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Liberals are catalysts to catastrophe, again (www.aljazeera.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/usa@lemmy.ml
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[–] 12 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Equality isn't really a liberal idea. Liberalism is primarily about individualism and free flow of capital, people here tend to be leftists that support socialism and are against capitalism.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    That's your definition. I understand it's a common definition here. But even the first chapter of wikipedia has a much wider definition of liberalism. If you are hating on capitalism or moderates, why not say so?

    Literally from wikipedia: Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law.

    I support socialism and hate capitalism, but I still don't consider liberalism to be "all bad.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    The extent to which the "virtues" of liberalism exist is that which facilitates the free flow of capital. Capitalists sell to workers the idea that capitalism sees everyone as equal, but that's in contrast to feudalism. Technically, anyone with the money can be a capitalist, but in practice those with money keep it and grow it while those without sell their labor-power to survive. Liberalism is a superstructural element of capitalism, it cannot be truly severed from it.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Care to explain why liberalism is so tightly nit with capitalism in your opinion? I cannot see a good reason.

    I hate late-stage capitalism as much as the next guy, obviously.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Liberalism emerged as the ideological justification for capitalism, the two are intrinsically linked. The basic principles of liberalism are insividualism and free flow of capital. People have used liberalism to justify more progressive social views, but those social views are better represented by ideologies like Marxism-Leninism.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    They may be better represented by marxis-leninism, but that does not mean they cannot be represented by liberalism. It's not so black and white.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago

    I didn't suggest that they were black and white, my point is that liberalism's ties to capitalism are because that's the purpose of liberalism. It emerged as the capitalist class was rising as future justification for the transition from feudalism to capitalism. You cannot have a "liberal socialism," as liberalism is focused on private property rights.

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