• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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    13 hours ago

    I think you’re confused, liberals aren’t left. The commenter you are replying to is complaining about liberals, ie “moderate” right wingers, failing to understand far-right wingers.

      • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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        4 hours ago

        Someone hearing for the first time that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher are staunch liberals.

            • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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              2 hours ago

              Yea but you’re all not authority on any of this. So it doesn’t matter. The rest of the world knows liberalism as left of center. Just facts

          • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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            2 hours ago

            Liberalism is the ideology of capitalism. They emerged together and the former was formed to justify the latter. Over the years it has branched out and there are many forms such as classical liberalism, neoliberalism, social liberalism, etc. but they all defend capitalist property rights and the market. Socialism emerged as the working class response to/critique of liberalism. In the US the term only refers to social liberals, who are in reality centrists. Americans call them leftists only because centrists are slightly to the left of right-wing politics.

            We’re against liberalism as a whole because it’s the ideology that justifies capitalism. We’re against social liberals because they’re seen as fence-sitting cowards and dangerous compromisers.


            This is a very introductory overview to liberalism:

            The most in-depth delving into it is Losurdo’s Liberalism - A counter history, but you’d have to read many more foundational texts before that one.

            • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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              2 hours ago

              Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law.[1][2] Liberals espouse various and often mutually conflicting views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion.[3] Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.[4][5]: 11

              https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

              Emerging together does not mean they are dependent on each other.

              • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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                1 hour ago

                How many books on this topic have you read? Are you aware of the conflicts between liberals and workers, prisoners, women, and colonized people for over 200 years? Do you know the history of the working class movement and its history of conflicts with liberals since the mid 1800s?

                Any one of us can answer these questions. You clearly can’t.

                • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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                  1 hour ago

                  😆

                  Do you even read bro

                  Yes I read. Like how I read that Wikipedia link and the other supporting links and references I’ve posted. All saying liberalism is left.

      • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
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        9 hours ago

        How can liberals be left when liberalism is the hegemonic ideology in the US. Both parties are liberal and both parties represent oligarch interests, the only difference between them is in how to manage the internal contradictions of the country.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        13 hours ago

        No, they aren’t. Liberalism is the ideological superstructure of capitalism, while leftists support socialism of various fashions. The driving distinction between right and left is retaining the current system, or progressing onwards to the next.

        • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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          8 hours ago

          https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/left-liberals

          https://civix.ca/resources/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Backgrounder-Lesson-2-The-Political-Spectrum.pdf

          Liberal/Left-leaning people embrace social services and government intervention in the economy. Conservative/Right-leaning people support lower taxes, free markets and less government intervention in the economy. Libertarians advocate both personal and economic liberty (freedom). Authoritarians favour strict obedience to authority and government control, at the expense of personal and economic freedom.

          https://www.dictionary.com/e/leftright/

          the word left is applied to people and groups that have liberal views.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            8 hours ago

            Yes, liberals tend to define the entire scope of political economy to a narrow, capitalist viewpoint. That doesn’t make it correct. A huge range of viewpoints narrowly occupies the “radical” portion, while an absolute mountain of space comparatively is given to subdivisions of capitalism. It’s a deeply silly graph.

            • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              I think I get it. Right wing groups like koch Bros and heritage institutes push the left to fracture into very niche small subsets in order to isolate making it hard for those groups to organize and easier to kill them off. Much like how a cheetah separates a young calf from the herd. So what groups are you talking about for your “huge range of viewpoints”

              Totally not silly at all to get hyper specific about political ideology. I’m a liberal right center neo cat Audi rhino born a capitalist but transitioned to a socialist somewhere around 1992 when political synergy was at its peak

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                4 hours ago

                Nah, it aint that deep. The left wants socialism, the right wants capitalism. There are differences in views among leftists and right-wingers, but the base is in if the principle aspect of the economy should be public, or private.

                • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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                  4 hours ago

                  Not all left want socialism. The political spectrum is not divided by “want socialism / do not want socialism”

                  But you’re right it’s not that deep

                  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                    4 hours ago

                    No, the left want socialism, be it anarchism, marxist socialism, etc. Capitalism is not the “absence of socialism,” it’s its own thing.

                    You’re confusing people calling right-wing parties like the DNC “left” in the context of USian politics, but that’s because the left is fringe, in parties like PSL.

                    What do you think makes the divide? Why are you so insistent on calling capitalism “left wing?”

      • Thebigguy@lemmy.ml
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        10 hours ago

        No they’re not, I hate to break it to you but most conservatives are liberals. What you’re referring to is liberals picking up on social policies championed by the left.

      • folaht@lemmy.ml
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        11 hours ago

        Liberals are rightwing.

        There was a brief moment the US democratic party went social democratic, from Roosevelt to Carter and these days there’s a small resurgance with Mamdani.

        But Clinton, Obama, Biden, Harris and Cuomo are all at the very least centre-right wing.

          • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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            2 hours ago

            Liberalism is the ideology of capitalism. They emerged together and the former was formed to justify the latter. Over the years it has branched out and there are many forms such as classical liberalism, neoliberalism, social liberalism, etc. but they all defend capitalist property rights and the market. Socialism emerged as the working class response to/critique of liberalism. In the US the term only refers to social liberals, who are in reality centrists. Americans call them leftists only because centrists are slightly to the left of right-wing politics.

            We’re against liberalism as a whole because it’s the ideology that justifies capitalism. We’re against social liberals because they’re seen as fence-sitting cowards and dangerous compromisers.


            Canada’s two main parties are both right-wing. They support capitalism, and the rule of capitalists over the economy and government. The canadian conservative party agrees with them in that.

            Or look at Australia. Their two main parties are Labour vs the liberal party (both are pretty right wing, but in that country the liberals openly position themselves to the right of the other party).

            Or take Japan. Their far right party is called the liberal democrats.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        10 hours ago

        It’s a failure of terms used in US politics. When we say “left” and “right” we pretty much exclusively are talking about their position in respect to one another as opposed to the actual policies the parties hold.

        Republicans are much more “conservative” (right wing) than Democrats (liberals) are, so the Republicans are the right and the Democrats become the “left” as they aren’t as conservative and therefore they are “to the left” of Republicans.

        If you were to look at global definitions as to what it means to be a left wing party, Democrats really don’t fit there.

        • Thebigguy@lemmy.ml
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          7 hours ago

          It’s crazy what absolutely no knowledge about various political and philosophical movements does to a mfer.