that enforces the will of the people.
You can tell this was made by a salty neo lib
“My party is committing genocide and lost all of its credibility and ethos. Boo hoo.”
At least they aren’t using the word “progressive” anymore.
It’s really funny how no one really likes liberals but liberals.
Conservatives: “They’re too freedom loving for my tastes! Why can’t they just stay and home and be good corporate stooges like us?”
Auth-Communists: “They claim to like freedom but still willingly use the capitalist forces to oppress who they like. Liberals are okay with personal freedom until it impacts the white moderates.
That’s our job!”Anarchists: “It’s literally weird to call yourself a liberal when all they do is oppose any movement against the status quo. If they can’t convert them to sell away their soul to the state or capitalism, they’re terrorists. They’re more like conservatives than any actual progressives, and even progressives admit 100% capitalism isn’t great.”
Libertarian capitalists: “They claim to be for freedom but constantly require the state to check in on if people are enjoying their freedom like that Nanny’s they never had. I just wanna grill for god’s sake!”
Like it’s just funny to me no matter where you are on the political spectrum, you have a somewhat decent reason to hate liberals (except conservatives are too stupid to tell liberals apart from “commies”).
You could build that list for every political party/perspective
Yeah but it’s funnier with liberals because they get all persecution complex-y when people left of them give them shit, just like conservatives do when libs give them shit
Literally swap the words in your comment, it works everywhere
That’s why the bots use templates like that.
I tend to see the derogatory ‘Liberal’ and moreso ‘Lib’ used for Neo-liberals and those supporting the neoliberal policies that have dominated the last few generations.
I otherwise see it used in the context of the phrase “scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds” which is pithy but tracks with history and typically the more antagonistic usage. It is almost entirely used to provoke a reaction from the ‘libs’ it is directed at, accuracy notwithstanding.
With context it is almost always pretty self explanatory which is being used.
Tell me you don’t hang out with anarchists without telling me…
There’s only one axis on the political spectrum, and everyone left of Biden (a rightwinger) is a tankie, isn’t this obvious?
no, everyone right of “I won’t vote at all in 2024 because I refuse to vote for Biden” is a conservative
didn’t you get the memo
don’t anarchists call themselves libertarians?
What? Are you high?
Libertarian did use to be a synonym of anarchist.
Murray Rothbard ruined that.
No, they call themselves Libertaire. Libertaire was adopted by french anarchists at the end of the 19th century when anarchist publications were banned from France. Sadly, as Americans do, the word was misused and transformed by Milton Friedman, on the behalf of oil companies, and later that failed actor named Ayn Rand, to described unabashed, unregulated, capitalism and corporatism.
No anarchist worth it’s salt would ever use the word libertarian instead of Libertaire.
Brian: Excuse me. Are you the Judean People’s Front?
Reg: F*** off! We’re the People’s Front of Judea
Yeah I don’t think you know anything about anarchism as political theory if you think it has anything to do with corporatism and capitalism. I’d suggest you pickup some theory and brush up on working class history.
What American political education does to a MF…
You replied to the wrong comment
I don’t think so, maybe I misread the point you were making, but again I doubt it.
Or marxists even lol
I use lib for shared objects.
“Authoritarian” would require that we, you know, have some authority. Which we don’t.
Neolibs do. And they just used it to arrest a bunch of students and people protesting against a genocide.
You all project so fucking hard it’s ridiculous.
“Authoritarian” would require that we, you know, have some authority.
No, it would require you to support the idea that there should be some central authority telling people what they should be doing. Which you do.
That’s pretty much every non-anarchist ideology then, no?
Lol okay bud. Then tell me how you justify 44 Democrat senators, 36 Republican senators and Joe Biden working together to block the rail strike? I can’t wait to observe your abilities as a mental contortionist.
Lmao check out all the salty libs seeing themselves get called out in these comments.
- sincerely, an anarcho-syndicalist
Pretty much. “Lol why don’t you like libs?”
…cause we don’t like things the way they are, and the only goal of the libs appears to be prevent any sort of progress. Maybe we are allowed relief from existing problems, but fuck you if you wanna fix em!
the only goal of the libs appears to be prevent any sort of progress.
“Liberal” in America is literally synonymous with “progressive”. The entire point of the party is progress.
@[email protected] here’s another one
Lol which party is pushing for progress?
The one throwing kids in jail for protesting genocide?
The one funnelling money to Israel hand over foot?
The one that let Republicans stack the judiciary while crying that it was “unfair” but not actually working to stop it?
Fuck the D’s bunch of cowards.
Yes.
Fuck the GOP. They’re doing everything you criticise the Dems for, except worse. That’s what “progress” means. Not that everything is instantly perfect. That it’s less bad.
That is absolutely NOT what progress means, you fucking dipshit.
prog·ress noun /ˈpräɡrəs/
forward or onward movement toward a destination. "the darkness did not stop my progress"Moving slightly slower on enshittofication than the other guys does not meet that definition.
Improvement, actual improvement, is what is required by progress.
I’m not asking for everything to instantly be better. I’m demanding that things stop slowly getting worse.
It’s getting less bad over time too, dumbass.
“Liberal” in America is literally synonymous with “progressive”. The entire point of the party is progress.
What are you even talking about? There are numerous Democrat politicians who don’t label themselves as progressive.
I didn’t say “Democrat” at all in my comment.
All progressives are Democrats, not all Democrats are progressives. The Democratic party is a coalition.
Does that mean there are Democrats who aren’t liberal?
Yeah. Bernie Sanders himself is not a Democrat, but most of his supporters are Democrats who are socialist, not liberal.
Then you’ve got your Joe Manchin types, who basically agree with Republicans but don’t like the racism etc. Blue Dogs.
Then you’ve got the split between “progressives” and “centrists”. Biden being more of a centrist, AOC being more of a progressive. “Liberal” means different things to different people, but most Democrats would say progressives are liberals while centrists aren’t.
No, the entire point of liberalism is continued private property rights.
*Economic liberalism.
Liberalism.
Ah, so you’re not just unaware that the different terms cause confusion
You are maliciously spreading that confusion
My fault for giving you the benefit of the doubt, I don’t normally do that.
Nah, you just lie ✌️
The only time I ever see evidence of Anarcho types they are being literally as annoying as possible.
Edit for clarity, it’s never “I started this charity/group/political campaign with signups/events/or public engagement.” Only ever “fuck everything, I can’t wait for society to fall apart such that the magic future can begin”
Bro you gotta be constructive not destructive if you want to sway opinions
I returned because I noticed your edit. I was being a bit snide, mostly because the meme is assuming everyone who calls someone a lib is authoritarian-aligned. If you’d like to know about the positive work I do as an organizer, I’d be happy to share. However, to me those actions are just the right thing to do and not worth bringing up randomly.
That’s fair. Below I clarified as well, this is a meta.thread. of course no one is discussing their work here. Also my opinion is anecdotal. Of course there are leftists who work very hard to move the window, and help others.
…you said, being literally as annoying as possible and contributing nothing constructive
…he said, fully cognizant of the hypocrisy, which is why he decided to contribute a snarky editorial comic
Yeah, that
Bro you gotta be constructive not destructive if you want to sway opinions
At least I admitted my hypocrisy and did something about it. You’re just doubling down on a lazy stereotype to avoid engaging with constructive criticism.
This is a thread about how folks act. So this is a “meta” politics thread.
This isn’t the place I, or leftists would describe /do that. I’m describing other times and places where said behavior was observed.
Critical thinking.
Anarchists are pretty active in their communities, with mutual aid and direct action being cornerstones of the ideology and whatnot. If you spent any time in activist spaces you’d know that
The point is they need to bring the nice side to public spaces, not be insular with the nice, and turn the mean to everything else.
I think what you’re describing is less of an anarchism problem and more of a “people in general” problem. I’m an anarchist and I’d like to think I conduct myself pretty well for the most part, even in political discussions. I won’t say I haven’t been an ass online or in person before but that’s not due to my ideology. I’m just an ass sometimes. Same as everyone else. I will concede that we can be a bit insular at times and that’s certainly a weak spot for many anarchists
Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleed…
Do you know what the word ‘liberal’ actually means
It has 2 common definitions:
- Neo-liberal: a political approach that favors free-market capitalism, deregulation, and reduction in government spending
- Leftism in general.
You’re almost never going to hear the right-wing use #1. Authoritarian communists will use #1 as a catch-all for modern capitalism.
It’s extremely frustrating hearing this repeated so often here.
It’s fine if this is the colloquial definition you’re used to hearing and using, but this is certainly not the way it’s used outside of American politics and pretending like it’s the only use comes off as both ill-informed and condescending.
When used derisively from the left, rest assured it is not referring to either of your adopted generalizations but a very specific ideology.
pretending like it’s the only use comes off as both ill-informed and condescending.
That works both ways. Pretending the European usage of the word is the only use comes off just as ill-informed and condescending.
The people who are using liberal derisively are playing off the american liberal self-identity. They’re acknowledging both definitions in the jab.
ok, so among English speaking countries, how is it more often used? we’ve got multiple people in this thread just aggressively trying him he’s wrong, but no other definitions.
Like I said, it’s fine assuming your own definition if that’s the one most familiar to you, but that doesn’t mean you have to stubbornly double down on semantics when confronted with a competing definition. When used derisively from the left it is almost certainly being used in the original sense of the word as per John Locke
how is it more often used?
Look up liberalism for liberals.
I wasn’t aware Americans made up their own meaning. Now I understand why upvoted comments mentioning “liberal values” receive a flurry of downvotes while I’m asleep, Americans have lost the meaning of another word, probably due to their media.
Though, just checking, the American dictionaries seem entirely correct still. Are you all confused?
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/liberal
liberal 1
[ lib-er-uhl, lib-ruhl ]
Phonetic (Standard) IPA adjective
- favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs. Synonyms: progressive
Antonyms: reactionary
- (often initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform. of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism, especially the freedom of the individual and governmental guarantees of individual rights and liberties.
Its the way the wealthy wamt the poor and middle class - undereducated and bombarded by agenda driven media.
The US propaganda machine is pretty damn effective domestically.
I think you’re right. It’s not like anything’s changed, so people are obviously buying someone’s bullshit from somewhere and it’s working exactly as the seller intends.
Going to have start signalling when talking about the two different concepts, like…
Today I’d like to discuss liberalism.
vs
Today I’d like to discuss 🛻🇺🇸LIBeralism™🎸🦅
Since they’re almost entirely opposing concepts sharing the same word.
The definition I see most often used here on Lemmy is: Liberal - literally anybody who doesn’t have Xi Jinping’s and/or Vladimir Putin’s cock alllllllll the way down their throat
Ok. But this meme says American Republican.
The meme also says ‘authoritarian communists’ but there are plenty of anarchists and socialists who use liberal as a disparagement.
Yeah, this meme was close to something, but I think OP doesn’t actually know much about politics.
Liberalism has never meant “leftism in general.” It has always been an ideology supporting the individual via private property rights. Neoliberalism is the modern form of it.
Liberalism was considered left when feudalism was right, but liberalism has never meant leftism.
The US is such a right wing country that liberals are the mainstream left. In Europe, liberals are centrists and they aren’t further to the right than American libs.
The meme says “American Republicans” so I thought we were considering this from an American pov. Definitions are going to change going to other countries and doubly so when talking about politics.
Yeah, this is about as confusing as it gets, I feel like those labels rarely make much sense :(
But the definition doesn’t really change. Take universal healthcare. A liberal idea that’s considered common sense in Europe and left wing in the US. Obamacare would be something you expect from a center right European and a left American. Both are called liberal.
And if the meme was from an exclusively American pov, it wouldn’t specify “American Republicans”
You’re correct, I specified “American republicans” to refer to the political party because everywhere else “republican” means anti-monarchist
It isn’t just about it meaning something else when ‘going to another country’. ‘Liberal’ has an actual definition with a history.
I’m honestly kind of confused about american liberals digging their heals in on this definition when it has historically been taken to mean something they don’t seem to agree with anymore.
I’m honestly kind of confused about american liberals digging their heals in on this definition when it has historically been taken to mean something they don’t seem to agree with anymore.
Because regardless pf history or whatever, the definition were giving you is how the 300 million Americans who actually use the term define liberal. Doesn’t matter what you or I think, if we want to have effective communication we need to use words as they are used. I really don’t feel like dying on that particular hill.
I made my stand with “literally”, I’m not wasting effort on holding fast to a Eurocentric definition of liberal.
Doesn’t matter what you or I think, if we want to have effective communication we need to use words as they are used.
I don’t actually disagree with you, I just find it frustrating trying to use a more precise meaning to make a point and being met with resistance. I think a part of the problem is that leftists are trying to point at a distinction that exists within the overbroad american-liberal label that separates leftism proper and center-right democratic institutions, and i feel as if some centrists don’t enjoy the discomfort of being singled out from the more progressive side of the caucus. I could be wrong, and I don’t really care if I am, but I think it’s important to acknowledge the tensions and to try not to erase the diversity of ideology that exists within the ‘liberal party’.
I think Leftists are trying to play up those tensions more than they truly exist, and some of the smarter ones are specifically exploiting the difference in terminology to do so. “Liberals”, in the US, are actually quite left wing (outside of the “anyone right of Lenin is literally Hitler” lemmy bubble). But by associating US liberals with European economic liberals, it muddies the water and allows for a ton of motte-and-bailey style arguments.
‘Liberal’ has an actual definition with a history.
The word “awful” has an actual definition with a history too. That history starts with it meaning “full of awe”
https://www.etymonline.com/word/awfulWord usage and definitions change over time. If you know people use a word differently then you need to at least explain the definition you are using or you’re just going to confuse or alienate people who understand the word differently.
I’ll happily state my case for whatever usage I’m adopting, and ask for clarification when I suspect someone is operating on a different one, but I don’t see any case to be made for the vague american label when discussing anything beyond american electoral politics - for the same reason i’m happy to jab at the usage in the same context, because it’s the assumption of neutrality it asserts that I take issue with and am calling attention to.
I’m sorry but this is just flat out wrong in the way that only an American can be wrong
Thanks for your input. I learned a lot.
You forgot the third, most commonly used definition on Lemmy: Liberal - literally anybody and everybody who isn’t a full blown communist, regardless of where they actually are on the political spectrum
This discussion is funny from a German pov, as our main local liberal party (the FDP) is pretty right wing and has been so since the 1940s. “Liberalism” always had a quite neative connotation to me therefore. They are also the party most open to working together with the far right (the AFD).
Liberalism can be right wing or left wing. It makes more sense to structure the political specrum like this. But even that is far from prefect.
Liberalism can be right wing or left wing.
Eh. Its traditionally in that “economically conservative, socially liberal” pocket, wherein you can do whatever you want so long as you’ve got enough passive income.
Fascists tend toward a more rigid social caste system (ideologically) wherein being rich isn’t enough to save you from state violence. That’s a big part of its popular appeal, particularly when liberal institutions decay into kleptocracies.
Traditional Marxism tends toward the social egalitarianism that fascists can’t stomach (race mixing, gender equality, and worker internationalism) while advocating full public ownership that liberal rent-seekers can’t stomach.
So, in the modern political spectrum, liberals tend to be “centrists” who use their economic influence to rent out social egalitarianism. Fascists tend to be “right wing”, advocating for those same private entities to purge themselves of unpopular social groups. And Marxists tend to be “left wing”, advocating for an abolition of rents and a full egalitarian economy.
But if you go back a century (or move over to a country that’s more left or right leaning) the colonial era monarchies and theocracies end up forming the right-wing pole, while fascists join liberals at the social center, and Marxists join a much more lively native anarchist community that’s in its last-gasp efforts to resist colonial occupation.
If you are saying gender equality is Marxist then I am guessing you haven’t read much Marx friend. Marx was very about women being relegated to traditional gender roles and was more about whole “seperate spheres of excellence” thing. You are thinking more of the likes of Saint Simone and Robert Owen’s Owenites.
Feminist scholarship has tried to adapt Marx by stripping out the veiws about women and applying his rhetoric more unilaterally but that’s not his text and quite frankly there are other contemporary philosophers and movement leaders which did it better.
There is this habit to slap the name Marxist on a the most idealized reads of the work and call it his because he’s the name people know and the few well known political labels on the far left or because people who have claimed the label of his movement after his death decided to non-canonically add to his work- but I personally wish that people could normalize other schools of leftist philosophy and not treat Marx particularly as the magnet that all of us will inevitably be drawn to or attribute stuff to him that he doesn’t particularly deserve. Marxism as a sort of brand name philosophy is misleading and disappointing to those who read his work and find that their ideals aren’t actually well represented there.
If you are saying gender equality is Marxist then I am guessing you haven’t read much Marx friend. Marx was very about women being relegated to traditional gender roles
Marxism does not end with Marx any more than Newtonian Physics ends with Newton.
That said, I’ve seen plenty of liberal writers approach the original works with cynical and dishonest takes. So it helps to cite your reference if you want to be taken seriously.
that’s not his text and quite frankly there are other contemporary philosophers and movement leaders which did it better.
Sure. Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Chavez, etc, etc.
but I personally wish that people could normalize other schools of leftist philosophy and not treat Marx particularly as the magnet that all of us will inevitably be drawn to
It’s hard to escape Marx’s gravitational pull without abandoning 19th century modes of industrial economics.
So long as colonial powers continue to apply old liberal economic theories of endless expansion and consolidated ownership in the face of diminishing returns, Marx’s insights into failing rate of profit fueling economic contradictions will remain relevant.
I believe what you are referring to is Communism. Let us divorce at least the name of a singular man from a body of work that by your own admission is made up of a number of different writers on the subject just as the elaborations on Newtonian Physics is considered also a part but not whole of Classical Mechanics.
The reductions of bodies of political thought to singular authors is often used to exclude others. Very often on this platform I am told that I am not a Socialist because I am not a Marxist simply because he simply coined a term to a body of thought that predated him and extended far beyond him so why should I extend to Marx the authorial intent by the political realm of thought baring his name? If you said you were a Maoist or a Leninist or a Chavezist would I not conclude that you are in agreement with their very specific realms of their personal philosophy?
Let us divorce at least the name of a singular man from a body of work
If we had a collection of competing working applications of communism, that would be easier. But trying to divorce it from Marx is a bit like trying to divorce capitalism from Adam Smith or the more modern Anarcho-Capitalist attitude from Rothbard and Rand. Like talking about Protestantism without mentioning Martin Luther.
Show me a fully realized anarchist state and we might be able to talk about Peter Kropotkin or Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. But anarchists from Republican Spain to the Bodo League of Korea to American Native Tribes were wiped out by fascist militarism.
You could draw sharper lines between Leninism, Maoism, and Chauvism, but you’d still start from their common Marxist heritage.
The reductions of bodies of political thought to singular authors is often used to exclude others.
They’re influential for a reason.
I am told that I am not a Socialist because I am not a Marxist
I mean, you can call yourself whatever you want. But I see the term “Socialist” pitched around to describe everything from corporate liberalism to primativist anarchism. If you want to talk about AES states, you’re talking about countries that rooted themselves in Marxist philosophy.
If you said you were a Maoist or a Leninist or a Chavezist would I not conclude that you are in agreement with their very specific realms of their personal philosophy?
If I said I was a Maoist, I just didn’t agree with anything in Mao’s Little Red Book, I would not blame you for calling me a bullshitter.
Are they? I would say the CDU under Merz is more likely to work with the AfD
that’s because liberalism in Europe is mainly “liberty” for rich people to do what they want
Isn’t it the same in the US though? They still don’t have universal healthcare or basic worker protection like protecting women from being fired over giving birth.
see, the difference is, in the US they already won, tho in the American context liberal s still more progressive than the neo-cons/fascists on the other side
Open-minded, permissive, tolerant
Don’t know why you’re being downvoted.
Liberal literally means free. As in “If it doesn’t harm me, you’re allowed to do it”. So yes, openminded, permissive, tolerant.
Don’t know why a lot of the US-Americans had to twist the meaning of it.
“free” means nothing though, it’s just a substitute for other values. It’s not just free as in “if it doesn’t harm me, you’re allowed to do it”. As another commenter pointed out, one person, they would espouse the freedom to have and own and use guns for self-defense, right? I could just as easily make the argument that guns, collectively, when this right is enabled, impinge on my freedom not to live in a gun-free, potentially less violent, or at least less lethal, society. The freedom provided by publically subsidized or collective single payer healthcare, vs the freedom to "not have to pay for everyone else’s healthcare. If I just rely on freedom as a value, it indicates nothing. It’s a sock puppet ideology. There’s always another value there which is being substituted for it. Liberalism can’t just equal freedom, or else it’s just totally meaningless. While it does have a broad specific meaning as it refers to a specific school of thought, it’s not totally meaningless as it otherwise would be.
Liberalism is a political and economic philosophy which espouses the merits of the free market as a collective decision making structure, which can allocate resources according to price signals. I.e. take resources in the economy and allocate them to where they best need to go, which is sort of what any idea of the economy has to do. It also generally espouses an idea of a naturally occurring meritocracy and rational actors, which the free market relies upon to be of real merit. At the extreme end you get shit like idiot anarcho-capitalism and the austrian school of economics, which is very resistant to government interventionism and kind of holds a religious adherence to free markets and their freedom from governance or regulation by governments. Guys like adam smith. Maybe in the middle you have more standard forms of liberalism, that still support free markets, but also support a pretty decent government and sort of see the two as being opposed to one another. Probably that would slot in a little more into neoliberalism, on the side of markets, and then classical liberalism leaning more towards government intervention. And then on the far end you get shit like nordic government and social democracy more broadly, which would try to engage in capitalism while still building out large support structures, as generally opposed to democratic socialism which seeks to basically eliminate conventional capitalism altogether. You also maybe get “market socialism” somewhere in there, inasmuch as a kind of inherently contradictory ideology like that can exist.
None of what I said really has any commentary on general social issues. You won’t find it in there, in any of those mostly economic philosophies, you won’t find positions on gay rights or trans rights, generally, civil rights more broadly, or drug use, or crime and punishment. There’s not any position on civil rights more broadly which is specifically intrinsic to any of those philosophies. Nothing on “open-mindedness”. The same could be said of communism, or really any economic philosophy outside of like, normal fascism, which everyone kind of has a hard time defining. Libs, mostly, but I won’t elaborate on that one until you press me on it.
In any case, that’s what liberalism as an economic philosophy all tends to mean, tends to refer to, that’s the larger, broader category. As you might intuit, it’s mostly just kind of, “capitalism”, in it’s many different forms. None of this is meaning-twisting, this is all just shit that’s existing in the academic literature for a long while. I’m not a language prescriptivist, so I’m not going to say that it’s wrongly used, when it’s not strictly conforming to academic definitions, and I will freely admit that most of the reference I see to it in colloquial conversation is kind of just like, to mean “woke”, you know, to refer more to socially progressive outlooks more broadly. But I think it’s important to question kind of why that is, why it’s seen as this thing that’s only kind of half-invisible to the population, why it’s completely divorced, colloquially, from any economic definition, and instead just refers to like, ahh, that guy, that guy’s a lib, that guy thinks black people should have rights, what a lib cuck, kind of a thing.
Tracking the warping of language is a pretty important thing to do, because it tells you all about the intentionality with which it’s used, the broader political strategy, the core philosophies of the people using it, it tells you where they’ve come from and what they’re referring to. More specifically, these kinds of changes of meaning that take place within certain words, they serve to cordon off, or, serve as an evidence of the cordoning off, of certain populations from others. The word is transformed in such a way as to make communication between groups impossible, and is also transformed in such a way as to totally eliminate that to which it previously was in reference to.
I don’t think using liberal to mean “socially progressive” is necessarily the wrong way to do things, but I do think that the academic definition, the academic reference, the idea there, it still has a lot of value. If one serves to obfuscate the other’s shorthand, I would find that to be kind of a tragedy.
Because in politics, liberal means something else entirely. It’s an ideology defined by support for capitalism.
Free as in markets, not free as in people.
That’s absolutely not what it means
In the very closest definition, liberal means “if there isn’t a law against it, you’re allowed to do it”
liberal more broadly is just as simple: “if it doesn’t hurt me, you’re free to do it”
I mean, what do you think a “liberal democracy” is? The majority of Europe is made up of liberal democracies while also being social-democratic. France is a liberal democracy despite being heavily unionized and having huge welfare. How does that work?
It works because that’s not what liberal means.
Socially-Liberal, for example, is when you are liberal (freedom-loving / diversity-loving) in social aspects. You support gay marriages, you support freedom of religion, you support cultural diversity. Other Examples include religiously-liberal, culturally-liberal, or even politically liberal (you support the right to different political opinions than yours)
What comes closest to what you think it is is economically-liberal. Which essentially says that “as long as it doesn’t hurt me, you’re free to do what you want economically”. But even that isn’t what you mean. Is Pollution and accelerating Climate change harming me and therefore not protected under liberalism? yes, says the absolute majority of liberals.
Is lobbying harming me by making my Voice less weighted? Yes, say a lot of us.
So not even economically-liberal is a good term to describe what you mean.
I don’t know, what a good term for it is. But it isn’t Liberal. So please, for the love of god, stop misusing it. Words have meaning. Invent a new one if you have to, they all began that way anyways.
The problem here is that in the US it means a very specific thing, while in Europe it means another specific thing. I think it gets mentioned every other time when this holywar reappears in comments
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_Europe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_liberalism_in_the_United_States
Which would be fine except the fucking Europeans keep insisting the American definition is WRONG and refuse to use it, making communication very difficult.
“if there isn’t a law against it, you’re allowed to do it”
That’s literally every system.
It isn’t / wasn’t
There are/were a lot of systems where you need to be granted a privilege in order to do something.
And just as many where the laws aren’t defined so anything can be laid out as illegal
There are/were a lot of systems where you need to be granted a privilege in order to do something.
Meaning there’s a law against doing it without said privilege.
“If there isn’t a law against it, you’re allowed to do it”
Even in liberalism, what you said is still the case. I need to be granted the privilege of a driver’s license to drive a car, I need the privilege of a medical license to practice medicine, etc. You’re talking nonsense.
And just as many where the laws aren’t defined so anything can be laid out as illegal
Such as?
In European politics.
American liberals do not support free markets. They’re advocates of greater regulation amd stronger unions.
yes, they do. Both* US political parties are neoliberal parties. Regulation of markets is still a free market. Unions do not inherently oppose free markets either.
* must go back at least 10 years for this to be true for Republicans
Stop prevaricating.
More regulation = less free markets. It’s a spectrum, not a light switch. Dems want more restricted markets. Repubs want more free markets.
It sounds to me like you don’t know what a market economy is.
In Americans politics, and you guys are completely bonkers.
It’s actually specifically not true in American politics.
Liberal in America = left wing, favors greater regulation of markets
No, not just in American politics. Liberal politics is a very specific thing.
I understand we don’t like capitalism on Lemmy, but I’m curious how liberalism fares versus the other capitalism-supporting ideologies that are more commonly found in the world.
I’ve thought about this for most of the day. Social Democracy (think Denmark, Norway, Sweden, etc) is probably the best out of all capitalist ideologies, but is still subject to the regressive nature of private capital. Other than that, most of them are complete dogshit. Capitalist monarchies, “anarcho-capitalism” (read neo-feudalism), US libertarianism, capitalist oligarchy, fascism*, etc are awful for regular people and horribly lacking in their analysis of capital and it’s relationship between the capitalists and workers. We’re currently living under neoliberal democracy, so imagine things getting much worse for us. That’s what most of those ideologies are like.
* it should be noted that fascism is mostly just a death cult that loves hierarchies like capitalism.
Fascism isn’t merely a randomly appearing death cult, but the violent death throes of crumbling Capitalism. Where Capitalism is failing, fascism rises. That’s why Leftists must thoroughly stomp out fascism while also pushing for Socialism.
The Israeli flag guy would think freedom means the freedom to exploit others.
The lemmy.ml guy would think freedom means the freedom to roll with tanks over peaceful Protestors demanding Freedom and Democracy.
See? Prejudice isn’t nice, right?
Freedom to do what exactly? To spend half your income on rent and have no hope of anything better?
America is a democracy for the bourgeoisie, and a dictatorship for us. China is a democracy for the people and a dictatorship for the bourgeoisie.
Jesus fucking Christ, you’re really a tankie.
In china, there is the largest discrepancy between rich and poor. In china, a huge part of the population still lives in poverty while rich billionaires vacate on yachts and the government eyes imperial expansion Billionaires and Party-Officials are practically untouchable, the government is actively putting minorities in concentration camps. When the people try to protest, tanks roll over them. So much for your “democracy”
动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪大法 大法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 大紀元時報 九評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Winnie the Pooh 劉曉波动态网自由门
btw, freedom to marry anyone (china recognizes homosexuality as a mental disorder), freedom to exercise your religion (china is putting muslims in concentration camps), freedom to protest (see tianamen square massacre)
You should either replace Ukrainian flag with a Russian one or Israeli flag with Palestinian.
“I spread my butter liberally.”
It means you support capitalism, hence why “liberalization of the economy” means selling off public utilities, land, housing, and resources.
That’s not true.
Here a chicken definitely came before an egg. Read up on laissez-faire. There are also entire groups of anti-capitalist liberals and liberal ideologies as moat agree that capitalism breaks the fundamental rule of encroaching on people’s freedoms, which is obviously the main point.
Adam Smith was famously big on this, but also Henry George, the father of Georgism which is a famous liberal economic ideology that is staunchly opposed to capitalism for its many dangers to liberalism. It’s even from the US.
You can’t just take what you learned from the US media and US social media and force that onto everyone else. You’re spreading misinformation about ideologies in the hopes people won’t notice.
That seems like one very specific definition specifically for economically-neo-liberal, only mentioned below all the actual definitions
It’s also the definition used in any serious literature since the mid 1800s.
My parents used to called corned beef stew “Pig soup” so my brother and i would eat it. That doesn’t mean it was pork in there.
300 million Americans call corned beef “pig stew” and it’s in the dictionary. Welcome to living languages. Corned beef is now pig stew.
You cannot be open minded, tolerant and support human rights and freedoms while opposing capitalism. If you oppose capitalism - you’re pretty much an authoritarian shill.
This doesn’t even make sense, you’re very confused.
Care to elaborate? Why is wanting to democratize production more authoritarian than wanting many competing dictators?
Because capitalism is what allows to democratize production.
Definitionally, it cannot. Capitalism is individual ownership, Socialism is collective ownership. By definition, workers in Capitalism have no real say.
Capitalism is individual ownership, That’s the key! It gives you all the rights and freedoms to create your own business and lead it the way YOU see fit. By definition, Capitalism doesn’t have workers or other classes, everyone is equal. Socialism is an authoritarian ideology, which puts the needs of a social construct (a virtual entity, if you prefer) over the needs, rights and freedoms of an individual. One must be very delusional to support authoritarian socialist ideas in any way, shape or form.
Very bad take. Do better.
Look rather than dunk on you, I’m going to recommend Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast, because it gives a fair overview of what the liberal revolutions were about, why socialism grew out of that moment, and how there came to be this irreconciliable beef between liberalism and socialism. The whole thing is great, but 1848 is the real crisis point if all you care about is the schism.
added, should I begin at the beginning or are there recommended episodes I should listen to first over others?
First time I’ve heard of that podcast and it sounds interesting. Is there a season that touches on it more than others or is it just an overarching theme throughout the different seasons and revolutions covered?
I highly recommend this podcast. He does a great job of differentiating what the different authors say and what are his own opinions. And he adds corrections to the episode when listeners point out his mistakes. The French, Haitian, 1848, and Russian revolutions really changed how I see the world. Be warned, they can hit dozens of episodes each.
The American and English civil war are OK, not Duncan’s fault, it’s just the non Anglo revolutions were better material IMO.
I’m going to echo everyone else recommending this podcast, it’s absolutely incredible non-fiction story telling and it will really deepen your understanding of how we all got to this point in history.
To answer your question, I actually think season 8 (all about the French Commune in 1871 and how external pressures can end up causing liberals and socialists to go to war with each other) is the best one for explaining it, but it will be really confusing if you don’t listen to season 7 first (which is all about 1848, when France revolted against a liberal monarchy and most of western Europe went “hey, we should do that too, but differently”), which will be really confusing if you don’t listen to season 6 first (all about France 1830, when the liberal monarchy who would be overthrown in 1848 overthrew the absolutist monarchy that came before them) and all its supplemental episodes (all about different western European leaders who would see rebellions in 1848).
Season 3 (all about the French revolution everyone knows about in the 1790s) will help understand a few things going on in 6 and 7, and is also worth listening to just to understand why and how liberalism got going, but I don’t think it’s strictly necessary to get seasons 6-8, and 3 is ridiculously long season because the French revolution is just an insane series of back and forth plot twists that doesn’t let up.
That all said, if you’re prepared for something ridiculously long, the final season (all about the Russian revolutions, 1905 and 1917) is an incredibly informative and interesting listen too, and kind of completes the series (this is extremely reductive, but season 1-3 are sort of the “liberalism was a big improvement over what came before it” seasons, 6-8 are sort of the “but liberalism had its problems, which socialism tried to answer” seasons, and 10 is the “but socialism has its problems too” season).
Lastly, it doesn’t really touch on the liberalism vs socialism thing, but season 4 (a history of the Haitian revolution that highlights how incredibly destructive racism and colonialism are) is probably the one season I would make everyone in the world listen to if I could.
Yeah agreed, Haiti really opens your eyes to how race and class intersect imo — and the potted history at the end to bring us up to the present is absolutely heartbreaking.
I recommend Revolutions too. Mike Duncan is an awesome researcher and writer.
For a more succinct answer:
It’s obviously tongue-in-cheek, but it gets the point across lol
A liberal believes capitalism is broken and needs to be fixed.
A socialist believes capitalism is working as intended and needs to be destroyed.
What’s someone who believes capitalism is broken and needs to be destroyed?
Someone who doesn’t have conspiracy-brain. The people that say capitalism is working as intended seem to live by the inverse razor of “never attribute to collective stupidity of the implementors what can be attributed to deliberate malice by illuminati-like mechanisms.”
“Deliberate malice,” “rational self-interest [of the owner class]” – tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to.
Anarchist, maybe?
Nah anarchists also fall within the “capitalism is working as intended and must be destroyed” camp. They just have different ways of doing it.
Confused.
Liberals are, to quote Phil Ochs: “ten degrees to the left of center in the good times, ten degrees to the right of center when it affects them personally”
Pff… you’re way too nice to not be a liberal
There’s a difference between ideology and affect. I’m sure plenty of Nazis are “nice”
OK, but that’s not what the word liberal actually means to most people in my experience. Or perhaps another way of saying it is that a lot of people I see getting angry on Lemmy read the word “liberal” and assume economically liberal, whereas every person I’ve ever encountered IRL would use it to mean socially liberal.
The very idea that a liberal can’t be socialist and a socialist can’t be liberal is nonsensical. They are orthogonal concepts.
The division between liberals and socialists is plainly promoted in order to divide people.
Liberalism supports Capitalism, Socialism supports Socialism. They are incompatible.
That’s ridiculous. Liberal socialist societies have been and still are the best to live in.
lmao
No such thing.
That’s because the socially liberal definition is almost exclusively American, and lemmy has a large number of EXTREMELY Eurocentric users. Almost like a weird mirror world of the typical “everything is assumed to be American until proved otherwise” in most social media.
According to lemmy, there’s the American definition, and then there’s the correct definition. And they’re not being tongue in cheek about it, they’re serious.
With respect, if you describe yourself as liberal, vote for an economically liberal party, and refuse even to accept economic policy as part of the question, I think the “authoritarian leftists” have your number tbh
In the US political media ‘Liberal’ is deliberately used to reference the policies of the Democratic Party, which is demonstrably Neoliberal. This confusion is working as intended.
Thanks Rush Limbaugh and all the hellspawn you’ve enabled.
This confusion is working as intended.
And is exploited by tankies/fascists. By making “liberal” an insult from both the right and the left, using different definitions, they solidify in the mind if low information voters that Democrats are bad. Republicans, by being left out of this insulting, sound better by comparison.
It doesn’t even need to be an insult. It was and is an inherently anti-left strategy to correlate ‘Liberal’ to the Democratic Party and it is exactly what American political media does. (Hence my reference to Rush Limbaugh.) The goal is to inject confusion into the terminology to the point where your average low information voter/liberal can’t differentiate between the left and the right: or a tankie and a fascist.
Secret lovers.
