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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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 :)
They’re conveniently leaving out the entire concept of Socialism for some reason, while making sure to mention Marxism by name.
So I would make sure to add that to the list. Communism is a specific form of socialism, but the two are non synonymous.
I leave out “socialism” because for the vast majority of actual implementations, they have been Marxist in character, and additionally any Socialist system in my opinion would either progress to Communism or regress to Capitalism, making it kind of redundant to split from Communism.
Communism isn’t a type of Socialism if we are being nitpicky, but the Mode of Production after Socialism.
Additionally, I did say it was an extreme simplification, and I meant that. I’m not diving into syndicalism, utopianism, Posadism, Maoism, Gonzaloism, Trotskyism, Hoxaism, etc because ultimately they don’t need to be delved into for someone with no knowledge.
I know we are engaged in other conversation. I will read the other comment when I have time to kill.
I need to respond to the continuum idea of politics namely: capitalism -> socialism -> communism. The continuum is a creation of Lenin in State and Revolution. A similar anachronism is suggesting there is a continuum to evolution. Continuum’s are silly for evolution and politics.
That’s actually wrong. Marx came up with it, he just called what Lenin called “Socialism” as “lower-stage Communism.” The origin is in Historical Materialism, and the concept of Scientific Socialism (as opposed to the Utopian form that thought you could just think up a good society and create it outright).
Calling it a “continuum” is misleading. Capitalism, as an example, starts with many smaller Capitalists but eventually concentrates and monopolizes. This is a trackable and historical motion, not a “continuum” but nonetheless an observed trend. Socialism, on the other hand, continues that movement but does so in the direction of collectivization, as public ownership and planning not only becomes feasible but far more efficient at higher levels of development, which is also observable and trackable.
Communism is when this process has been done and all private property has been folded into the public sector. This isn’t a straight and narrow line, but a process that will happen in many different manners across many different countries, but by tracking trajectories and behaviors this prediction becomes clearer and clearer, and Marx becomes vindicated by the passage of time as we observe them coming to fruition.
I hope Marx’s prophecy is true. It would be nice to have stages toward communism like some sort of continuum. For the Yankees, they get fascism. Spain, Germany and Italy didn’t do a socialism after their fascism. The USSR went “socialism” to fascism. China is a successful capitalist state under Deng Xiaoping. Let’s keep betting that we’ll progress to communism by proping up the right heirarchies.
The current reality for the USA is the concentration and merger of economic and political power. More public lands are becoming private. Labor has been told it will be made competitive again which can be assumed to mean a reduction in wages. Capital might be on-shored again? The current major lie is other countries will pay a tarrif. Workers will suffer for gains of the state. We can likely agree the state serves the capitalist under capitalism.
Won’t someone think of the poor Yankees? Luigi does some propaganda of the deed and terrorises those in power. Propaganda of the deed is ineffective long term, but shakes the heirarchies tree short term. I would argue it is too loud. Instead, we should focus on building horizontal power.
Collectivism requires people coming together to create horizontal power. Building horizontal power is in spite of any existing vertical power. Normal economic requirements like land, labor and capital need to be acquired for the benefit of the collective.
The point is there are no stages to communism. The prophecy will not save us from heirarchical power. Extraordinary claims, like those of Smith, Marx or Lenin, require extraordinary evidence. Instead of relying on a heirarchy, which continues to fail due to centralized power, we must build communism collectively with shared hands.
