it’s an ideology centering private property and capitalism
That’s the economic angle. But it also promises a host of libertarian social reforms included within the free market system. What’s more, liberalism isn’t just an attempt to yank socialists back from their economic progressivism. They’re often efforts to balkinize the power base of local dictatorships and feudal aristocracies.
The original liberals were trying to break up the Old World feudal system, establish economic mobility through cross-border trade, and secularize states that had historically been married to a single branch of a particular religion. All of that was incredibly left-wing from the perspective of the theocrats and monarchists.
Hell, the whole pitch aimed at The Dictatorship of the Proletariat that liberals make is that Socialists/Communists are just Monarchists in disguise. Unipolar parties aren’t really democratic. Centrally planned economies aren’t really communally owned or beneficial. And atheist leaders are just advancing their lack-of-religion as its own kind of faith.
Are these liberals full of shit?
Yes
But the political spectrum is wide, and they’re nowhere near the right-most end of it.
I feel that this is just a consequence of trying to firmly place ideologies on a spectrum beyond whether they affirm capitalism or affirm socialism. I don’t tend to bother trying to compare how right or how left ideologies are, but instead judge the various left and right ideologies on their own propositions, which can’t be easily graphed.
That’s the economic angle. But it also promises a host of libertarian social reforms included within the free market system. What’s more, liberalism isn’t just an attempt to yank socialists back from their economic progressivism. They’re often efforts to balkinize the power base of local dictatorships and feudal aristocracies.
The original liberals were trying to break up the Old World feudal system, establish economic mobility through cross-border trade, and secularize states that had historically been married to a single branch of a particular religion. All of that was incredibly left-wing from the perspective of the theocrats and monarchists.
Hell, the whole pitch aimed at The Dictatorship of the Proletariat that liberals make is that Socialists/Communists are just Monarchists in disguise. Unipolar parties aren’t really democratic. Centrally planned economies aren’t really communally owned or beneficial. And atheist leaders are just advancing their lack-of-religion as its own kind of faith.
Are these liberals full of shit?
Yes
But the political spectrum is wide, and they’re nowhere near the right-most end of it.
I feel that this is just a consequence of trying to firmly place ideologies on a spectrum beyond whether they affirm capitalism or affirm socialism. I don’t tend to bother trying to compare how right or how left ideologies are, but instead judge the various left and right ideologies on their own propositions, which can’t be easily graphed.