this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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Asklemmy
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Question: do you consider yourself a liberal?
Yes?
Liberals have never been leftists.
This isn't really a new thing. You can read about leftists a hundred years ago denouncing liberalism.
Thatβs a bit of a red herring, since βliberalβ is not exactly a term that means the same thing to everyone.
Itβs a semantics game, and a very ignorant or disingenuous one at that.
Liberals merely became less racist and less sexist, not much else has changed.
Definitely not less ableist tho..
Not a liberal.
Okay but you are ableist though, which reads as pretty liberal. Unless you are somehow a monarchist or fascist on lemmy? Which is funny for other reasons.
Yeah, Iβve been trying to get better.
Uhhh what?
My country is an actual monarchy. Almost everyone is a monarchist. Not me, but itβs not directly correlated with ableism, other than people in general being garbage.
The idea that most people are fundamentally broken and worthless is probably correlated with ableism.
I mean, there are more things at play here than are obvious in my comment, but you are right that itβs not a great attitude to have.
They are being extremely persnickety. I'm hard left, and a vocal opponent of just about anything not left of center. That said, I'm not about to lock a bunch of conservatives in a church and light it on fire.
If I had to pick a box, it'd be socialist, because Communism has been tried, and generally ends up with an oligarchy. I don't see anything wrong with owning property or earning money, as long as you aren't curb Stomping people below you to get it.
What Socialist is in favor of maintaining Capitalism in the long term? What do you mean by Oligarchy, and how does that not apply to Capitalists in your "Socialist" system?
Basically the Nordic model is my viewpoint (popular or not on here). High nationalisation of the economy with some room for private enterprise. High taxes, esp. for the rich, High investment in social programs.
Throw in a shit ton of transparency and accountability
I wouldn't describe that as Socialist, really, unless it was in the Global South and explicitly Anti-Imperialist, and even then it would still need to have a trajectory to move onto Socialism eventually. The Nordics themselves rely on brutal exploitation of the Global South to function, and are some of the most Imperialistic countries in the world.
The issue in the Nordic Model is that historically, the Capitalist class has maintained dominance, and has slowly turned back previous concessions via state control.
Social Programs are fantastic, but in the context of an Imperialist country we must recognize the source of these Programs.
Would be nice, but extremely difficult with a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie.
I'm not totally well versed in global politics, tbh. Exploiting people is wrong no matter how you slice it; I wasn't aware of the exploit of southern nations for Nordic gain.
Maybe I am a confused liberal as one commenter mentions, but only in terms of what box I fit in. I know what I want. Equality and justice for all people. Freedom to earn a bit extra if we apply ourselves. Not so much extra that we are engorged ticks on society, amassing more money that you could ever spend in several life times.
I'm not willing to go with violence to achieve these ends, because that quickly turns into a feeding frenzy and 'justice' is indiscriminate and often in the hands of people who should not be administering.
My viewpoint is entirely irrelevant because my country is on the point of electing populists, and what I desire may as well be the fucking moon
Consider reading Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. It might help clarify how Capitalism actually functions in the modern era.
Stock-standard Socialist/Communist take, if you care.
Nobody is advocating for Leftists to randomly go sicko-mode. Revolution is a consequence, not an action.
The through-line of Leftism is organizing. Join a union, or an org! Try to build up dual-power.
Thanks for the resource and general info.
Also, huge thanks for not beating me over the head with strong opinions, and acting more of a guide/talking rationally on a hot button topic on lemmy.
In return I offer Panopticon: his music is bluegrass influenced metal with heavy anticapitalistic lyrics, from Kentucky of all places.
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2Mz5qpR3WxbcBwZBsmraWE?si=1eWCmMzNT-WoogOy34mtUQ
Careful exploring his music. Some of it goes from light and relaxing to bludgeoning you with metal within the same song. I recommend his Kentucky album to start.
No problem! I try to be more chill.
I've listened to The Rime of Memory dozens of times, haha. If you like Metal, try Hostile Architecture by Glasgow band Ashenspire, and God's Country by Oklahoma City band Chat Pile.
D...did we just become friends?
<3
Just chiming in to say Panopticon is great. I enjoyed the civility of the discussion here, as well.
Civility is how you change minds, provided you have a well thought out point of view
The nordic model is not sustainable, and the same thing is currently happening to it (privatization and gutting) as happened to the US after FDR's new deal.
Not to mention the fact that welfare in these nordic states are mostly funded off the backs of workers in the global south, as taxes on imports from products produced by those poorly paid southern labor. Take a look at where most of the factories for H&M or Ikea are located for example.
As long as we leave capitalists in power, this exploitation will only continue to increase.
What do the words socialist and communist actually mean to you?
I think with the way you're using the word socialist, what you actually mean is social democrat, which is a newer term people use to mean capitalism but with heavy regulation and strong welfare / social safety nets.
When you ask people who are actually anti-capitalists and consider themselves some flavor of socialist or communist to distinguish between the two you will get as many different answers as people you've asked. In Marxist theory socialism is generally understood as a transitional state towards communism. Historical events led to communism being used mostly to refer to the authoritarian ideology championed by the Bolsheviks, so people started using socialism to differentiate themselves from that definition.
The only thing you'll get most leftists to agree on is that both socialist and communist mean anti-capitalist, and those who disagree are confused liberals.
To be clear, the Bolsheviks were definitely Communists and Socialists, and implemented a more democratic and Worker-focused society than Tsarist Russia. Low-bar that may be, the US and Western Powers deliberately attempted to shove a wedge in the Leftist movement by trying to paint the USSR as "not true Communism."
I agree that the USSR was more democratic and worker-focused than Tsarist Russia, but saying they were definitely Communists and Socialists depends on your definition of those words. An originalist Marxist for example would vehemently disagree that they were communist because communism was envisioned as this pure ideal stateless society, the "end goal" to work towards. Statelessness is definitely no longer a requirement of communism for modern Marxists, but it used to be.
While this is definitely the case, people at the time had legitimate critiques of the USSR that may have led them to see it as "not true Communism," see above. Wedges are driven into splits that already exist.
Because everyone seems to have their own unique definition of what Communism/Socialism is, saying that something is/isn't socialist/communist should be taken more as an expression of that person's values than a semantic argument. If someone says they are socialist and [insert government here] is not, what they are really saying is that there are aspects of [insert government here] that they disagree with to the point that it's a dealbreaker for them.
Not entirely true, actually. Marx was not an Anarchist, and often fought vehemontly against them. You may wish to visit Critique of the Gotha Programme. Communism, in Marx's original view, would still have a Government, just not a State. The State for Marx is specifically the apparatus of government by which one class oppresses the others. Notably, the State according to Marx could only whither away globally, not in a single country. Marx himself would say the USSR was absolutely a Socialist state working towards Communism.
There were many issues with the USSR, and sometimes even bourgeois elements. However, it was fundamentally a Marxist state building towards Communism.
This is unfortunately true, I see it many times, and generally this is sectarian nonsense that gets in the way of coalition building.
I mean, academically speaking you're totally right, but because Americans discuss politics in extremely simplistic terms a lot of people use the word "liberal" when they mean progressive or socialist or just anything to the left of center, so it would probably be helpful to define these terms a bit
No socialist uses "liberal" when they mean socialist. Isn't that interesting?
Yeah, say what you will about free market acolytes, they know how to jump on to a successful brand
No, no, you see: the OC got 'em and now we know they're not a true xxxxxxxxx and therefore their opinion doesn't matter, in fact, their life may even be forfeit.
In the United States, in the general public (not talking academia here) both 'liberal' and 'leftist' currently mean 'not conservative'. There's really not much more to it than that. Before reading Lemmy comments about it, I wouldn't have been able to name a distinction between the two terms.
Yes, but OP is deliberately asking Leftists on a platform built and maintained by Communists, not the general American public.
OP may be American and genuinely not know what answering yes to "do you consider yourself a liberal?" implies to said communists. I still don't have a firm grasp on it myself.
What don't you understand? Liberalism is a Capitalist ideology, ergo it is right wing. Socialists, Anarchists, Communists, etc. would be left wing.
Yeah, wildly different language. Here pretty much anything short of trying to put women back in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant, with the minorities out in the cotton fields, is left wing. Left-right is much more about social policy than economic, although the conservatives claim to want smaller government and lower taxes. (While building a giant military, etc.)
So 'Liberal' means 'left wing' here, and those other terms don't even have a collective word that comes to mind besides stuff like 'extremist'. (Also most of us Americans probably conflate socialism and communism anyway)
It depends on if you're referring to the Overton Window, which is essentially a Tower of Babel sitiation, or if you're referring to global structures.