367
Liberalism vs. Leftism
(lemmy.world)
Most of the people in this thread:
I had one of those historical tour hosts look at me like I was an idiot because I didn't know the ins and outs of the fur trade. Lady, I don't go to bed at night thinking about 1800's economics. Just tell me what you know.
You should.
I hear it’s going to make a comeback soon.
I bought stocks in a bunch of fur trading companies.
I think european liberals would rather work with fascists than even collaborate with the left, let alone call themselves "left"... oh, wait, they do.
Macron is turbo economical liberalism, and he does everything he can to not be affiliated with the left.
He even dissolved the Assemblée Nationale (our Parliament), and when a left-wing coalition came out on top, which should have secured them the prime minister's seat, Macron delayed the appointment for months trying to buy time for the right to secure an agreement with the far right, and ended up choosing a prime minister from a right-wing party who did had only 7% of votes.
You're all equally left as far as the right is concerned.
Honestly, that's just it. You'll get people on the right using hyped rhetoric about "the left", "liberals", "leftists" and other synonyms that can be used to describe anyone from Hillary Clinton to AOC and beyond. Are there people (particularly in the "and beyond" category) that an average person may be concerned with? Sure. Are they clearly explaining that they don't mean half the country? Absolutely not.
Not really, no.
The Nazis let a liberal party live as "opposition."
The socialists got purged.
Eventually everyone not in the party was suspect. The fascists will come for us all.
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Remember the poem? 'First they came for the communists'. They never came for the liberals, they worked with them. There has always been a difference, and there will always be a difference.
By definition absolutely. But most countries' "Liberal Party" is almost always conservative.
Not by definition at all.
A political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.
It's not necessarily right either, but it's closer to that than left.
Just to add a little bit to it:
"The greatest good for the greatest number", a basic leftwing principle, sometimes collides with "everybody should be free to do what they want with their own things and willing adults", a basic liberal principle, for example when it comes to some people excessivelly hoarding resources or using their ownership of an exclusive resource to extract rents from others, because it goes against the "greatest good for the greatest number" even whilst it is aligned with the whole freedom to do what they want with their own things.
At other times both are perfectly aligned: for example when it comes to the freedom from discrimination for those with a different sexual orientation than the majority, since that freedom both fulfills the "the greatest good" principle and the "freedom to do what they want" one.
Now, if one really digs down on it, maximum freedom turns out to actually require different ownership laws (if exclusive resources have owners rather than being shared, then the freedom of the non-owners is being restricted), but in decades of following and even being involved in politics, I have yet to hear a single Liberal (even those who supposedly are not Neoliberal) even mention that specific form (probably the most widespread and highest impact one) of restriction on the Freedom of most people, much less suggest changing it.
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You can go further and say that they're inherently enemies.
It wasn't until Ron Paul was running for office that I learned that "liberal" was mostly used as a shorthand for "libertarian" and what a libertarian was. Before that I thought it just was a synonym for progressives/democrats. They're not left-wing. They're just not as far right as a fascist.
Libertarianism started out as a left wing philosophy. Then it got corrupted by Ayn Rand fanatics and right wing think tanks. I categorize myself as a left wing libertarian, and don't agree with the US Libertarian party on pretty much anything.
I disagree with Grue about Libertarianism, and also with you about the relation of the terms. Liberalism's definition is an ideology of personal freedoms and civil rights.
While that can be interpreted as deregulatory conservative by some, it is primarily a nonviolent ideology that protects disenfranchised.
Thats why its always so shocking to me to see tankies and anarchist thrashing Liberals on Lemmy. It's literally an ideology where people are treated fairly and equally. If they spoke out about specific Liberal Parties then I could hop onboard because those usually suck.
You seem to have the truest take. It just boils down emancipation. Leftist policies are liberal in nature, seeking freedom from the hierarchy of capitalism.
Most of the confusion seems to come from neoliberalism or market liberalism co-opting the term for conservative and authoritarian uses and now everyone is confused.
Leftists who need a distinction in the terms seem to fall into two categories; those who see liberals as reformists instead of revolutionaries (too moderate), and the false leftism of Lenin/Stalin etc sects who aim for an authoritarian model but without capitalism.
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this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2024
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