[Larendect]

This issue has irked me in the past.

I tend to side with liberals when they want to provide people with all their needs.

You know, lets say people should all have a middle class sustenance lifestyle. Clean, spacious living quarters, transportation to a pleasant, safe job, nutritious food, adequate health care, pension, clean environment, respectful authorities, fair negotiations, etc. Not that I agree with making it happen, but I think those are noble, pragmatic concerns.

But when it all comes down to equality, and demanding that no one be more privileged or luxuriated than another, I take issue. I don't care how much any man makes, or how jealous a guy is of his bosses $90K salary and 20 hour workweek.

I wish liberals would just focus on giving people what they need and leave it at that.

The idea that it's wrong for some to have it better than others is absurd, and based entirely on envy.

[ThereBeDragons]

It doesn't mean that it is granted, you still have to bust your ass for it, and if you're hardworking, public will assist you, but you don't get anything for sitting on your ass.

Getting paid to do nothing != socialism, either.

[FallenRaptor]

If anything, it's liberals who need to stop identifying themselves as socialists. We don't want anything to do with liberalism.

[Karl_Bonner_1982]

Many liberals will flirt with socialism from time to time like I used to do. The principle behind it, of course, is a belief in equality and disdain for the hierarchical structure of the capitalist workplace.

Here's a question: how tolerant is liberalism in providing middle-class opportunities to people with countercultural lifestyles? Or do liberals also expect a certain degree of cultural conformity to corporate values in exchange for the opportunity? What is the liberal position toward drug policy? What is the liberal position toward sex, nudity and cuss words in movies and music and 13-16 year olds' exposure to them?

The problem is that all too often what gets called "liberalism" is actually rather centrist both economically and culturally. By my definition a liberal cannot be prudish or culturally uptight, and must support a "people's capitalism" with an emphasis on empowering the working/middle class in politics and in the workplace.

[Dr House]

The problem is that all too often what gets called "liberalism" is actually rather centrist both economically and culturally. By my definition a liberal cannot be prudish or culturally uptight, and must support a "people's capitalism" with an emphasis on empowering the working/middle class in politics and in the workplace.

And do all that without killing savings rates, lest he lead the country into long-term stagnation or even a second Depression.

[Kiroff]

Bah, necropost.

However, have you perhaps thought that the meaning of the term "liberal" changes over time? Because only 150 years ago to be a conservative meant to be a supporter of feudalism or monarchism(in Europe) or slavery(in the US). To be liberal always meant to support new/more progressive ideas, and to be conservative, to keep the ideas that are older/came to be regressive over time.

[Vera Politica]

To be liberal always meant to support new/more progressive ideas, and to be conservative, to keep the ideas that are older/came to be regressive over time.

I would disagree, this is only the American definition of liberal. Liberal was the theoretical lashback against monarchy and nobility and the emerging ideology of the bourgeois in the 18th century. It is not by definition an idea of 'progression' the modern political landscape is a division between social liberal and two model interpretations of classical liberals (the neoconservative one and the libertarian one, libertarian being the classical model). Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians are LIBERAL.

[bayano]

i think almost the entire reason that liberals get attacked with chants of "socialist" is because conservatives in the US have by and large controlled the political language, and have successfully used that language to stave off the kind of social democracy that even most western european and canadian conservatives support.

yes, i think some liberals spinelessly wish the US could move toward some kind of socialistic capitalism, but thats a minority, and those are to spineless to actually fight for it or say they want it.

better option? go rev left and fight for class war

[perpetuum]

i think almost the entire reason that liberals get attacked with chants of "socialist" is because conservatives in the US have by and large controlled the political language, and have successfully used that language to stave off the kind of social democracy that even most western european and canadian conservatives support.

yes, i think some liberals spinelessly wish the US could move toward some kind of socialistic capitalism, but thats a minority, and those are to spineless to actually fight for it or say they want it.

better option? go rev left and fight for class war

There are many good posts but I want to address this one. Why do you bring US here in the first place? Well, if liberals are so spineless, go ahead big communist guy where did your "transition plan" aka socialism to communism worked out positively? Point to the ignorant one,like me, where socialism is happy and well?

P.S. Oh, and by socialism I mean socialism. I don't mean mixed wacky hybrid.

[Vera Politica]

worked out positively?

What kind of value judgement do you have? is it objective? is it a moral consciousness that is based on the economic conditions of capitalism? What is it?

I look at the Soviet Union as a positive development: industrialization, enormous rises in the standard of living. I am not sure a country industrialized as fast...
However, I don't think its 'collapse' is its ultimate judgements. If the United States were to collapse tomorrows, would capitalism, in your eyes, take the fall? Would it be quasi-socialist government manipulation of interest rates?
The collapse of the Soviet Union is surely not as simple as 'communism sucked and didn't work'.
By that standard, the Republican system of the Roman Empire was the worst economic and social system in history - clearly it wasn't, and clearly many people suffered under the hands of Roman rule.

[bayano]

Vera Politica said some of what I would say before I could.

The standard old 'your thing didnt work' goes right back at you. Firstly, we can acknowledge that a lot of parties ruled countries in the name of Marxism-Leninism. Sure. And you have probably heard the argument than virtually none of them got very far into socialism, and most of the were examples of state capitalism and/or not socialist at all. And I would not point to the Soviet Union as an example of transition towards socialism working out positively, though it was a better place to live in the 1970s/80s than under czarism or in the 1990s. Still, it's not the standard bearer of the world I'd like to see.

But the key is, where did your system work? Where did representative/parliamentary republicanism and liberal capitalism work out positively? In countries with widespread poverty and income disparities? In countries whose wealth came from their (neo-)colonial exploitation of other countries? In a country with the world's largest incarceration rate and incarcerated population in the world? Where tens of millions lack almost any health care? Or in countries whose liberalism and social democracy is in large part propped up by their businesses' exploitation of the Global South?

But I am happy that we agree, liberalism and socialism are opposing ideologies. I just wish conservatives had an inkling. But then they wouldn't hate liberals so much, and where's the fun in that?

[Dr House]

Bayano:

88% of the population having a decent living standard beats the hell out of no one having one, which is what happened in socialist countries. Yes, people had their basic necessities covered, but life was utter crap, and it stayed utterly crappy for decades after the SSRs had become industrialized.

In the early 20th century, the standard of living of the average Russian was about the same as that of the average American. In 1989, the standard of living of the average Russian was the same as that of the average American living under the poverty line. That happened because the American economy kept growing after becoming industrialized, while the Soviet economy remained stagnant for decades. And your "OMGZ global exploitation!" argument falls flat on its face by the example of Japan. Here we have one of the most protectionist countries in the World, as well as a country with a Gini of 25%, being one of the wealthiest. Sure, they did everything all wrong from a neoliberal standpoint, but they are still an essentially capitalist economy and a pretty damn successful one.