Image of tweet by Kim from Kansas @kim_from_kansas:
Capitalists would like you to believe that liberalism is the left-most edge of the economic spectrum, precisely because it is the left-most point on the spectrum that doesn't threaten their power.
True leftism threatens the power of capitalists. Liberalism is not leftism.
So, we're all agreed then that tankies aren't leftist, right? Because the claimed "communist" countries, such as Russia and China, are extremely capitalist in the worst possible ways.
This is so weird to anyone outside the US because your ‘left’ party is …definitely not. In some countries they’re further right than right wing parties.
Capitalist bastardisation of liberalism is not liberalism. Capitalism does not create freedom/liberty/rights unlike liberalism. Capitalist is always an antiliberal hierarchy.
Liberalism is anticapitalist by nature. So is leftism. They can overlap or they can be separate.
And you seem to intentionally be missing the point because you're a liberal who doesn't like hearing what the word actually represents, so are trying to redefine it (or at best, cling to an outdated and now irrelevant definition).
So again - perhaps you might benefit from some light reading.
Second: you can do a test. List the attributes of liberalism and see which are true under capitalism. Add a ✔️ or ❌. For funsies, you can also check the overlap with anticapitalism or leftism or any other ideologies
After all, reality has a leftist-liberal-progressive bias
This is like saying "crony capitalism isn't capitalism!" Let go of the word, it does not mean what you think it means.
Liberalism is an individualist ideology, stemming from the movement of wealthy professionals to gain independence from the nobility. It the movement had the power it did in the first place because of capitalism.
It is intrinsically tied to imperialism and the exploitation of people with less bargaining power. No number of prefixes or adjectives can change that.
The word means what it means. It helped people gain freedom from authoritarianism, and today that authority is held by capitalists. It’s just capitalist apologia to associate them together
And what does it mean? Because that's a bold fucking thing to say when you haven't put forth a definition, or anything thing tying it's use to anti-capitalism.
Wanting the rich to pay a little more in tax, claiming you want to see more women in boardrooms and black-owned businesses, or announcing that you think that queer folks should have basic human rights isn't anti-capitalism, but even through the myopic American lens of the world it's the basic extreme of what a liberal is.
People's right to appropriate the the fruits of their labor is a right liberalism supports. This right rests on the liberal moral principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match. In capitalism, the employer legally appropriates the positive and negative fruits of the workers' labor in the firm, but the workers are jointly de facto responsible for using up the inputs to produce the outputs. This mismatch of legal and de facto responsibility is a violation of both principles
Individualism does not necessarily imply capitalism. One can have an individualist argument against capitalism by appealing to inalienable human rights to workplace democracy. Liberalism refers to a specific political philosophy with certain principles. What @boredtortoise could mean is that those principles properly understood actually support anti-capitalism
When I think of "neo-liberals", I think of corporate Democrats. They serve their own set of wealthy oligarchs, and do minimal lip service to the needs of normal people. They are in the center. The right has gone completely off the spectrum into an authoritarian fascist nightmare. There are many billionaire oligarchs who fund them and create their media propaganda. I'm progressive. I suppose some think that is the "left", but it's really just wanting government policy which prioritizes the needs of working people.
The Russian, Chinese, Iranian etc. governments, billionaires, fascists and the fossil fuel mafia use disinformation to drive wedges between factions of all people who want them to pay up. They use chaos operatives to divide us and cause strife among us. We are under attack by a global RW fascist insurgency. Let’s stand together and defeat them/it.
I'm struggling slightly to understand your point. Are you saying this in contrast to the point made in the post, as in stand together as leftist and liberals in the fight against fascism?
I think the objection that myself and other leftists would offer, is that the fight is against fascism is fundamentally a fight against, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy, and that capitalism is in many ways a progenitor and protector of the other two. The wealth generated by capital, captures regulatory bodies, manipulates voters, generates disinformation, all in service of perpetuating itself. A notable example is in your own comment, the power of the capital used by the fossil fuel industries to influence elections, buy political power, misinform voters, because the base scientific reality is that their industry cannot function in a world that is inhabited by people.
So for fossil fuels and tangentially, billionaires, the global issues cannot be tackled without recognizing that the core of capitalism is itself a vital part of the building of fascism.
To re-frame this in hopes of giving insight, imagine we were talking about racial justice in America, and one party was arguing that with various other ways to fight inequality, the police as an institution, have fundamentally rotten, and end goal needs to be abolition. The other party argues that we need to come together and stop the right wing fascists like proud boys, et al, that support white supremacy. So when you say we need to come together and tackle the issues without dismantling the tools that are use to create them, it sounds hallow.
Indeed! So if liberalism as an ideology, wants to keep billionaires, don't you think it's a little counter to that logic to say liberals and leftists need to come together and not dismantle the primary driver of fascism?
I don’t see liberalism as wanting to keep billionaires. Perhaps that was the case 20 years ago, but not anymore. Making them pay up is a tricky thing to do, but that imo is where we need to start.
I guess I just don't see much value in opposing billionaires when liberals want to leave in place the fundamental tool they use to perpetuate their control.
I already answered that a few posts ago. I’m here in good faith looking to find real solutions. We have a lot of power to change things with our actions as individuals as well. Boycotts work. Simple things can go a long way if people organize and spread the word. For example, we can kill the google chrome browser if folks are serious. This would likely also kill alphabet as an entity.
I am here in good faith too, I just don't think I share your belief that capitalism can be brought to heel when it has almost unfettered power and every incentive in it is towards the sort of system we have now. And that transferring that weight to an entire populous of ethical consumers just doesn't bare fruit.
Seems you gave up a long time ago and don’t want to get back in the fight. I’ll be over here boycotting google chrome and asking one billion others to join me. Be well and have a nice weekend!
I have to say, as an outsider reading this thread, you've played the part of the liberal perfectly.
From admitting that capitalism is the problem straight in to offering boycotting chrome of all things (seriously, what??), and taxing the rich more as a solution (hint: they're not), and pointing your fingers at individuals, and vocal anti capitalists no less, to say that it is their (our) fault for "giving up the fight" (again, seriously, what???).
You not wanting to stop fighting windmills to exhaustion while you point at everything but the actual problem is literally what those in power want you to do. That is the division I suspect most people who upvoted you initial comment thought you were talking about, not the division between liberals and leftist, which as you've demonstrated so perfectly have completely different understandings of reality and goals for action.
Leftists want to abolish the system entirely and build a new, better, one, because we understand that the systems we live under today are working as designed rather than being broken or having been corrupted in any way, while liberals want to play nicely within the rules set to all of us by our oppressors, and pull a surprised Pikachu face when no fundamental change to the status quo occurs. And the truth most liberals will never admit to themselves, is that they do this because they benefit from the status quo in some or many ways, and don't want to risk being like those they can see get treated so much worse than them, but if they pretend hard enough that it's about individual responsibility (a lie perpetuated by capitalism) they can tell themselves that'll never be them. Because they're playing by the rules. Set by their oppressors.
But as the poem goes - first they came for the socialists.
And they're already coming for you too, the question is which side of the fence will you fall on, and your replies here imply it would be the side of capitalism.
If this bothers you, do something about it, you can start by educating yourself:
Did you ever consider that it is you who have never actually sought it out, or even made the effort (did you even read any of those links?) rather than it not being there (or conveniently produced by someone else's emotional labour)?
(E: not to mention buttermilk already made some great suggestions above: Community building with mutual aid, local gardening with permaculture)
None of us were born leftists, we were all born in to the same world you were and were socialised the same way. Unlearning that takes work, work that no one can do for you.
So I won't.
Instead I'm just going to paste something I recently told another person who was making almost identical arguments to you:
Join/create a union. Join/create a Food not Bombs. Actually invest your time reading up on socialism, anarchism, and becoming an anti capitalist in the way that personally suits you best, as well as what suits your community best, instead of expecting others to spoon feed you instructions.
I literally know nothing about you, where you are and what your local community needs, what your able and not to do, how much trouble you're willing to get in to or how much time and resources you have to spare, and a whole load more variables that mean I couldn't possibly tell you what to do or how.
Look up solidarity, look up dual power, look up building a community, take your own steps at your own pace.
Or don't.
All I'm saying is don't delude yourself (or others) in to thinking a boycott of a single company (or even all of them, but nothing beyond) is having any impact on anyone but you.
Seems you gave up a long time ago and don’t want to get back in the fight.
Far from it! I have given up chrome, I just see the struggles as needing more than that. Community building with mutual aid, local gardening with permaculture are my vectors. I hope you have a nice weekend as well, and if I can beg for one thing, build networks of help for support while the systems around us fall apart!
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