Unpopular opinion:
Alienating liberals doesn’t create more leftists, it only causes people to be dismissive of the term and dig in their heels.
Insulting them rather than educating them does nothing but divide anyone left of center and after the last election I think it’s abundantly clear that we need to be unified rather than divided.
No one is going to argue that left leaning candidates aren’t far from perfect, but they’re a hell of a lot better than the far-right fascists were about to have in power in less than 2 weeks.
Yes, I agree modern liberals are too centrist and ineffective but at the end of the day they’re light-years ahead of the far right, and I’d rather be agitated about having another centrist administration than alarmed and outraged at the onset of fascism.deleted by creator
Liberals facilitate fascism
That’s why it’s important to communicate with them rather than alienating them.
You’re talking as if for over a year (cough decades cough) Palestinian activists hadn’t tried talking to the liberals about their party’s unshakable support for the ongoing genocide.
What’s left to say to people who are “going to pick the lesser of 2 evils” even when you showed them that their pick is still funding the ethnic cleansing of all Palestinian people?
We should talk to general leftist people. Not the liberals. They still value money and profit over people
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I might sound like an asshole and I apologize in advance if I do because it’s not about you specifically in this case but, while I’m glad that you had people in your life who were willing to consistently talk to you and help you rethink some things, the problem to me is exactly that like you said, it does not happen overnight. At all. It actually takes a long time and a lot of trust between people to achieve what was achieved with you in this particular case. And while I am certainly glad to have another ally, time is a luxury in some cases.
Using the case of Palestine, a Palestinian village getting bombed because so many liberals simply don’t value their lives enough and don’t pressure their officials to do something about it, doesn’t have the luxury of time.
As another example, the collapse of our ecosystem is happening every single day. And while we let companies continue business as usual, those liberals think that it’s a topic that can always be postponed. But it can’t. And now we’re past the point of no return and yet we waste time in pointless conversations trying to explain to people that what is happening, is happening.
If some people on the left are willing to and have the time to take liberals by the hand and explain to them things they could look up for themselves if only they weren’t so dismissive and disinterested in the suffering of others, great. They surely have my thank. But I don’t think as a general strategy makes sense to wait for such liberal people to suddenly decide that importent issues are finally important enough to them to be acted upon.
Those issues have always been important and worthwhile. Their previous lack of interest about such topics is their own failure.
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Gestures at the current state of affairs
I don’t think patience is working guys.
What is the difference? I’m not sure what I am any more.
Liberalism is the ideological aspect of Capitalism, Leftists support some form of Socialism.
So you concede that social democrats are leftists?
Social Democrats support Capitalism with enlarged safety nets, they don’t support Socialism. So, no.
You just said leftists support some form of socialism. According to the Wikipedia page, a social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist and democratic approach toward achieving limited socialism.
So social democrats have to be leftists then
No, not really. First of all, Wikipedia is not some holy text. Many Social Democrats consider themselves open to working towards a collectivized economy, but the facts remain that
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Such a path has historically proven to be impossible
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Such a definition of Socialism used on that Wikipedia page generally equates it to “Socialism is when the government does stuff.”
So what is an acceptable level of socialism required for a government or ideology to be considered leftist in your view?
Also, don’t you think the emphasis on public control over resources or greater economic equality in social democracies reflects some socialist principles, even if it’s not socialism in the Marxist sense?
Finally, even if social democracies don’t meet the Marxist criteria for socialism, wouldn’t you say that they represent a critique of capitalism and an attempt to address its contradictions, even if they don’t go far enough?
Good questions.
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I don’t think it makes sense to classify Socialism as a quantitative measure, but qualitative. If you recall from Politzer’s work, there’s really no such thing as a “pure” system, ergo when deciding if an ideology is Capitalist or Socialist we need to see what it does and what it works towards.
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Social Democracy definitely borrows from Socialism and Socialists, certainly in aesthetics and many supporters genuinely believe in Reformism as a tactic (even if I personally think it obviously disproven at this point). However, the basis of Social Democracy is in not only maintaining markets (which are found in Socialist countries as well), but Bourgeois control and the present institutions formed in Bourgeois interests, such as the US 2 party system. Without doing anything to truly assert proletarian control over the economy and leaving the Bourgeoisie uncontested besides the “democratic” institutions they set up and approve of, I don’t consider it truly Socialist.
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In a way. If we are being serious, all ideologies are critiques of the present system in some way, even libertarian Capitalists believe in significant critiques of modern Capitalism. What matters more is the manner and character of the changes. In Social Democracy, even if adherents think social safety nets need to be expanded, they don’t typically think we should work towards collectivization and public ownership, and wish to “harness Capitalism.” In addition, the Nordic Countries many seek to replicate only exist via Imperialism, they fund their social safety nets largely through massive IMF loans and other high interest rate forms of exploiting the Global South. It’s like if Chase Bank were a country.
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Okedoke, well I just learned that I have no concrete grasp of political labels and need to do a LOT of research.
Extreme simplification:
Liberalism: supports capitalism. Current system + tweaks
Leftism: supports anticapitalism of some form, the two biggest umbrellas being Marxism/Communism and Anarchism
Marxism/Communism: supports collectivization, public ownership, and central planning (I have an introductory reading list if you want to learn more, or just read Principles of Communism)
Anarchism: supports full horizontalism and networks of communes
Thank you for the reading list! I’ll take a gander :)
Liberalism = individual rights, small government/low regulation
The meme sucks because you can be liberal left or right
When someone calls me a fascist but isn’t politically knowledgeable enough to know I’m a centrist 🧘
To be clear, fascism and anticommunism are intimately linked, and you are an anticommunist (unless you’ve changed stance). I maintain that Blackshirts and Reds should be necessary reading.
Are you calling me a fascist?
