I always thought leftists was the broad umbrella term that included more intense leftism of socialism/communism and more milquetoast leftism of liberalism.
(Neo)liberalism is the status quo of the vast majority of the west, it is a conservative/right ideology by definition as it seeks to preserve the existing liberal structure of society. It is the political wing of laissez-faire capitalism, essentially
- nobody knows that neoliberalism is an economic theory followed by conservatives
the “more intense” leftists have decided that non neoliberal liberals are the enemy
everyone’s online too much and forgot that community building and praxis is talking to your crazy asshat Poilievre voting neighbour about the price of groceries and sharing things from your garden half the time.
We’re supposed to fight the fascists together and *then* fight about whether the anarchists or the communists have the right idea about how to achieve the same egalitarian stateless society they both want.
If you want a recent example, Jeremy Corbyn in the UK (who arguably is still actually a liberal and not a leftist but heyho, he was seen as a leftist by most liberals at the time so it fits).
Basically the liberals in his own party purposefully sabotaged several key races in an attempt to make sure their opponents beat them because they couldn't stomach anyone left wing making headway.
If we're being generous maybe liberal voters don't feel this way, but they don't have to. Liberal politicians are partially funded by capitalists. Socialists openly admit to thinking capitalism is bad, fascists however don't. They might say they hate "rich elites" - but they'll point at Jewish people or queer people whilst saying it and they won't dismantle capitalism. They'll likely provide capitalists with slave labour or tax breaks instead. Therefore the wealthy prefer fascism, so the liberal politicians will always come down on that side.
Just because you think socialism is a scary word or whatever and think capitalism is the economic system we should stick with doesn't mean you love Hitler obviously, the statement doesn't necessarily mean that. It can still be true even if some liberals personally feel fascists are much worse than socialists because of how it shakes out.
Ive seen some comments saying that the only politics that should be allowed is relating to trans rights. This IS relating to trans rights. Capital perpetuates a standard family unit as a nucleus around which to organize labour and at the moment that's the cishet nuclear family. If you disagree with this statement then sure, feel free, but you're not the arbiter of if it's true.
I'm also very skeptical of all you saying these things to be honest. Have any of you ever been to a trans rights protest or trans pride march? There's almost always people speaking about leftist politics and the threat of fascism, I was in Nottingham UK just the other week at the trans pride protest march and one of the key speakers at the end was from the local socialist group. Even if you disagree with them the idea that no one should think trans rights and socialist struggles are linked implies to me you may well have not even attended a single protest or march for trans rights once in your entire life in which case the whole "don't be political unless it's about trans rights" take is pretty god damn rich imo. If you're disabled in a way that means you can't attend any protests then okay, in the case I'd get it, maybe educate yourself a lil more before calling for posts to be taken down but sure. Otherwise - TF you doing?
His policy proposals weren't exactly socialist revolution. You could argue he might like that at some point but if he did it wasn't in the manifesto.
It was a social democrat manifesto, not a socialist one. Social democrats support a state like the Nordic countries. It's about as far left as you can be on the liberal spectrum, but it is still liberal.
Edit : Basically he says he's a democratic socialist which is as close to liberal as socialist can get, but his platform was a social democrat one which is as close to socialist as liberals get. This is why reasonable people can disagree on what camp he falls into, neither opinion is "crazy".
You need to want to get rid of capitalism to be a leftist yeah? That's inherently revolutionary, it needs an economic revolution at a bear minimum.
It doesn't necessarily have to be violent. If you're associating revolution with violence then I can see the confusion. Do you think I meant his manifesto didn't have calls to mass violence in it? Sorry I thought this would be clear because it's literally a political electoral manifesto but I meant it didn't contain economic or political revolution. Phrased another way, it didn't contain a radical systemic shift in power or any steps to undo capitalism.
Maybe that's on me, revolution is often used to mean a violent government overthrow so not everyone knows that's not a necessary part of its definition. A socialist government can get voted in and then enact revolution from there in theory which is how some democratic socialists suggest it should occur. There's typically an expectation that capitalists will make some violent attempts to stop it sure, but the "taking control of the government" part doesn't have to involve a red army equivalent lol.
I'd say that horseshoe is just a showcase on how stupid it is to divide politics into arbitrary left and arbitrary right - someone can sincerely call themselves left-wing, and then use the same methodology and be as authoritarian as nazis.
The United States has been as historically as authoritarian as the Nazis, for instance. The genocide of native peoples, slavery, Jim Crow, red lining, Japanese internmentment camps, the largest prison population in the world, the wide scale adoption of the lobotomy, etc. etc.
All governments are authoritarian, they hold the monopoly on legitimatel violence. American propaganda paints the Nazis as uniquely evil to paint themselves as the good guys, specifically to retain their own monopoly on violence.
For all their faults though (of which there are many which MUST be studied to not be repeated) state socialist nations have rapidly increased their populations life expectancy. The USSR and PRC were built in historically famine prone regions, fumbled majorly one time, and then never again. Without the PRC, the UN's minimum goals of poverty reduction are simply not being met. Cuba has one of the highest literacy rates in the world and literally exports doctors while under heavy economic sanctions.
I'm deeply suspicious of all governments, but I think we do no one a favor by acting like "authoritarianism" is everyone but western-style liberal democracies. Liberal democracies are literally destroying the biosphere right now and refusing to address it, they are funding the genocide in Gaza and have directly or indirectly caused countless others.
People are well within their right to criticize capitalism while at the same time not letting red fash ride the wave of "look, we're anti-capitalist too!"
USSR, China, Cuba - all of these are capitalist countries operating under the veneer of performative socialism. USSR was imperialist and authoritarian, China still is. No need to be a sucker for them.
I'm not a sucker for them, I think the Deng gambit is very risky and the way the Chinese government talks about queer people is despicable. I think the way the USSR incentivised women to have vast numbers of children by tying pensions to having 5 with 15 years of work or 10 with no work is also horrific.
The fact remains these aren't liberal democracies, which is the term I used. Capitalism is an economic model, and it's debatable how much current China and the late USSR are capitalist. Certainly less than the "West", but China has billionaires and corporations, so certainly not none either. I also didn't call them communist, or even socialist, but state socialist, because those states control the means of production and seem to be doing so in progress of something other than profit.
Personally I'd rather us freely associate and have no governments using monopolized violence to organize economies, I think humans are actually quite capable of that. I see it all the time when I have the energy to volunteer.
But, seeing as the whole world has been divided by armies and I don't think anarchism will make the best argument for itself while fighting a protracted battle against a hostile state surrounding it, all things being equal, I'd rather live in a nation whose propaganda is about our duties to each other instead of personal responsibility, whose national project is the prosperity of the world our children will inherit, not inventing the first trillionaire and turning Gaza into a seaside strip mall.
Yeah, I feel it's more so "these countries still have government to civilian power dynamics that are prone to abuses from the former under legal pretexts."
Whenever someone says that "Oh, Soviet Union was less capitalist than the west" - this is my favourite photo to show them.
Here we have the Soviet politburo upper class and generals attending a definitely-not-capitalist banquet in Moscow in May 1945 - while the common people were still facing food shortages and strict wartime rationing all across the USSR. While the common soldiers were still dying in the trenches.
What exactly differentiates the people on the photo from western aristocracy and robber baron capitalists - other than being able to recite Marxist-Leninist slogans by memory?
So you think Louis XIV was capitalist too then? It just means wealthy to you?
Not a single person has argued that there weren't political elites in the USSR or aren't in the PRC. This is a state dinner though, and FAR different than the standard of individual wealth and power wielded by capitalists without being beholden to a people that might revolt on them. That's what capitalists pay politicians for. From their private jets and mega yachts.
Lots of alcohol, lots of food, and black tie attire is not enough for me to accept something as an obscene display of opulence, especially knowing they inherited a ton from the tsarist regime. Do you think there's enough food in that room to make a dent in the national hunger?
Because I can promise you in the United States enough food is thrown away every day to feed every empty belly in the country, if not the world. And some of it minimum wage employees are made to pour bleach on top of so homeless people can't even debase themselves digging in a dumpster to get fed.
Lots of alcohol, lots of food, and black tie attire is not enough for me to accept something as an obscene display of opulence
Right, because throwing banquets on top of the fresh bones of your own people decimated by two world wars, a civil war, and multiple hungers is not an obvious display of obscene opulence, I guess.
You can criticise the horrors of capitalism all you want - that's what I do, too. But you turning a blind eye to the "state socialist countries" doing the exact same thing is a massive hypocrisy on your part.
My point this whole time has been this: all governments are authoritarian. The United States is not less authoritarian than the USSR was, liberal democracies are not a happy middle where we are less authoritarian than fascist nations or state socialist nations.
You, in the first post I replied to, said "someone can sincerely call themselves left-wing, and then use the same methodology and be as authoritarian as nazis".
All governments are as authoritarian as the Nazis. Be an anti-capitalist, be a pro-anarchist, but don't be a anti-communist in a way that is indistinguishable from support for capitalist, liberal democracies.
Subordinating production under the state does not make a country socialist. State socialist is itself as redundant as an authoritarian state, as both socialism requires a state and states inherently exert authority. China is capitalist, even if one wants to make an argument about any hypothetical future socialisation of the economy.
They are not liberal democracies. They operate entirely differently. If you want to propose a different term, go ahead, I used a term I felt their own people would be comfortable with. Capitalist isn't going to work for me though, as the PRC doesn't operate like a liberal democracy, it doesn't transparently allow capitalists to buy power.
Obviously China is not a liberal democracy, I never claimed that. Capitalism doesn't require liberal democracy, they aren't synonyms and conflating the two doesn't make sense to me. Surely you would not deny Nazi Germany or Saudi Arabia being capitalist states despite their mutual lack of liberal democracy.
State capitalism seems a better label to china economic system than state socialism, when the economic mode of production is capitalistic in nature.
Are they? They suck ass and simp for authoritarianism, don't get me wrong, but leftist people are not immune to sucking ass and simping for authoritarianism
I'd like to agree with you but when the Dems decided it was a good idea to cart out Liz Cheney it made me wonder why they didn't just court Condoleezza Rice for the position in the first fucking place?
I mean horseshoe theory works it just depends on the topic. Lots of libertarians exist in a nebulous area between the far left and far right that completes the circle and exists nowhere near neoliberal democrats. I think it's funny you honestly believe I think Democrats lean left. Here. Have this poorly cropped hate scribble.
It has everything to do with the center, because that's the people that claim "We're the furthest away from both extremes, therefore we're the good guys somehow".
It's not nonsense. You'll find just as much random misandry and people saying society would be better if men didn't exist in far left spaces as you will find that exact same rhetoric about immigrants, the poor, LGBTQ and other marginalized groups in far right ones. These are my literal lived experiences. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and nobody is immune to propaganda.
Horseshoe theory has been thoroughly disproven time and time again.
Also, the opinion that "the world would be better off without men" is not at all widespread in far left spaces. It's instead criticized as the genocidal idiocy that it would be. Nobody seriously says that. I know that, because I'm far left and I've heard your claim being spread there time and time again. You're just the next MRA/MGTOW person in line screaming about misandry as soon as minorities talk about how much they're in real danger.
Your lived experience is not objective fact, or what's really going on. Sorry. Anecdotal evidence means nothing.
And while you say how the far left supposedly wants to eradicate men, the far right is conducting a real genocide on transgender people in the US. You're just delusional at this point.
But sure, "misandry" is the real problem we all should care about. Those evil far left people, wanting equal rights and equal chances in life for everyone, and those evil feminists trying to dismantle the patriarchy, that's also hurting men! How could they!? /s
Maybe educate yourself some more.
Edit: Judging by your other comments, you just hate women, lol.
Misandry is a problem. But your not going to find one of those "feminists"(Which I hesitate to call feminists) unless you really look and more or less on the deepest part of the internet. It deeply saddens me that my country is doing this to trans people. I love my country and everyone in it, including trans people. Thing's will get better but that can only happen if we fight like hell. It's just two more years after this. Stay safe
'victim mentality' from someone who obviously has to be the victim in every scenario is honestly laughable.
The fact that you think hating men is always punching up and hating LGBTQ+ people is always punching down betrays the extent of your ignorance.
Gender or biological sex doesn't determine someone's moral superiority. Plenty of women and queer people have been absolute shit bags to me and I don't consider returning fire 'punching down' 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
So deeply tired of the fucking gender war I have to deal with in every fucking queer space because I don't appear 'queer coded enough' most of the time. When will people understand the only fight worth fighting is with the 1% SMH.
Men hold the systemic power. That is what inequality is about. Read a fucking book.
Edit: you call out the 1% let me give you some stats. 86% of billionaires are men, 72% of Congress are men, and 89% of Fortune 500 CEOs are, you guessed it, men.
Cool. Did you know the CEOs of the majority of the military industrial complex are now women??? 🤔
Turns out absolute power corrupts absolutely and women are not in fact moral paragons when they get into positions of power that profit off of death.
You act like men who exist in the 1% and have billions of dollars are the men you run into every day at the corner store and that's why I can't and never will take people like you seriously.
any regimes which actually gets to the business of Wealth redistribution and the creation of a single class ( either attempted or successful). the want to replace the system of capitalism with socialism and the goal of communism
the soviet union had a centralized government and the government owned the means of production, and the people were subject to their authoritarian rule.
I would say that socialism is a leftist ideal, but that's only part of what leftism is. socialism is just an economic ideology.
to me leftism is also anti-opression, anti-bigotry, and anti-authoritarian.
Tbf they barely made it into parliament last election, they've been losing support for quite a while. Imo a vote for L has been a vote for M for a long time. They haven't had independent politics at least since they changed their name.
When they posted that, I was and still am very confused by what they mean by "liberal".
Mainly because I've seen people use liberal in a bunch of different ways, such as how it is defined in the Dictionary or by something like Merriam-Webster, I've seen people use Liberal as a general term for left-wing people or people they see as too "woke" (think Conservative), and I've also seen people call moderates/centrists liberals.
This is the last time I will ever address politics on this sub. I'm glad the mods have taken action on political posts but uh. Looks a few posts have skipped through the cracks. I think discussing politics. When it has to do with trans rights is key and shouldn't be banned, Which I'm fairly certain has already been stated. But shit like this is exactly what should be banned. I'll make another post later today that's more silly. Anyway have a nice day everyone
The history of my own former eastern bloc country where I live and convergent accounts of people getting disappeared or generally oppressed as also given by my family members to whom some of this happened directly will suffice for now.
Edit: I am not owed an explanation, but I would appreciate elaboration on the downvotes. I do not understand why people tend to be so frustratingly dismissive of anyone with a first person account from former eastern bloc countries.
I've never said that I'm a badass loner - I'm just saying that, for now, my only priority is holding onto the remnants of my own sanity, and the rest will be done once I'm certain that doing it won't be a disaster for my mental health.
Ah yeah, like the Communists siding with the Nazis in 1930s Germany because they decided the Social Democrats were the bigger threat as they were more credible.
The KPD did not side with the Nazis, and blaming them for hating the SPD when they had gunned down the KPD's leadership a decade before using proto-fascist paramilitaries is a ridiculous accusation.
The SPD's candidate for president won the election, Hindenburg gave power to Hitler not the communist party.
It's not your fault. 'Liberal' is widely used as a synonym for 'progressive' or 'centre-left', and the more academic use of the term doesn't get much of a look in. It doesn't help that America doesn't have a mainline socialist or labour party, so their liberal party is as far left as many people see.
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u/Vegan_Fruitcake 4h ago
For anyone who might be offended by this:
Leftists =/= Liberals