this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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Yelling at other lefties for not being left enough is a long and proud tradition.
The difference between liberals and the left is the stance on capitalism. Liberals believe they can make capitalism work, leftists insist we must move beyond it. The people obfuscating liberal and leftist are the people who want the discussion of moving past capitalism to stop. Don't help them.
I disagree. There are plenty of examples of liberal anti-capitalists such as David Ellerman
The difference between liberal and left is not fully capitalism dependant. It has more to do with lateral vs horizontal power structures. Liberal rhetoric tends to focus very much on personal property rights which means it basically is a machine to enable unchecked capitalism because it resists anything that would enable seizure or social checks on acquisition or regulation. It reinforces heirachy by legitimizing and protecting wealth and ensuring it snowballs creating greater inequity over time. Any check on what is considered personal property is anti-liberal to some extent.
There are actually liberal and social attitudes towards capitalism. Anti-trust measures, stock restrictions, union organization, reabsorbing privately held services and property into public trusts and services. These things exist as social counter measures to unchecked capitalism but not an attempt to explicitly remove the basic idea of investment capital existing in some form or another. The focus on decentralization of wealth agrigation and empowering labor still makes it nominally left of center.
So that's it, is it? I can support all the social progressiveness I like, but as soon as I balk at the prospect of an autocrat hosting a violent revolution and instating communism, I'm the enemy?
Here is the definition I run on: Anyone left of centre is left. Anyone reaching for the guillotines (or more likely just meming about them from a basement) is far left. So far left that they will never see power and see everyone right of them as an enemy.
You've chosen a definition thats dependent on where you percieve 'center' to be. Its a variable point therefore to you that word doesn't have a fixed meaning. A European centerist is an American left leaner, a decade ago the american 'left' was talking about UBI and medicade for all, now they're talking about fixing bridges that are about to fall down. You're either blind to the overton window shifting or happy that things like infrastructure upkeep is now considered 'leftism' but despite your best efforts, words still have meaning. You're one of the people trying to obfuscate those meanings.
You don't get to gatekeep leftism behind communism.
Nice buzzword, but it's not me gatekeeping anything. Thats what leftism has meant since the phrase neoliberalism has existed. Im not the one who made the definition, you're just ignoring it.
Words mean what people think they mean. "Decimate" means to remove 10% of something but everyone uses it as a synonym for annihilate. You need to understand that the vast majority of people see "liberals" and "leftists" as the same thing. Your conspiracy about obfuscation is cute but you're giving people too much credit.
Only if you are an exceptionalist usian. Liberals are not the left in most parliaments around the world.
If words mean only what people think they mean then according to near or more than half the country Biden is in fact a communist. Words have meaning, Biden isn't a Communist and liberalism and leftism are different things.
I'm not trying to be rude but you're embarrassing yourself. Please educate yourself of political theory, philosophy and terminology before you start speaking on words and concepts that you clearly don't understand. Here's a good place to start. He makes great political theory videos. Here's a playlist geared specifically towards liberalism. Here's something on anti-fascism. All of those resources aren't the end-all-be-all of politics but they're at least a good place to start and you'll be better off for it. Have a good one
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Being anti-capitalist doesn't immediately imply being a communist. There are other alternatives to capitalism such as Economic Democracy.
This is also a straw man fallacy
Liberals aren't lefties.
Thank you for demonstrating my point without the slightest hint of irony.
Do you really not understand that there's a conceptual distinction there at all? You started out by saying it's a proud leftist tradition to call out other lefties for not being left enough. Which, honestly, fair enough.
But you think even the very idea of a conceptual distinction between liberals and leftists is an example of that? That's fucking nuts, and it's not the nuanced point you think it is.
Did you step out of a time machine from the 18th century? Liberals now represent conservative forces.
Have you lot just rebadged Libertarians?
Libertarians arent liberals unless you compare them to really ancient ones, they have hangups about the role of the state in preserving capitalism which leaves them laughing stock.
OK, I agree that libertarians are not liberals. They are mostly conservatives who don't want to pay tax.
I'm still not following on why you don't think Liberals are Left wing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
So not what most people think of as "liberals" then.
Neoliberals are to liberals what National Socialists are to Socialists.
Take it back to the dictionary definition.
Going by the first definition, that's left. Even going by that second definition, I see three left policies and a right. That's essentially a lefty being not left enough.
Case #363784589 of the most common feature of a liberal being not knowing what liberalism is.
It's not really your fault, it's entirely by design from the kind of people who hate both liberals and socialists.
That Free Enterprise nullifies everything preceding it. Capitalism is incompatible with any meaningful democracy, liberty, or rights.
“It is difficult for me to imagine what "personal liberty" is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment.
Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible.”
To chalk up libertarian ideology, which BTW, every single anarchist on this site is a left wing libertarian, to just conservatives that don't want to pay tax, shows just how little you know or care about understanding political ideologies and how they relate.