Do any of them know what the word “liberal” actually means?

  • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Because in politics, liberal means something else entirely. It’s an ideology defined by support for capitalism.

    • That’s absolutely not what it means

      In the very closest definition, liberal means “if there isn’t a law against it, you’re allowed to do it”

      liberal more broadly is just as simple: “if it doesn’t hurt me, you’re free to do it”

      I mean, what do you think a “liberal democracy” is? The majority of Europe is made up of liberal democracies while also being social-democratic. France is a liberal democracy despite being heavily unionized and having huge welfare. How does that work?

      It works because that’s not what liberal means.

      Socially-Liberal, for example, is when you are liberal (freedom-loving / diversity-loving) in social aspects. You support gay marriages, you support freedom of religion, you support cultural diversity. Other Examples include religiously-liberal, culturally-liberal, or even politically liberal (you support the right to different political opinions than yours)

      What comes closest to what you think it is is economically-liberal. Which essentially says that “as long as it doesn’t hurt me, you’re free to do what you want economically”. But even that isn’t what you mean. Is Pollution and accelerating Climate change harming me and therefore not protected under liberalism? yes, says the absolute majority of liberals.

      Is lobbying harming me by making my Voice less weighted? Yes, say a lot of us.

      So not even economically-liberal is a good term to describe what you mean.

      I don’t know, what a good term for it is. But it isn’t Liberal. So please, for the love of god, stop misusing it. Words have meaning. Invent a new one if you have to, they all began that way anyways.

    • Maxnmy's@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I understand we don’t like capitalism on Lemmy, but I’m curious how liberalism fares versus the other capitalism-supporting ideologies that are more commonly found in the world.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I’ve thought about this for most of the day. Social Democracy (think Denmark, Norway, Sweden, etc) is probably the best out of all capitalist ideologies, but is still subject to the regressive nature of private capital. Other than that, most of them are complete dogshit. Capitalist monarchies, “anarcho-capitalism” (read neo-feudalism), US libertarianism, capitalist oligarchy, fascism*, etc are awful for regular people and horribly lacking in their analysis of capital and it’s relationship between the capitalists and workers. We’re currently living under neoliberal democracy, so imagine things getting much worse for us. That’s what most of those ideologies are like.

        * it should be noted that fascism is mostly just a death cult that loves hierarchies like capitalism.

        • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          Fascism isn’t merely a randomly appearing death cult, but the violent death throes of crumbling Capitalism. Where Capitalism is failing, fascism rises. That’s why Leftists must thoroughly stomp out fascism while also pushing for Socialism.