the smugness is always the worst part.
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I’ve never encountered this type of liberal. Neolib, sure.
Liberalism is an ideology with two main parts. First is political liberalism which focuses on individual freedoms, democracy, and human rights. Second is economic liberalism which centers around free markets, private property, and wealth accumulation. These two aspects form a contradiction. Political liberalism purports to support everyone’s freedom, while economic liberalism enshrines private property rights as sacred in laws and constitutions, effectively removing them from political debate.
Liberalism justifies the use of state violence to safeguard property rights even when they come into direct conflict with providing necessities such as food, shelter, and healthcare. The idea that private property is a key part of individual freedom provides the foundational justification for the rich to keep their wealth while ignoring the needs of everyone else. Thus, all the talk of promoting freedom and democracy is nothing more than a fig leaf to provide cover for justifying capitalist relations.
This is an excellent primer on the subject https://orgrad.wordpress.com/articles/liberalism-the-two-faced-tyranny-of-wealth/
I very much understand all of this. Do you truly prefer maga? You would rather have ICE raids than student loan forgiveness? You would rather have Medicaid cuts than the CHIPS act. I am not a liberal but I have to admit I am extremely embarrassed by the short sightedness and lack of care from modern leftists. Letting Trump won is causing so much harm to people who don’t deserve it. Is the DNC the answer, fuck no. But letting republicans win everything is clearly pushing America to the far right.
How on earth did you come to the conclusion the comment you were responding to was supporting MAGA? Honestly baffling
Because in the US not voting always favors the conservative party. Do any of you have any knowledge history?
Not only are you creating a false dichotomy here, but you’re ignoring the fact that Trump coming to power is itself is a direct product of decades of liberal policies.
It’s not though. He came to power through a strong propaganda network, he is actually just continuing liberal policies.
The question you need to ask yourself is what made his message resonate with people now when this sort of rhetoric was ignored before. People are falling out of the liberal mainstream because they see their material conditions decline, this makes them lose faith in the system and mainstream media. This is what creates room for opportunists like Trump to come in and promise change like draining the swamp, and so on. Obviously, he is continuing the same policies that benefit the ruling class, but the same people who were fooled by the liberal message for decades prior, are now fooled by his promises.
Because NYC has proof the DNC is not far enough left to achieve their goals. Everywhere else the DNC can be used as a leftist Boogeyman.
The dem party as a whole is fundamentally a right wing party. The NYC is proof that there is demand for left wing policies in the US, but they cannot be implemented sustainably within the capitalist system.
Neolibs are just a subcategory of liberal, though.
I’m not actually sure that’s true.
Why wouldn’t it be? Liberalism is the ideological superstructure of capitalism, Neoliberals are a particular type.
You said liberalism is the ideological supersyrucyure of capitalism, as if it was the only one. But there is also fascism, right? Were you imprecise, or am I missing something?
I’d say imprecise, for the sake of short convo. Liberalism in my view is the “normal” ideological superstructure of capitalism, and fascism is the ideological superstructure of capitalism in crisis, when capital needs to violently assert itself to maintain the existing way of things. It’s what happens when the rulers can’t rule in the old way, and/or the people can’t live in the old way, but when the proletariat is without a vanguard, or a weak one.
After reading your comment, I have come across this: https://redsails.org/really-existing-fascism
It says:
- Nietzche is to fascism and liberalism what Karl Marx is to communism
- It is confusing to think of fascism as the death rattle of capitalism in decay. Fascism and liberalism coexist. Fascism is based on what Marx called “primitive accumulation”, which is violent expropriation. Liberalism is based on (superficially) voluntary exploitation of surplus-value. Liberalism is more common in the empire core, while fascism is more common in the perifery.
The poor summary above is meant to entice you to read the article. Please do! And then post it on Lemmy for we to discuss. Please message me when you do.
I actually read that a while ago! It is an interesting article.
Yes, people should have that, but it’s not that simple. Some liberals, particularly classical liberals, think a free market would bring those things to everyone. I don’t necessarily disagree, though I think free markets can only ever be free under communism/socialism, not capitalism. The issue with centrally planned, universal healthcare is that a hostile government could refuse to provide you care, much like insurance companies that don’t approve coverage for many things. Additionally, there needs to be strong medical privacy protections.
Markets are fundamentally profit driven, and services like healthcare or housing need to be provided regardless of the profit motive. These are a natural fit for the state owned industries. Where markets can have a role is providing nice to have things that improve general quality of life, but aren’t living essentials.
There’s a little bit more nuance than that isn’t there? You can provide these things, but we still need to produce things right? Because we haven’t yet reached full automation. So the question is if we provide those things and a significant part of the population decide that they are happy with the minimum and thus they don’t want to work, and we start having massive labor shortages such that the goods needed to sustain the economy cannot be produced, what do we do? Well the only solution at that point is to make labor mandatory, and forced if the individual is noncompliant. Which is why the labor market as it exists is seen as the lesser evil. This is a bit of an oversimplification because I’m not looking to write an essay here but that covers the gist of why a liberal may oppose full on socialism.
For me, the imperative is achieving that automation. Only then is full socialism viable.
We don’t need to reach full automation. We throw away half the food we produce right now, there is more empty housing having been bought up for speculation than there are people in the US or Canada. The problem is with the economic system that fails to distribute according to need. The solution is to ensure that workers are the primary beneficiaries of their own labour as opposed to the oligarchs who own capital.
