[The Immortal Goon]

Would you say that voting participation in the US, for instance, is equal amongst all populations? It is certainly not:

In the 2008 presidential election, 80% of adults from families earning at least $100,000 a year voted, while only 52% of adults from families earning $20,000 or less cast a vote, according to data from the Census Bureau.
Married homeowners with college degrees are also far more likely to vote than single renters with high school diplomas. Older people are often more politically involved, while younger voters -- who tend to skew lower in income -- may not feel as tied to a community, and vote less frequently.

Voting is during work on a work day, which immediately disqualifies most laboring people. Only a couple of states allow vote-by-mail and other measures to combat this.

Further, rather norotiously, precincts in poor (and mostly black areas) often have shorter open hours than more affluent areas.

Recently the Supreme Court threw out protections that stopped states from these and other discriminations against the poorest segments of society, and immediately after doing so most states that had to comply with the regulations changed their laws to make voting more difficult than it had been before.

Again, this dynamic exists--in THEORY, the liberal countries provide equal rights to everybody. In REALITY, the material base of society does not allow it.

[southwest88]

Would you say that voting participation in the US, for instance, is equal amongst all populations? It is certainly not:

quote from money.cnn.com:

"In the 2008 presidential election, 80% of adults from families earning at least $100,000 a year voted, while only 52% of adults from families earning $20,000 or less cast a vote, according to data from the Census Bureau.

"Married homeowners with college degrees are also far more likely to vote than single renters with high school diplomas. Older people are often more politically involved, while younger voters -- who tend to skew lower in income -- may not feel as tied to a community, and vote less frequently."

Voting is during work on a work day, which immediately disqualifies most laboring people. Only a couple of states allow vote-by-mail and other measures to combat this.

Further, rather norotiously, precincts in poor (and mostly black areas) often have shorter open hours than more affluent areas.

...

Yah, it's a mistake to encourage differential rates of voting. It's a bigger mistake to put roadblocks in the way of citizens who want to vote. & yes, it's understandable that married homeowners with college degrees - people with assets & interests to defend - would vote more reliably & more often than people without those spurs to participation. Yes, election day is a work day - people can vote absentee.

Yes, it's unconscionable that states & localities would game the political system in this way - you wind up with the kind of festering tension that could ignite into another Ferguson, MO. I don't know why localities are willing to run that risk.

But even so, it's a long way from this kind of bureaucratic stupidity to a Soviet-style dictatorship. There is nothing to stop activists from organizing & educating & registering voters & getting out the vote. Which in the long run, is good for the citizens involved, the local community, & the country @ large. But the long run is a hard sell - when everything has to happen right now.

[The Immortal Goon]

But even so, it's a long way from this kind of bureaucratic stupidity to a Soviet-style dictatorship.

This thread isn't about the Soviets. There is much to say about what went wrong there, just as there still remains in the Cromwellites attempt to establish the rule of the bourgeoisie. Yet I so rarely hear capitalists argue that capitalism is inherently evil when the first attempts to overthrow feudalism ended in bloody dictatorships.

For the most part you agree that the theory of capitalist democracy doesn't stand to the reality of that democracy.

Now, more than a century ago, this same criticism was put up:

In capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favourable conditions, we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation, and consequently always remains, in effect, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners. Owing to the conditions of capitalist exploitation, the modern wage slaves are so crushed by want and poverty that "they cannot be bothered with democracy", "cannot be bothered with politics"; in the ordinary, peaceful course of events, the majority of the population is debarred from participation in public and political life.

...Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich--that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the “petty”--supposedly petty--details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for “paupers”!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc.,--we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been inclose contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.

And it has yet to be solved today, nor in any capitalist country of any era, has it ever been solved.

You can go ahead and throw Lenin the man into the rubbish bin of history if you want. I would argue against doing so because nuance is key on a century of Russian political development, but if one must, I have no more romanticism for the man than he did for himself (though if you're interested in me parsing out Lenin, Marx, and Engels from Stalin, I have written about it many times).

My own question would be: since we have never seen a capitalist state with fully realized democracy, how many centuries are we to wait for this to occur? Is it not advisable—nay—necessary, to continue to demand it? And, in doing so, question why it has never been granted in reality?

[southwest88]

...
My own question would be: since we have never seen a capitalist state with fully realized democracy, how many centuries are we to wait for this to occur? Is it not advisable—nay—necessary, to continue to demand it? And, in doing so, question why it has never been granted in reality?

I think democracy has been more nearly fully realized in the West - Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand & related - than in the Communist countries. I understand that that's not enough; every citizen should have some ownership of his or her country, & a voice in the councils of state.

No, quite right - there's no point in waiting for this to occur. It won't happen by itself, & we've (in the US) had centuries now of Big Business, Big Agriculture, Big Manufacturing, Big Mining, Big Oil & so on digging into the government & nesting there. In the US @ least, we're expected to agitate, band together with other like-minded people, & struggle to put policies favorable to the outcome we want into practice. The issue in the US is that there are many factions, many pressure points where money & influence can be applied.

As to why it's never been granted - it never has, it likely never will be. No one surrenders political power willingly - they have to see that option as the most attractive one of various. We - the mass of people who want a more rational style of politics - simply haven't been able to press forward a coherent set of policies to implement the changes we want to see, nor politically force the other stakeholders to acknowledge the political power we could wield, if we could organize well enough & hold group discipline for the critical timespan.

[Zamuel]

Q. Is Liberalism a new form of dictatorship? No, its an old form of dictatorship.

This looks like a good entry point. Fuser is IMHO correct. I'd like to address the actual question that titles this thread and maybe stimulate some insightful results.

First, no one seems to be able to specifically define what "Liberalism" is. The label gets tossed around and used to justify or vilify just about anything ... ie: Someone was suggesting liberals support rights for women and homosexuals just to invoke negative reaction ? I'd like to suggest that instead of a specific definition we accept a general one, and I'd propose that what liberals want is progress. It may take many forms, but it most definitely seeks innovative change.

There are definitely a LOT of dictatorships based on that principle. Franco's Spain, Fidel's Cuba, The Shah's Iran, Saddam's Iraq, The Philippines under Marcos, Libya under Gaddafi, I would even submit that the USA was briefly a liberal dictatorship under Abraham Lincoln. For the most part these dictatorships accomplished their purposes ... they created greater freedom, modernized, educated, provided new energy resources and extended medical care. All of them were guilty of excesses and abuses, but that is the price of progress.

There were plenty of liberals around demanding those changes before they happened, just like there are now. But change does not often offer itself up without cost. The Liberal Dictator is just a guy willing to pay the price. And there are plenty of liberals around after the dictator has done his job, to drag him down and trample him as they seek to take credit for the progress he has accomplished. Who is more despicable?

The Liberal Dictator is a natural social phenomenon. Maybe he deserves a little more credit than he gets ... Now lets crank up the AC, turn up the stereo, and enjoy the fruits of "Liberal Progress." (is there a back way outta here?)

Zam

-If this were a dictatorship it would be a heck of a lot easier... as long as I'm the dictator- George W. Bush

[Iron Ant]

You realize, that that Britannica article is pretty much now the libertarian ideology in America?

It is not the government's job to protect people from harm.

But i do fully agree, that the worse tyranny is always based on exercising power for the good of its people.

And , if that Britannica article is the real definition of liberalism, that is to strike a balance between government and people, then those who call themselves liberal, at least in today's America, are no such thing since they ant an all powerful all seeing all knowing government to micro manage every single facet of our lives that they can think of.

Liberals in today's America are just not good people on any sense of the word.

[Decky]

Maybe Americans need to read a damn dictionary and stop calling social democrats liberals then?

[The Immortal Goon]

I think democracy has been more nearly fully realized in the West - Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand & related - than in the Communist countries. I understand that that's not enough; every citizen should have some ownership of his or her country, & a voice in the councils of state.

This not being a thread about the soviets I'm reluctant to go further into it, but don't you think it's worrisome that you need to compare the richest most powerful countries the world has ever known to historically impoverished countries that the Enlightenment skipped (until the communists brought it in) bound by the chains of feudalism?

Lenin, who was head-hancho in such a country, was quite clear that he was dealing with a mass of former illiterate peasants that haad just fought a civil war while being invaded by every major country on the planet.

To say that the US, Britain, France, or wherever, is doing better than Russia at virtually any time is to state the obvious. The fact that even the defenders of a liberal system have to say, "Well, the most powerful nation ever known does a marginally better job than a war-torn country full of illiterates that are socially adhereing to feudalism!" is telling enough.

No, quite right - there's no point in waiting for this to occur. It won't happen by itself, & we've (in the US) had centuries now of Big Business, Big Agriculture, Big Manufacturing, Big Mining, Big Oil & so on digging into the government & nesting there. In the US @ least, we're expected to agitate, band together with other like-minded people, & struggle to put policies favorable to the outcome we want into practice. The issue in the US is that there are many factions, many pressure points where money & influence can be applied.

Certainly. But what form should this struggle take? We've seen in the last decade or so the previous century's struggle for democracy repeated as farce. The struggle for a leaderless Occupy, the Anarchist Black Blocks, the Tea Baggers, the Democratic saviour as Obama...

...but at the end of the day, the same problem exists that occurred in the leaderless factions of first wave feminism, the anarchist propaganda of the deed, the "citizen deputies," the Democratic saviour as FDR. It is a crises of capitalism itself. Capitalism is doing exactly what it was designed to do, and the government is a reflection of capitalism, not an entity apart from it that can tame it.

As to why it's never been granted - it never has, it likely never will be. No one surrenders political power willingly - they have to see that option as the most attractive one of various. We - the mass of people who want a more rational style of politics - simply haven't been able to press forward a coherent set of policies to implement the changes we want to see, nor politically force the other stakeholders to acknowledge the political power we could wield, if we could organize well enough & hold group discipline for the critical timespan.

Exactly right, but only one thing has been proven to help in the last several centuries. It's why the Black Panthers chose to use it as a weapon, and it's why they were gunned down after doing so. It's why the powers that be fear it so much.

The Mensheviks strove to adapt working-class tactics to liberalism. The Bolsheviks, however, put forward as the aim of the working class in the bourgeois-democratic revolution: to carry it through to the end and to lead the democratic peasantry despite the treachery of the liberals.

You realize, that that Britannica article is pretty much now the libertarian ideology in America?

Of course. Which goes some way in explaining why liberalism is the form of government of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

Aside from the fascists themselves, there is no ideology that loves fascism more than libertarianism:

The deeds of the Fascists and of other parties corresponding to them were emotional reflex actions evoked by indignation at the deeds of the Bolsheviks and Communists. As soon as the first flush of anger had passed, their policy took a more moderate course and will probably become even more so with the passage of time.

This moderation is the result of the fact that traditional liberal views still continue to have an unconscious influence on the Fascists...

It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error.

As does the Von Mises institute today:

Like Friedman, Hayek glimpsed in Pinochet the avatar of true freedom, who would rule as a dictator only for a "transitional period, " only as long as needed to reverse decades of state regulation. "My personal preference, " he told a Chilean interviewer, "leans toward a liberal dictatorship rather than toward a democratic government devoid of liberalism." In a letter to the London Times he defended the junta, reporting that he had "not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende." Of course, the thousands executed and tens of thousands tortured by Pinochet’s regime weren’t talking.

As does the CATO Institute that keeps fascists on its staff.

Milton Friedman's grandson concluded that the future of capitalism could not be democratic:

Democracy Is Not The Answer

Democracy is the current industry standard political system, but unfortunately it is ill-suited for a libertarian state. It has substantial systemic flaws, which are well-covered elsewhere, and it poses major problems specifically for libertarians:

1) Most people are not by nature libertarians. David Nolan reports that surveys show at most 16% of people have libertarian beliefs. Nolan, the man who founded the Libertarian Party back in 1971, now calls for libertarians to give up on the strategy of electing candidates! Even Ron Paul, who was enormously popular by libertarian standards and ran during a time of enormous backlash against the establishment, never had the slightest chance of winning the nomination. His “strong” showing got him 1.6% of the delegates to the Republican Party’s national convention. There are simply not enough of us to win elections unless we somehow concentrate our efforts.

2) Democracy is rigged against libertarians. Candidates bid for electoral victory partly by selling future political favors to raise funds and votes for their campaigns. Libertarians (and other honest candidates) who will not abuse their office can’t sell favors, thus have fewer resources to campaign with, and so have a huge intrinsic disadvantage in an election.

Libertarians are a minority, and we underperform in elections, so winning electoral victories is a hopeless endeavor.

Emergent Behavior

Consider these three levels of political abstraction:

Policies: Specific sets of laws.
Institutions: An entire country and its legal and political systems.
Ecosystem: All nations and the environment in which they compete and evolve.

Folk activism treats policies and institutions as the result of specific human intent. But policies are in large part an emergent behavior of institutions, and institutions are an emergent behavior of the global political ecosystem.

Then you have the fascists themselves:

Fascism [is] the complete opposite of…Marxian Socialism, the materialist conception of history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of production.... Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied - the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society....

After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage....

...Fascism denies, in democracy, the absur[d] conventional untruth of political equality dressed out in the garb of collective irresponsibility, and the myth of "happiness" and indefinite progress....

...given that the nineteenth century was the century of Socialism, of Liberalism, and of Democracy, it does not necessarily follow that the twentieth century must also be a century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy: political doctrines pass, but humanity remains, and it may rather be expected that this will be a century of authority...a century of Fascism.

Outside the State there can be neither individuals nor groups (political parties, associations, syndicates, classes). Therefore Fascism is opposed to Socialism, which confines the movement of history within the class struggle and ignores the unity of classes established in one economic and moral reality in the State; and analogously it is opposed to class syndicalism. . . .

The main plank in the National Socialist program is to abolish the liberalistic concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity and to substitute therefore the folk community, rooted in the soil and bound together by the bond of its common blood. A very simple statement; but it involves a principle that has tremendous consequences.

...And it is the greatest source of pride to us that we have been able to carry through this revolution, which is certainly the greatest revolution ever experienced in the history of our people, with a minimum of loss and sacrifice. Only in those cases where the murderous lust of the Bolsheviks, even after the 30th of January, 1933, led them to think that by the use of brute force they could prevent the success and realization of the National Socialist ideal—only then did we answer violence with violence, and naturally we did it promptly...

...I mean here that if Europe does not awaken to the danger of the Bolshevic infection, then I fear that international commerce will not increase but decrease, despite all the good intentions of individual statesmen. For this commerce is based not only on the undisturbed and guaranteed stability of production in one individual nation but also on the production of all the nations together. One of the first things which is clear in this matter is that every Bolshevic disturbance must necessarily lead to a more or less permanent destruction of orderly production. Therefore my opinion about the future of Europe is, I am sorry to say, not so optimistic as Mr. Eden’s. I am the responsible leader of the German people and must safeguard its interests in this world as well as I can. And therefore I am bound to judge things objectively as I see them.

I should not be acquitted before the bar of our history if I neglected something—no matter on what grounds—which is necessary to maintain the existence of this people. I am pleased, and we are all pleased, at every increase that takes place in our foreign trade. But in view of the obscure political situation I shall not neglect anything that is necessary to guarantee the existence of the German people, although other nations may become the victims of the Bolshevic infection.

...But I believe that nobody will question the sincerity of our opinions on this matter, for they are not based merely on abstract theory. For Mr. Eden Bolshevism is perhaps a thing which has its seat in Moscow, but for us in Germany this Bolshevism is a pestilence against which we have had to struggle at the cost of much bloodshed. It is a pestilence which tried to turn our country into the same kind of desert as is now the case in Spain; for the habit of murdering hostages began here, in the form in which we now see it in Spain. National Socialism did not try to come to grips with Bolshevism in Russia, but the Jewish international Bolshevics in Moscow have tried to introduce their system into Germany and are still trying to do so. Against this attempt we have waged a bitter struggle, not only in defence of our own civilization but in defence of European civilization as a whole.

In January and February of the year 1933, when the last decisive struggle against this barbarism was being fought out in Germany, had Germany been defeated in that struggle and had the Bolshevic field of destruction and death extended over Central Europe, then perhaps a different opinion would have arisen on the banks of the Thames as to the nature of this terrible menace to humanity. For since it is said that England must be defended on the frontier of the Rhine she would then have found herself in close contact with that harmless democratic world of Moscow, whose innocence they are always trying to impress upon us. Here I should like to state the following once again: —

The teaching of Bolshevism is that there must be a world revolution, which would mean world-destruction. If such a doctrine were accepted and given equal rights with other teachings in Europe, this would mean that Europe would be delivered over to it. If other nations want to be on good terms with this peril, that does not affect Germany’s position. As far as Germany itself is concerned, let there be no doubts on the following points: —

(1) We look on Bolshevism as a world peril for which there must be no toleration.

(2) We use every means in our power to keep this peril away from our people.

(3) And we are trying to make the German people immune to this peril as far as possible.

It is in accordance with this attitude of ours that we should avoid close contact with the carriers of these poisonous bacilli. And that is also the reason why we do not want to have any closer relations with them beyond the necessary political and commercial relations; for if we went beyond these we might thereby run the risk of closing the eyes of our people to the danger itself.

I consider Bolshevism the most malignant poison that can be given to a people. And therefore I do not want my own people to come into contact with this teaching. As a citizen of this nation I myself shall not do what I should have to condemn my fellow-citizens for doing. I demand from every German workman that he shall not have any relations with these international mischief-makers and he shall never see me clinking glasses or rubbing shoulders with them. Moreover, any further treaty connections with the present Bolshevic Russia would be completely worthless for us. It is out of the question to think that National Socialist Germany should ever be bound to protect Bolshevism or that we, on our side, should ever agree to accept the assistance of a Bolshevic State. For I fear that the moment any nation should agree to accept such assistance, it would thereby seal its own doom.

I aimed from the first at something a thousand times higher than being a minister. I wanted to become the destroyer of Marxism. I am going to achieve this task and, if I do, the title of minister will be an absurdity as far as I am concerned. . . .

At one time I believed that perhaps this battle against Marxism could be carried on with the help of the government. In January, 1923, I learned that that was just not possible. The hypothesis for the victory of Marxism is not that Germany must be free, but rather Germany will only be free when Marxism is broken. At that time I did not dream that our movement would become great and cover Germany like a flood.]Hitler[/url]"]I aimed from the first at something a thousand times higher than being a minister. I wanted to become the destroyer of Marxism. I am going to achieve this task and, if I do, the title of minister will be an absurdity as far as I am concerned. . . .

At one time I believed that perhaps this battle against Marxism could be carried on with the help of the government. In January, 1923, I learned that that was just not possible. The hypothesis for the victory of Marxism is not that Germany must be free, but rather Germany will only be free when Marxism is broken. At that time I did not dream that our movement would become great and cover Germany like a flood.

IN NOVEMBER, 1918, Marxist organizations seized the executive power by means of a revolution. The monarchs were dethroned, the authorities of the Reich and of the States removed from office, and thereby a breach of the Constitution was committed. The success of the revolution in a material sense protected the guilty parties from the hands of the law. They sought to justify it morally by asserting that Germany or its Government bore the guilt for the outbreak of the War.

This assertion was deliberately and actually untrue. In consequence, however, these untrue accusations in the interest of our former enemies led to the severest oppression of the entire German nation and to the breach of the assurances given to us in Wilson's fourteen points, and so for Germany, that is to say the working classes of the German people, to a time of infinite misfortune....

The splitting up of the nation into groups with irreconcilable views, systematically brought about by the false doctrines of Marxism, means the destruction of the basis of a possible communal life.... It is only the creation of a real national community, rising above the interests and differences of rank and class, that can permanently remove the source of nourishment of these aberrations of the human mind.

[southwest88]

...

southwest88 quote: "No, quite right - there's no point in waiting for this to occur. It won't happen by itself, & we've (in the US) had centuries now of Big Business, Big Agriculture, Big Manufacturing, Big Mining, Big Oil & so on digging into the government & nesting there. In the US @ least, we're expected to agitate, band together with other like-minded people, & struggle to put policies favorable to the outcome we want into practice. The issue in the US is that there are many factions, many pressure points where money & influence can be applied."

Immortal Goon quote: "Certainly. But what form should this struggle take? We've seen in the last decade or so the previous century's struggle for democracy repeated as farce. The struggle for a leaderless Occupy, the Anarchist Black Blocks, the Tea Baggers, the Democratic saviour as Obama...

"...but at the end of the day, the same problem exists that occurred in the leaderless factions of first wave feminism, the anarchist propaganda of the deed, the "citizen deputies," the Democratic saviour as FDR. It is a crises of capitalism itself. Capitalism is doing exactly what it was designed to do, and the government is a reflection of capitalism, not an entity apart from it that can tame it."

...

Did the US founding fathers establish the country in order to further capitalism? Simply to bolster someone's profits? That's a hard sale to make, & I don't think it's true. The Declaration & the Constitution promise freedom - @ least as an aspirational goal. Nowhere in there - except maybe the right to be secure in their property - are material goods discussed.

What is it that capitalism is designed to do? If our form of government (in the US) is ultimately responsive to the voters, then government can theoretically tame capitalism, if that's what the voters want to do.

[The Immortal Goon]

The means of production, the way we interact with the material world, constitutes the base of a society.

The Founding Fathers were aware of Adam Smith and whatnot, but they established a country that made sense to them. Obviously, this would have the means of production (in the case capitalism) in mind, whether they knew it or not. They were not, for instance, going to try and recreate feudalism.

[Username02]

Q. Is Liberalism a new form of dictatorship?

No, its an old form of dictatorship.

That was good.

[Hong Wu]

It's kind of like how crying is the new form of bullying.

[quetzalcoatl]

Actually, the Bolshevik Party was notoriously pro-working class organizations. What you're referring to would have happened under the Communist Party post Lenin. Remember, Lenin argued that unions were needed to keep the government, which was not a workers' government, in check. The theory of Socialism in One Country, later, is what damned the policy.

This is a point that continues to gnaw at me. I'm just not seeing the logical connection. It does seem to me that any government not instituted by (and subject to) organized worker groups is not a worker's government. However I don't understand how "socialism in one place" plays a role in its unwinding. If we assume that socialism must be supported by a legal infrastructure, then it must be instituted within the relevant legal entity (the nation-state). This would necessarily have been true during Lenin's stewardship, as well as after.

Would there not have to be some internal structural or theoretical weakness that caused a post-Lenin worker's state to implode?

[Pants-of-dog]

Of course, I want to underline, that in the context many of us are using conservatives are liberals too. We're using the actual (not political, which in some contexts is still acceptable) definition of liberalism:

BritannicaLiberalism, political doctrine that takes protecting and enhancing the freedom of the individual to be the central problem of politics. Liberals typically believe that government is necessary to protect individuals from being harmed by others; but they also recognize that government itself can pose a threat to liberty...

...Their [economic] advice to government was “laissez faire, laissez passer” (“let it be, leave it alone”). This laissez-faire doctrine found its most thorough and influential exposition in The Wealth of Nations (1776), by the Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith. Free trade benefits all parties, according to Smith, because competition leads to the production of more and better goods at lower prices. Leaving individuals free to pursue their self-interest in an exchange economy based upon a division of labour will necessarily enhance the welfare of the group as a whole. The self-seeking individual becomes harnessed to the public good because in an exchange economy he must serve others in order to serve himself. But it is only in a genuinely free market that this positive consequence is possible; any other arrangement, whether state control or monopoly, must lead to regimentation, exploitation, and economic stagnation.

I would like to say that i have greatly enjoyed your posts in this thread.

I think the OP was referring to the US definition of a liberal (i.e. not a conservative), in which case the answer to the question is obviously "no".

Of course, the defintion you are using is much more interesting.

The trouble with that defintion, and with liberal democracies in general, is that the idea of private property and capitalism is inherently contradictory to the other tenets of liberal democracy. You have already demonstrated this in this thread by explaining how these other things such as civil rights are dependent on how much money you have. Thus, capitalism and egalitarianism are inherently contradictory.

I think it would be correct to claim that liberalism, in practice, is dictatorial when it comes to capitalism, but not with any of its other tenets, such as civil rights. Part of this is because it would be contradictory; you cannot have a dictatorship of freedom. This is why, as mikema63 pointed out, many liberals claim that a dictatorship cannot be liberal by definition.

Mike then brought up Pinochet as an example of a liberal dictatorship. And mikema63 was correct if we look at the economic aspects of the Pinochet regime. But as southwest88 pointed out, it was not liberal in any other way.

And this is why i think that anyone who actually believes in liberty, equality, freedom of speech, democracy, secularism, rule of law, gov't accountability, and basic human rights must also be anti-capitalist.

[layman]

liberty, equality

These two alone have contradictions. The extent to which depends on how you want to define and realise equality and liberty.

At what point does liberty become "taking liberties" against the community or unfairly hoarding?
At what point does equality demand an unreasonable amount of cohersion to enforce it?

Should we ditch one of these just because there are contradictions?

I think your overall point, and the instinct of the left in general, is that the importance of private property and economic liberty is surely hugely outweighed by the importance of equality and personal liberty - including the liberty you would unleash from a more equal platform. If we were to design a "moral society" from scratch that would seem to be the logical conclusion to make. In theory ...

[Pants-of-dog]

Liberty, by itself, has contradictions. As does equality. The existence of contradictions is not reason enough to ditch either.

Capitalism is different in that it is inherently contradictory to liberty and equality, while liberty and equality are not inherently contradictory to each other. This is because capitalism is inherently hierarchical, while liberty and equality are inherently non-hierarchical.

The thing that Marxist ideologies have in common with ideologies based on liberty and equality is the abolition of oppressive hierarchies.

[The Immortal Goon]

This is a point that continues to gnaw at me. I'm just not seeing the logical connection. It does seem to me that any government not instituted by (and subject to) organized worker groups is not a worker's government. However I don't understand how "socialism in one place" plays a role in its unwinding.

It's not socialism, socialism is necessarily a world wide system. Marx, Engels, and Lenin all insisted upon this. Capitalism is a world system, and dialectics demand that the system itself create an anti-thesis. In this case, it must be global.

This is important for a variety of reasons. The first example that springs to mind though is the very definition of what socialism is supposed to mean.

So there had been arguments for a long time about what socialist society would look like. DeLeon and Connolly fought about what marriage and religion would be like under socialism. Basically, DeLeon said that we need to start acting like socialism is in practice, and start having a lot of sex and condemning anyone that practiced religion. Connolly said that we have no real idea what socialism will look like and we have to live like we're living and leave it up to material reality to sort out.

When the Russian Revolution occurred, homosexuality was legalized, as was abortion and a lot of other things. Lenin himself didn't like a lot of the stuff that was going on, but conceded that he was an old man and it was up to material reality to dictate these kinds of norms.

Once Stalin proclaimed that Marx, Engels, and Lenin were wrong and now socialism was not only possible in one country, but he had achieved it, he basically went back to being DeLeon. Now anything he did was necessarily socialist and if anybody disagreed they opposed socialism.

So abortion was made virtually impossible, homosexuality illegalized, the family made into a nuclear family, all these things because now anybody that opposed Stalin's view of these things was anti-socialist.

In this same manner, where Lenin thought that the labor unions were important actors in advancing the common people and protecting them against bureaucrats in the corrupted workers' governments, once Socialism was proclaimed, the labor unions were in the way of everybody achieving socialism and had to be removed from power and brought into line.

The workers themselves lose all their agency. In reality, through physical force of the state, and in theory by depriving them of agency in the building of socialism (which again, can only be done with everybody in the planet).

"Socialism in one country," makes criticism of the state and its actors impossible for a socialist, as the state is now (falsely) synonymous with socialism.

If we assume that socialism must be supported by a legal infrastructure, then it must be instituted within the relevant legal entity (the nation-state). This would necessarily have been true during Lenin's stewardship, as well as after.

But Lenin was not supporting socialism with a legal infrastructure. He was supporting a workers' government with a bureaucratic twist, and attempting to limit the other part of this. For him, until he died, it was revolution everywhere that should be supported and open Russia up to a new world. Socialism was something that had to be built, at least, by the people of "several advanced countries."

For Stalin, conversely, revolution in other places must be suppressed as it may threaten the existence of the USSR, which was socialist. Socialism already existed on the planet, and now it had to be maintained with alliances made with anti-socialist countries.

Would there not have to be some internal structural or theoretical weakness that caused a post-Lenin worker's state to implode?

Of course. Lenin was quite aware of this and several times scolded the other Bolsheviks for not admitting that these faults existed. That piece cited above where he's scolding Trotsky is just such an example. He was quite aware that the USSR may go the way of the Paris Commune. I don't think it would have been a surprise for him at all that it ended up folding when the decisions made after his death were made.

I would like to say that i have greatly enjoyed your posts in this thread.

Thank you, that is very kind.

The trouble with that defintion, and with liberal democracies in general, is that the idea of private property and capitalism is inherently contradictory to the other tenets of liberal democracy. You have already demonstrated this in this thread by explaining how these other things such as civil rights are dependent on how much money you have. Thus, capitalism and egalitarianism are inherently contradictory.

I think it would be correct to claim that liberalism, in practice, is dictatorial when it comes to capitalism, but not with any of its other tenets, such as civil rights. Part of this is because it would be contradictory; you cannot have a dictatorship of freedom. This is why, as mikema63 pointed out, many liberals claim that a dictatorship cannot be liberal by definition.

Mike then brought up Pinochet as an example of a liberal dictatorship. And mikema63 was correct if we look at the economic aspects of the Pinochet regime. But as southwest88 pointed out, it was not liberal in any other way.

And this is why i think that anyone who actually believes in liberty, equality, freedom of speech, democracy, secularism, rule of law, gov't accountability, and basic human rights must also be anti-capitalist.

I think that's an excellent summation

If we were to design a "moral society" from scratch that would seem to be the logical conclusion to make. In theory ...

For the Marxist, on the other hand, it would be inverted: the economic model would make the morals. You couldn't design a, "moral," state as the morals need to stem from the economic reality of the system.

[ingliz]

It's not socialism

“I know that there are, of course, sages who think they are very clever and even call themselves Socialists, who assert that power should not have been seized until the revolution had broken out in all countries. They do not suspect that by speaking in this way they are deserting the revolution and going over to the side of the bourgeoisie. To wait until the toiling classes bring about a revolution on an international scale means that everybody should stand stock-still in expectation. That is nonsense.”

— V.I. Lenin, Speech delivered at a joint meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Moscow Soviet, 14th May 1918, Collected Works, Vol. 23.

"The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in the various countries. It cannot be otherwise under the commodity production system. From this, it follows irrefutably that Socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois for some time.'”

— V.I. Lenin, Works. Russ. Ed. Vol. 19.

[ComradeTim]

I think he was referring to Stalin's concious decision to avoid propagating Socialism worldwide, not the act of seizing power itself.

[quetzalcoatl]

"Socialism in one country," makes criticism of the state and its actors impossible for a socialist, as the state is now (falsely) synonymous with socialism.

I want to echo POD and thank you for your very interesting and enlightening posts. I think ultimately however I can't accept the point of view summarized by the above sentence. As Edmund O. Wilson observed, "Nice theory, wrong species'.

Trans-national opposition to capitalism is fine, but it will never be the theater for implementing an alternative (whether socialism or anything else). I find myself becoming increasingly skeptical of Marxist dialectics as the chief tool in constructing a world view, if it obliges us to accept an endgame (trans-nationalism) as a central objective. My dialectic is different. I want a survivable template for socialism: one that incorporates all our understanding of the human animal as a social species. Such a template needs to focus on human factors that would allow free information flow within hierarchical structures, not the total elimination of hierarchical structures. We should be following PKD's dialectic: "How to build a world that doesn't fall apart two days later."