For those in here that take offense to this distinction:
2 party political systems function to collapse diverse political perspectives into one of two camps and normalize an 'average' view for both parties. Leftists take issue with this collapse because it erases dissenting views within each party in service of defeating an 'other' at the expense of pursuing our real political goals.
The label matters to those of us who want to make the point that the US democratic party does not really represent our interests; at-best they represent a less-objectionable flavor of the same ideological framework, but one that needs to be dismantled all the same.
"Stop trying to divide us!" is a refrain spoken by those who are better served by the party than we are.
Put another way: "We are not the same"
I think the current best demonstration on this is how hard people are pushing Mark Kelly as VP.
They push a center-right president onto the stage and then dangle another "centrist" to try and, what? Appeal to Never Trumper Republicans? Racists?
How about you offer actual progressives some goddamn enticement for once and offer it to Jamaal Bowman, who the Dems primaried in favor of a genocidal AIPAC stooge?
I think at this point the average American conflates "liberal" with simply an attitude on how much you hate or don't hate queer people, regardless of any other political sentiment. One time a chud told me the only real political issue is abortion.
us americans are not, to put it lightly, an intellectual country
I mentioned this anecdote in another thread a couple weeks ago, but I think it fits here too:
It's not even just chuds ime, it's the majority of the US population that thinks the "further left" something or someone is, the more "liberal" it is. Even many liberals think this.
A while back I told someone (an acquaintance I met irl) that I considered myself a communist and their response to me was:
"I'm pretty liberal myself, but communism is too liberal even for me."
There were several other people present and none of them thought this was a strange thing to say.
flashback to my college days getting asked on surveys what my politics are on a scale of liberal to conservative
they'd always mark me as "independent" since their scale had nowhere to put communists
At this point, I honestly don’t know what “liberal” actually means. I don’t even know how to ask/find out. When I was growing up, I always thought it was good.
Now I don’t even know what “good” is, other than not being racist or anti-LGBTQ+.
When a conservative says liberal, it just means Democrat.
When someone with a vague clue says it?
Liberalism is a political ideology that holds that the primary role of government is to protect the rights of its citizens.
What those rights are, and who the liberals consider to be worthy of protection vary but as a general rule the right to private property, some form of democratic representation, due process with at least a gesture to equality before the law, freedom of religion and expression tend to be core rights.
Historically liberalism is deeply invested in capitalist and humanist thought. You could probably argue that liberalism isn't strictly required to be capitalist but quite frankly it's unlikely that will change before humanity is at the point of free energy and absolute post scarcity productivity.
The founding nations of liberalism are, roughly, America, France, and the UK and it's Commonwealth. If you want a intuitive understanding of what liberalism is in practice and reality, just think of their history in the past two centuries or so and the struggles of governance they have undergone.
Those aren't the only form of liberalism however. Social Democracy (the so called Scandinavian model) is a form of liberalism, neoconservatism (GW Bush, Romney) is liberalism (in theory), etc. Even "right wing" libertarianism is ultimately a form of liberalism, no matter how much that upsets the ones that don't know what words mean.
Anyways, political parties that officially call themselves Liberal tend to be fairly conservative by modern standards. It is a uniquely American removed sponsored by Reagan that sought to call progressives liberals.
One might note that you can broadly characterize the defining ideologies of the past century into three broad categories.
Liberalism, Socialism, Fascism.
When a supposed ideological liberal like Reagan and his successors, modern conservatives say no, actually, I hate liberals and I REALLY hate socialists you should believe what they tell you, and consider what that makes them.
Thank you for the extremely detailed explanation! That makes it make a lot more sense to me. I grew up “liberal is da left and conservutiv is da right” and I really didn’t identify with either? Then I saw right-wing fuckheads bashing “the libs,” and now left-wing peeps are also bashing “the libs” and I was so confused like “HOW COULD YOU HAVE COMMON GROUND WITH RIGHT-WING GARBAGE”
I would counter relative to the other answer you got that liberalism is based on a leveling of the political rights of citizens while resisting a leveling of economic rights (despite some calls for it even at the time). Feudal governments absolutely were also based on the defense of the rights of their citizens and indeed even some classical slave societies, but the difference is that those societies had [more pronounced and varied] castes which each had different political rights.
Liberalism was a revolution led by merchants and other propertied people against the aristocracy, i.e. people with the greatest economic rights opposing those with the greatest political rights, leaving the former completely unchecked except sometimes by popular power.
Incidentally, and this explains some of the bickering in this thread, communists of all stripes are people who advocate that both political and economic rights are leveled, which manifests as the economy being controlled by popular mandate rather than private ownership.
Anyway, I'm mainly commenting to say if you have other political questions, you can usually get very thorough answers from c/askchapo
Hmm, interesting! I should probably actually check out the Chapo podcast. I have never heard it and folks here seem to be fond of it. I have heard some of the hosts on Cumtown, and they’re very funny.
A lot of people on hexbear hate chapo (despite that being where c/askchapo is, due to hexbear formerly being chapo.chat) but I think it's alright. The most recent episode starts out with a very informative segment about sanctions.
Linguistically, that's usually how it is used in America (but not elsewhere), "liberal" means "left"
When you have only two parties you can only have one dimension.
Using neo-liberals to define liberals is like using national socialism to define socialism.
It's authoritarian propaganda.
Sure, but liberals are still left wing, and saying they're not is just making enemies out of other left wingers, with is a long standing left tradition.
You'd all get so much further if you recognised allies in one area don't have to be allies in all areas. You can all have your own opinions and work together where it suits you towards set goals, rather than name calling, "no true Scotsman"-ing and in fighting. It honestly feels like the right have infiltrated the left at times, and just turned them on each other.
You don't get to gatekeep "left wing" behind your nonsense failed ideology.
So all of the other leftwing ideologies are anti capitalist, but that's not the thing that makes them leftwing? What is?
Aren't you literally doing the thing you accused them of? Deriding their entire ideology? It's almost like you aren't an ally and you're just lying through your teeth!
"neoliberalism" is a term coined to be descriptive, it's a subset of liberalism. "national socialism" is a term coined to hijack the rising popularity of socialism.
Calling liberal when you're really just for the freedom to exploit and economically subjugate so nobody can stop you is also a slight hijack.
I believe in freedom or liberty as a word for a specific value. A vast majority of all normal human beings believe in this value. Not all are sane enough to understand that as a society you have to make compromises.
I feel like socialists and libertarians / neoliberals are trying to gaslight us into thinking freedom means something different, something materialistic. Well not gaslight exactly, but stealing or hijacking a word like you say. Like trying to redefine what feminism means.
Calling liberal when you're really just for the freedom to exploit and economically subjugate so nobody can stop you is also a slight hijack.
The flagship liberals were mostly slavers who wanted to go from being merely the richest people in the colonies to the deified ruling class of a country. Liberalism is the leveling of political powers so that uneven economic power dominates. It was this way with slave plantations, with laissez faire, with the "progressive" era of finishing up slaughtering the natives but keeping more of the trees this time, with Jim Crow, redlining, the red scares and with neoliberalism. That's all of American history besides the (you got me) illiberal World War I - II period.
Or we can just go and look at the social context of authors like Locke, who were advocating for the sacredness of personal property because he was among the wealthy and saw how rowdy the masses were getting.
I believe in freedom or liberty as a word for a specific value.
And it is . . .
A vast majority of all normal human beings believe in this value
Still no clue, but now we are declaring that a "vast majority" of all "normal" human beings believe in it! Are we to believe that some highfalutin theoretical value is just independent of culture? Must be something
Not all are sane enough to understand that as a society you have to make compromises.
If you remember one thing from my comment, remember the historical context at the start. If you remember two things, let the second one be this: If you were arguing with a libertarian, right there is where you lose. You let them question-beg what freedom is and let them play champion to it exactly like they want to, as even their hijacked name signifies ["libertarianism" used to refer to a strain of anarchism, and not the newage "leftlib" thing either].
I feel like socialists and libertarians / neoliberals are trying to gaslight us into thinking freedom means something different, something materialistic. Well not gaslight exactly, but stealing or hijacking a word like you say. Like trying to redefine what feminism means.
You are absolutely right on libertarians, as I described with their very name above. You are incorrect on both neoliberals and socialists.
Neoliberals have already indoctrinated basically everyone in the anglosphere because they have spent decades as the uncontested dominant power. It is the water you swim in that you don't even have a name for, and that's just how they like it. Americans are the best example of this because, while I think your definition of "liberal" is untenable, theirs is overtly pathetic. To them, it is a synonym for "left". They just don't have a word for what, say, Brits call liberal, because that's kind of everything in their reference point! Well, except theocracy, but they're still working on that word.
As for socialists, well, I think you'd need to readdress your objection first, because:
"Freedom" is a political concept.
Political concepts, I am sure we can agree, have no significance outside of reality.
Reality is material.
Freedom's significance depends on its materiality. QED.
Conversely, anyone who told me that they wanted to tell me about their politics but that it had no meaningful relationship to material reality is not someone I would listen to talk for any reason. Now, I'm not saying you're saying that -- I doubt you are -- but your explanation struggles to hold up to that. I used [admittedly crass] deduction for refutation there because it was convenient, but I hope you don't think I have any particular interest in deceiving you. I just don't think that a starving person in a desert is meaningfully free, though we haven't gotten that far yet.
Complete aside, but the discussion about muddling word meanings reminded me of my favorite short text by Lenin:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/mar/11.htm
Thanks for taking the time to reply, I think we believe the same things but disagree on definition of words and on tactics.
The flagship liberals were mostly
Why do they get to redefine the meaning of words and erase concepts? They were wrong or deliberately lying bastards.
joke
You think just because they planted their imperial flag in this piece of conceptual real estate they get to own it? I pick it up and throw it on the ground! I'm not part of your system! :D
When someone says he believes in liberal values (liberty as a synonym for freedom) it is just a bad tactics to (deliberately) misunderstand them to mean freedom to oppress and attack them for it. Even if your only goal were the pursuit of power (or wealth or influence) it would be bad tactics to insult those you wish to convince.
I believe it is important to wake people up that what capitalists say with freedom is a lie, that people cannot be free if they their socioeconomic situation doesn't allow them to. We need to reclaim the word "freedom" as encompassing the freedom from exploitation, economic servitude, lies, constant imaginary terror, or threats of real violence. That news and social media has become a prison of distorting mirrors and lies.
PS: Obviously freedom cannot be an absolute or principle but a compromise with society. I'd be curious what you would call the concept of both individual and economic liberty. Like what "should" someone say when they want to say they believe in liberal values? Socialism? :)
PPS: Thanks for the short text, it's hilarious
Why do they get to redefine the meaning of words and erase concepts? They were wrong or deliberately lying bastards.
When someone says he believes in liberal values (liberty as a synonym for freedom) it is just a bad tactics to (deliberately) misunderstand them to mean freedom to oppress and attack them for it.
It's just a matter of what "liberalism" is. That's how language works in material reality, that things gain new meanings based on social circumstances. It's like saying "That person isn't black! Their skin and their hair are clearly just dark shades of brown". In some sense you are correct, but you only get there by ignoring the other meaning of the word, which is clearly the one being used. Words don't have any other meaning except that which was socially constructed.
I believe it is important to wake people up that what capitalists say with freedom is a lie, that people cannot be free if they their socioeconomic situation doesn't allow them to. We need to reclaim the word "freedom" as encompassing the freedom from exploitation, economic servitude, lies, constant imaginary terror, or threats of real violence. That news and social media has become a prison of distorting mirrors and lies.
You sound very much like a nascent socialist. I agree with this completely.
PS: Obviously freedom cannot be an absolute or principle but a compromise with society. I'd be curious what you would call the concept of both individual and economic liberty. Like what "should" someone say when they want to say they believe in liberal values? Socialism? :)
Well, without a definition of freedom, it's very difficult to answer this question. Part of the reason is that we can (as even liberals will tell you) frame "freedom" as "freedom from" and "freedom to", and these freedoms typically represent opposite values. As a crude example, consider the freedom to kill versus the freedom from being killed. Thus, there is no such thing as absolute freedom, though socialists certainly had things to say, as you did earlier, about the lack of freedom experienced by someone who is destitute, as well as the lack of freedom in a class system, where the state is necessarily organized by the ruling class to suppress the underclass.
Framed in terms of ideals, as I suggested earlier and the Lenin piece says, socialism is the political and economic equality of the people (economic equality here not meaning the equality of how much money you have, but the masses being able to decide production instead of an elite owning class, though that itself is conducive to everyone getting what they need on the basic principle of organizing production towards serving everyone).
PPS: Thanks for the short text, it's hilarious
Lenin is an entertaining guy. The letter I shared is his punchiest work in that respect, but I think the book State and Revolution is also entertaining in its own way, as well as dealing with issues a bit larger in scope than liberal-professorial sophistry.
Sure words change meaning but they also have multiple meanings and concepts evolve. Nobody really uses the word liberalism anymore. Like how would you define the difference between liberalism and neoliberalism? That word was specifically created to delineate the "rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law". There are further issues:
Using concepts as defined pre 1960 is problematic at least because we had massive advances in science and understanding of how humans, society and economics and systems of power work. Game theory, mass psychology, sociology, and technology has advanced so that we know these ideas as seen originally do not work, since we have historical evidence of their failure. So to continue to use them is a fallacy - or in the case of reactionaries a bad faith attempt.
Most people don't see ideology as absolutes, they pick and choose. The opposite of someone what believes in liberal values is a fascist, not a socialist. Principles or absolutes in e.g. freedom are just bullshit talking points that politicians and pundits sell us for profit and to polarize us.
In my opinion, any serious socialist or communist today must be in favor of "limited personal free market" where individuals or small groups of individuals have the liberty to produce, innovate and become entrepreneur, because we now know that this is a fundamental expression of human nature. E.g. build some cool keyboards and sell them on etsy or whatever. Or a family that runs their own restaurant in cuba. Only when a corporation grows and becomes too big does it have to become a coop or similar. Like all the big internet companies started small and wholesome, but now should be nationalized and turned into democratically (worker+user) controlled cooperatives.
I do believe you have concepts like that in variations of socialism, so much that I'd argue that 90% of the values defined in liberalism are fully compatible with a hypothetical "neosocialism". And I doubt you'd find serious socialists today that really want to defend the original maxist/leninist or maoist theories of socialism. Unfortunately I've never found a textbook from after say 1990 or 2000 about an improved economic theory for socialism.
But fundamentally I don't believe in any ideology. I believe 90% of all humans share the same values but are reprogrammed through lies and emotional manipulation. And that a small percentage of humans value power/wealth/influence above anything else and will spoil any system we can come up with. And THAT is the problem, one that traditional socialism doesn't address either.
I believe that instead of arguing about the finer points of old ideologies from the barbarous times pre 1950 we should be working on tools to control or negate these corrosive and corrupting influences (Wealth caps? Sortition? AI?). But we're not even talking about that today any more.
But what has changed is that the "right" is now reactionary and heading towards fascism and no longer believes in liberal values. The liberals should be your allies.
PS: Sorry for the long rant lol
I go on plenty of long rants, I have no right to complain. I'll try to address what I find to be the more productive points.
Nobody really uses the word liberalism anymore
Here and elsewhere you exhibit a serious myopia. Can I imagine that there are some places, especially in the US, where use of the term as anything other than "Democrat" has died out? Of course. Does that mean in the whole world no one is using it? Absolutely not, there are many countries where its use is much more common and political analysts still use it even in America.
Like how would you define the difference between liberalism and neoliberalism?
Liberalism is a general philosophical movement that I have already defined. Neoliberalism is the dominant strain within the broader movement that is oriented around American imperial hegemony.
That word was specifically created to delineate the "rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law".
I don't care what Wikipedia told you about neoliberalism, that is not the history of the term. Neoliberalism emerged as a reactionary opposition to social democracy (which was popular due to the gains socialism was making in the East) once the Cold War started drawing to a close.
Using concepts as defined pre 1960 is problematic at least because we had massive advances in science and understanding of how humans, society and economics and systems of power work. Game theory, mass psychology, sociology, and technology has advanced
When I read this, I screamed into a pillow, I am so sick of seeing this fucking argument. It's just an excuse for philistinism (i.e. ignorance and refusal to study), and for throwing out ideas hostile to American hegemony (since the apotheosis of neoliberalism was circa 1980). Let's just throw out gravity, nitrogen fixing, democracy, representative government, and all the rest of it because now we have smartphones! But I'm being uncharitable, you give a more specific condition in a moment:
so that we know these ideas as seen originally do not work, since we have historical evidence of their failure
When a new system emerges and is smashed by the old powers, that does not establish that the idea "doesn't work" but that the historical circumstances of its emergence then and there was unable to resist reactionary forces, which is a useful datapoint, but not for the argument "gommulism doesn't work".
The opposite of someone what believes in liberal values is a fascist
If we're using "liberal" like most people in the world use liberal, this is completely incorrect and that fact is well-established by history. Fascism as a historical movement was born as anticommunist resistance aimed at preserving capitalism, which is why the Nazis had immense help from liberal foreign powers who they would later attack. Fascism is not the opposite of liberalism, it is liberalism in decay and fighting viciously for its own preservation.
In my opinion, any serious socialist or communist today must be in favor of "limited personal free market" where individuals or small groups of individuals have the liberty to produce, innovate and become entrepreneur,
This is too big a topic, we can get back to it later if you want. My short answer is that you are relying on buzzwords that completely obfuscate what you are talking about.
because we now know that this is a fundamental expression of human nature. E.g. build some cool keyboards and sell them on etsy or whatever
???? This has the fun quality that you are either saying that trying to be, like, a CEO is fundamental to human nature, which is baseless nonsense, or you are saying something more along the lines of "humans like creating things and changing their environment, perfecting and reinventing tools to streamline production and so on" which is literally basic Marx!
And I doubt you'd find serious socialists today that really want to defend the original maxist/leninist or maoist theories of socialism.
You will find Marxists all over the world, myself included, who will tell you that the basic principles of Marxism are correct and that having an actually successful socialist movement depends on not distorting them. Incidentally, you can read the Lenin I linked you to learn all about people trying to distort Marxism back circa 1914.
Like before, you are demonstrating myopia. I'm sure you don't know any Marxists (evidently) and you probably haven't met very many on the internet, but there are multiple Marxist countries and countless Marxist movements around the world. Maybe they (not necessarily I, but they) have something to teach you that you can't get from pontificating and navel-gazing.
I believe 90% of all humans share the same values but are reprogrammed through lies and emotional manipulation.
This is elitist nonsense and I will link you to my favorite essay, though it's a little long and circuitous: https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
The short version is that people act in their self-interest and it takes a fair amount of education, whether through lived experience or exposition, to understand that their interest is with the common interest. People broadly espouse falsehoods not because they have been cleverly tricked, but because they care about what is "really true" far less than they care about what it does for them to do that espousing.
I believe that instead of arguing about the finer points of old ideologies from the barbarous times pre 1950 we should be working on tools to control or negate these corrosive and corrupting influences (Wealth caps? Sortition? AI?).
AI is garbage techno-rapturism and sortition was literally used in ancient Athens, meaning it should be thrown out if we follow your logic (along with voting generally). Wealth caps are not asset caps, so they are meaningless here.
The liberals should be your allies.
You have two choices, either start using liberal like the world does or, I guess, conclude that the Democrats are also part of the right, because I can tell you with confidence that Biden has never been and never will be my ally. Either choice is an improvement from current conditions, I suppose.
That's why lefitist is usually an unhelpful term. I only hear it used as a self descriptor by libs who want free healthcare and support imperialism.
I use it intentionally all the time to distance myself from liberals, especially when talking to liberals (it's a pointless distinction to conservatives). It breaks liberal brains a little less often lately than it used to, but while the repetitive conversation about the distinction is annoying, it also usually results in some wheels turning a tiny bit inside them.
i outright use the word communist to describe myself to liberals and that usually cuts off any potential liberal camaraderie pretty quickly lol
An anarchist believes in liberty for people to live freely
A capitalist believes in liberty to freely exploit people
Unfortunately the capitalists also own the means of mass communication and have gaslit the socialists into thinking liberty only means the latter!
Resist imperialist redefinition of words!
