the video link is from 2023, the UI is from 2004 and the ideas are straight outta 1933
It wasn't that long ago that republicans called democrats "liberals" as an insult, and the left of the democratic party got mad and adopted the "you're damn right I'm a liberal and I'm proud of it" take. And those liberals were still basically centrists. The republicans have moved right since then, and the left has moved left since then while the democratic party ignores and suppresses it.
It's true, I blew up English in my quest for power
Now hghtisuu sheyrhb sheurhbs shhtbsjdu sjrigodhe ocornensbadjcien¡
staring deeply into my statue of a cool outer space octopus god to destroy language and own the libs
Capitalism mainly.
Liberalism as a political ideology holds the capitalist free market, positive rights of the individual & representative democracy as its three main pillars.
"Leftism" is harder to pin down. I think we care a lot more about opposing material and social inequality and increasing material well being for everyone. We tend to be very anti-capitalist, our biggest intersection with the liberals is on most cases of positive rights of the individual except of course, when we're talking about the equal right of a vagrant and a banker to freeze to death under a bridge, and be more ambivalent on representative democracy mainly as a matter of tactics rather than principle.
My briefs internet search mentioned that distinction, of capitalism. Thanks for the response I appreciate it.
I disagree with your interpretation. Liberalism is actually primarily concerned with negative rights for an individual. Like, the banker and the vagrant both get to sleep under a bridge because they have a "right" to sleep without being harassed by the government, not because the society they live in is considered responsible for providing everyone a bridge to sleep under. Contrast that with the idea of housing as a positive right; the government and society at large would be considered responsible for not just ensuring people under bridges aren't harassed, but instead for developing and providing real housing for all. Access to housing would not be determined by ability to pay under a positive right to housing.
For another example, the liberal conception of trans rights is that anyone is allowed to transition and others may not interfere with that right. In practice, this means that only people who can afford to transition get to, though. Compare that to the positive conception of trans rights which would guarantee gender affirming care itself as essential care and consider it a right that must be provided to everyone, whether they can afford it or not.
The U.S. Constitution and ammendments, a classical liberal document if ever there were one, is a good example of this. These documents don't focus on stating what the government must provide to it's citizens, they're mostly concerned with what the government cannot take away. Rights are considered inherent to the individual who holds them, and there is a duty for the government to protect those rights so other people may choose to use them or not: accumulation and use of property, voting, speech, worship, so on and so forth, these are rights the government is prohibited from interfering with, not things that must be institutionally provided by the government.
That doesn't mean that liberalism hasn't incorporated positive rights over the years, but that's where there is the greatest friction between Liberals today. "conservatives" Liberals tend to want to stick to a negative rights scheme, while more "liberal" Liberals tend to think there are some or even many things that should be provided by a government. An example here is the expansion of school/education over time. A basic standard of education has been deemed something the government MUST provide citizens with, even if that means compelling parents to send their kids to school. Kids CANNOT (de jure) be excluded from the public education system, which is why there is schooling even in juvenile detention, and even the most disruptive or anti-social children must have some kind of school of last resort they are permitted to attend and cannot be "expelled" from. That's only a right in the US up through High school, though. "liberal" Liberals may argue for higher education being included under the umbrella of positive rights, while "conservative" Liberals as a rule tend to exclude it (and many other reforms that would expand positive rights).
This is also where there is the greatest contradictions in Liberal beliefs, as positive rights increasingly interfere with the whole commitment to capitalism thing. Many people find themselves becoming socialists specifically because some positive right seems so self-evidently necessary that when presented with the choice of that right or capitalism, they choose that right: housing, food and water, medical care, universal education, lots of different things might be the trigger issue, but once you are willing to give up on capitalism to ensure one of those things it is a lot easier to give up on it for other similar matters too. Liberals on the other hand will refuse to give up capitalism. "conservative" Liberals may just end up saying that thing isn't a positive right at all, while "liberal" Liberals will try to find solutions to problems that still enshrine private property and accumulation of wealth within a capitalist system. These halfway measures and compromises are of course insufficient and doomed to fail, and any progress made is often later stripped under pressure from capital. Think retirement benefits, labor rights, food aid and other subsidy programs for essential goods.
Leftists avoid these contradictions by giving up our commitment capitalism and private property entirely. We identify those institutions as the reason positive rights currently are not able to be effectively provided, and are thus committed to fighting that power instead of compromising with it. I think anti-capitalism is basically a necessary condition for anyone to be considered a leftist, however, there are reactionary anti-capitalists too. So in general leftists tend to be concerned about egalitarian and universal approaches to positive rights, as opposed to reactionaries who might advocate for entrenched systems of hierarchy based on class or social group along with the elimination of capitalism.
@DiltoGeggins@hexbear.net tagging you because you're the one who initially asked the question!
Hmmm, maybe I qualify then, because I'm too sexy for my pants.
Liberalism essentially attempts to prioritize human freedom 'libre'.
This conception of freedom is around the extension of old aristocratic privileges to the masses, essentially, the freedom to buy and sell that privilege and thus the extension of private property rights. Liberalism is 'every man is equal under the law, and a lord of his own property' as the maximization of human freedom. However, this conception of freedom clearly contains flaws, as while it contains a revolutionary framework that over throws the aristocratic, it does not seek a redistributive framework that overthrows existing bourgeoisie property or social relations, merely to put them on auction.
This is where Marx comes in, because he recognizes that the enrichment of the bourgeoisie to purchase these privileges requires the immiseration of the working classes. To say that privilege has been popularized and put on auction is, in practice, to privatize the commons and place morality enforcement on the public. This causes a myriad of problems, as bourgeoisie values that are given credence by the market, such as 'austerity' cannot be universal values as someone has to consume the products they produce in order for them to profit. And even more so, it causes economic problems as those who produce they goods cannot accumulate enough nessecery capital to buy them in order for the rate of profit to grow.
Essentially, leftists recognize liberalism as an incomplete social and economic revolution, that instead of recognizing the irrationality of it's systems and conceptions, clings to outdated ideas of freedom that are ultimately grounded in aristocratic privileges that were gained during times of barbarism.
Great response... Something I've been wondering about, how do leftists feel about immigration? For example the so called immigration crisis in the USA or in Europe? Or for example the concept of borders, like the southern border in the USA or the Mediterranean borders in Europe? How does the fact that the USA and Europe have in place borders to keep out the people who contribute in some ways, the most- to society?
You're asking really great questions comrade. Proud of you.
Borders are an interesting one where it's not exactly a settled matter within leftist movements. Anarchists, or at least anyone deserving of being called one, are going to be against the concept of borders entirely. Governments or other oppressive bodies would be necessary for constructing/"defending" borders, so that's right out under anarchist ideologies. Different flavors of Marxists on the other hand have different ideas, but "workers of the world unite!" wasn't written by Marx in the Manifesto for nothing. National borders and national identity more broadly is seen as a reactionary concept that promotes an idealist conception of people over a class conception. Workers in different countries have far more in common with each other than the bourgeoisie from their own countries. A communist ideal society is stateless, classless, and moneyless (meaning money representating financial capital is not a standard of exchange). I'd say that leftists in general agree with that as a goal, but anarchists would not support using a "state" as a vehicle for reaching it. "Marxists" on the other hand (using Marxist loosely here, there are anarchist Marxists) would probably be okay with a socialist state existing to build towards that goal, and with a state tends to come state like things such as borders. That doesn't mean they'd enforce them or even draw them the same way as we do today, but it doesn't rule them out ideologically speaking. One of the central ideas of Marxist-Leninism is that workers must seize the power of the state in order to oppress the bourgeoisie (as opposed to the current arrangement where the bourgeois state oppresses the working class of course). Once their institutions have been thoroughly deconstructed Marxist-Leninists believe the state both can and should be phased out over time. Anarchists are either skeptical of this transition actually taking place or ideologically opposed to even a temporary state.
For 'liberal' states, such as the U,S, and Europe (and modern Russia and China btw, but they are different political systems and structures), borders serve a two-fold strategy. First, it demarcates the areas where geopolitical imperialism is and is not acceptable. Now, this first one has been proven to be mostly theoretical, as both the U.S. and Europe practice low-level to mid-level imperial violence on their own subjects, killing and jailing dissidents, cracking down on protestors. However, high tier levels of genocide and total warfare are not considered acceptable within those borders, thus creating a 'core' as opposed to a 'periphery' of empire. This is why liberals will not blink at the killing of over a million Iraqis on false pretenses, but wring their hands because Marxists-Leninists commit a political purge within their own state (even though historically the nature and subjects of these purges are misunderstood, but that is another topic for another day). For them to call Russia an evil empire, but have no real substentive claims as to crimes outside of their own population is the greatest hypocrisy, but ultimately is completely understandable within the liberal framework. Because I live within these arbitrary borders soaked in blood, I have rights, you do not.
Second, it creates an easily controlled cheap 'illegal' workforce within the country that does not have the same rights as citizens. For example, the U.S. is in a labor shortage which means that we don't have an immigration problem, we have a lack of immigration problem. Now, TreadOnMe, you may ask, isn't it then within capital's interest to open up immigration further? Well, the issue within the U.S. is that because of price increases that have been caused due to the labor crisis, inflation, capital strike, and other compounding issues, it's just not worth it for immigrants to make the journey into the U.S. unless their situation is really desperate, and even then, most of these illegal immigrants are not the skilled laborers that are needed to solve the labor crisis because of a lack of investment in education. Once again, the 'market morality' of public austerity is actually what is stifling it's growth, and we will see if the market 'self-corrects' (hint: it won't, that is why they are trying to fund community college degrees in the U.S. but not 4-year colleges). But otherwise, for cheap illegal labor, this serves to undercut worker power at the core and serves as a method to cut wages and bust unions. China, for example, has a very strict immigration policy specifically in order to prevent this from happening, but also uses a wide-spread short term work visa system in order to supplement unskilld labor where it is needed within the system. Hence why it is more complex that a traditional liberal state, but still ultimately something of a liberal state.
I am not certain of the immigration and labor issue in Europe, but I would assume it is similar, if not the same.
However, there is also a third thing that does not have to do with the 'liberal state' but with the structure and nature of international capital itself. International capital has the ability to translate fairly fluidly between capitalist states, while labor is restricted in it's movements by both the state and lack of access to capital itself (remember what I was talking about that liberalism is an incomplete social and economic revolution, this is another major facet that has been built off of those exact same historical processes). However, what that means in practice is that capital is able to stay one step ahead of labor, moving freely from state to state. It is this failure to recognize the material inevitability of the international capitalist system within liberal unions of the U.S. that doomed them from the moment they compromised.
As western leftists, it is generally in our interests to oppose national borders and believe in universal immigration policies. While there may be a short term lowering of wages, without the threat of deportation over their heads the act of worker organization becomes an easier thing to push for nation-wide. It is reactionary to cut your nose off to spite your face, seek short term wage gains at the expense of long term values and goals. That being said, believing that we can peacefully negotiate such a framework with capital is a fools game, as the entire liberal conception of their imperial project relies on these demarcations of state and culture, of writ large 'bodies and spaces'. Even 'liberal' liberals will always negotiate themselves away from free borders. Even free-market libertarians and Ayn Rand egoists want to enforce the frontier.
As western leftists, it is generally in our interests to oppose national borders and believe in universal immigration policies. While there may be a short term lowering of wages, without the threat of deportation over their heads the act of worker organization becomes an easier thing to push for nation-wide.
my personal belief is that all borders world wide should be abolished. I feel even more strongly about this when it comes to the Western Hemisphere (where I was born, have spent all my life). There is literally no sound argument for keeping our borders in place, unless citizens consider wasteful spending in support of paranoia and sentimentalismo to be "sound" thinking. I think you would mostly agree with this statement perhaps with some caveats? ie, it is a bit of a fool's errand.
While those are good sentiments to have, there is a good third-worldist argument for borders, in that they provide a legal framework that can protect state sovereignty and socialist projects from attack within the liberal global system. For instance, I think the dissolution of the U.S.-Mexico border would prove to be disastrous for the Mexican state because it would allow the U.S. military to cross over unimpeded into Mexican territory and threaten Mexican towns for no other reason than 'we think drugs are coming from there'. This is why they help fund border security with the U.S, it's basically a payoff to the U.S. military.
Now, is this a sustainable long-term view for a leftist to have? No, in my opinion. Is it even based in historical analysis? Not really, as the U.S. government historically funds whatever destabilizing groups it wants to within countries borders. Does that mean it is necessarily incorrect? Also no. There are good reasons to believe that disposing of the current liberal states framework without ALSO disposing of the model of imperium would lead to even more belligerent imperial conquest. HOWEVER, to paraphrase Brace Belden and quote Mao, political power comes from the barrel of a gun, if you can't protect it, it's already not yours. If your socialist project is completely dependent on the beneficence of the liberal global system, you are already fucked. That being said, be kind to your comrades who make these arguments, especially if they come from those countries, it is the most pragmatic stance they can take and thus completely understandable.
Ultimately we live in a word of historical development, not utopian idealism. The development of free borders will hopefully arise naturally from the natural conditions, and contradictions emerge between international capital, international labor and liberal states. Will it lead to a borderless future? We can only hope so.
RE the need to keep potentially, yes. We need to be sure that any change is done in a way that benefits the players as they need. Too often in the past, the USA has somehow managed to find a way to screw the developing countries over in ways that honestly I cannot even imagine how they do it. The partnerships end up seeming more like Faustian bargains than anything else, deals with the devil.
Correct. However, much like with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, sometimes a deal with the devil is what ultimately saves you, but you should never mistake the devil for your friend or an honest bargainer. And If the difference is bargain or destruction, it is better to bargain.
Again, ultimately it is unclear how these border changes will be made or progress, but thinking they will happen within the current economic framework is foolhardy at best. Perhaps it will occur within a non-capitalist framework after the revolution. Tough to say.
Maybe this excludes some leftists but I think the distinction is the left's acknowledgement that history is class struggle and the development of various systems of power, and the belief that workers ought to organize and abolish capitalism, the current stage of history.
The founding statement of liberalism is "I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it." Rousseau never actually said it, but it's the sentiment.
Meanwhile these people probably consider Mitt fucking Romney to be a leftist
