(not OC)

  • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    You realize you’ve just redefined “liberal” to mean “socialist”. And also given a definition where the Democrats aren’t liberal, nor is anyone who supports the existence of the US or nation states in general

    • WhatsTheHoldup@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      You realize you’ve just redefined “liberal” to mean “socialist”.

      We get to the same conclusions I realize, but I didn’t redefine anything because we get there from different premises. Liberalism and socialism I would argue are ridiculously compatible views.

      Marx’s favorite philosopher was Hegel and if you look at Marx’s dad Heinrich

      Largely non-religious, Heinrich was a man of the Enlightenment, interested in the ideas of the philosophers Immanuel Kant and Voltaire. A classical liberal, he took part in agitation for a constitution and reforms in Prussia, which was then an absolute monarchy.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx

      And also given a definition where the Democrats aren’t liberal, nor is anyone who supports the existence of the US or nation states in general

      Give Albert Weisbord’s Conquest of Power a read.

      The fact that practically all of the settlers were poor has led to a sort of idealization in the United States of the poor and common man. In England one would fain forget his common stock; not so on this side of the Atlantic. Yet poor must not be confused with proletarians The mass of emigrants forming the basic “mother class,” a class so large that it believed no other classes existed, and thus no classes at all, was composed neither of proletarians nor of bourgeois but of petty bourgeois middle class elements, trying to find prosperity and plenty. In the Western hemisphere, the idea of class was dissolved into its matrix of mass; that is, there were masses but no classes!

      The lack of great capital and the resultant absence of clearly-defined classes in the West have given many historians the idea that democracy flourished in the West from the beginning. This is not the whole truth by any means. The West has not only given us Democracy; it has also provided us with a wholesome contempt for all government.

      It must never be forgotten that Democracy is essentially a type of State in which the people are supposed to control political affairs, either directly or through representatives. Democracy includes in its fundamental characteristics not only the right to vote and to hold office, but also a host of civil liberties in which the right of free speech, press, and assemblage are the most prominent. Now, in moving West, the tendency of the pioneer and frontiersman was to move away from all government and state laws, however mild. It was not a case of “liberalizing the law"; on the frontier the hand of the law was not to be found at all. Whatever action was necessary was effected by a posse made up directly of the people involved. There were no courts, no police, no prisons, no armed force of the State, no tax- gatherers. The original state of the frontier can best be described not as one of primitive Democracy, but as one of primitive Libertarianism.

      https://www.marxists.org/archive/weisbord/conquest2.htm

      Again, Marxism and Liberalism aren’t necesarily disagreeing.

      • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        We get to the same conclusions I realize, but I didn’t redefine anything because we get there from different premises. Liberalism and socialism I would argue are ridiculously compatible views.

        Ok, but this is wildly different to how the vast, vast majority of the world uses the word liberal, including liberals. Realize that the definition for liberal that you’re a applying to yourself is incredibly divergent to how most people use it, and consider that you might have less misunderstandings if you just say socialist.

        Marx’s favorite philosopher was Hegel and if you look at Marx’s dad Heinrich

        Sure, but that doesn’t mean that he agreed with him on everything. Yes, marxism grew out of liberalism, but liberalism in turn grew out of feudalism. It doesn’t mean they’re the same or even aligned.

        Give Albert Weisbord’s Conquest of Power a read.

        Yes, that’s all well and good, but it still not anti-capitalist or marxist.

        • WhatsTheHoldup@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          Ok, but this is wildly different to how the vast, vast majority of the world uses the word liberal, including liberals. Realize that the definition for liberal that you’re a applying to yourself is incredibly divergent to how most people use it, and consider that you might have less misunderstandings if you just say socialist.

          I think that misunderstanding can actually be a good thing because it allows me to explain how capitalists coopt ideology.

          Whatever the dominant philosophy in a culture is, you’d expect capitalism to grab its grubby hands around it and twist it into something it’s not.

          Capitalist liberalism and liberalism are not the same thing, and there’s value in helping people understand this.

          Sure, but that doesn’t mean that he agreed with him on everything.

          Exactly, just like I don’t agree with John Locke on everything.

          Karl Marx critiqued liberalism and the social contract where he felt it deserved to he critiqued. He didn’t equate it as the same thing as capitalism, or strawman if as I’ve seen done in this thread.

          People are using the word liberal to describe things that capitalism did.

          Yes, that’s all well and good, but it still not anti-capitalist or marxist.

          I’m sorry…what?

          Youre criticizing me for saying the Republicans aren’t liberal but that marxist.org link isn’t Marxist enough?

          Albert Weisbord (1900–1977) was an American political activist and union organizer. He is best remembered, along his wife Vera Buch, as one of the primary union organizers of the seminal 1926 Passaic Textile Strike and as the founder of a small Trotskyist political organization of the 1930s called the Communist League of Struggle.

          Here’s a pamphlet of him being advertised as the guest speaker at the 10th anniversary of the Russian Revolution in the Soviet Union

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Weisbord#/media/File:27-weisbord-leaflet.jpg

          I don’t even know what to say to this. What am I missing?

          • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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            2 days ago

            I think that misunderstanding can actually be a good thing because it allows me to explain how capitalists coopt ideology.

            I assure you, socialists already know how capitalism coopts ideology.

            Whatever the dominant philosophy in a culture is, you’d expect capitalism to grab its grubby hands around it and twist it into something it’s not.

            No, only liberalism. It doesn’t happen under other ideological systems.

            Capitalist liberalism and liberalism are not the same thing, and there’s value in helping people understand this.

            Sure, every ideology has an idealised “on paper” version that doesn’t’ look like the real thing.

            Exactly, just like I don’t agree with John Locke on everything.

            Great, sounds like you’re not a liberal.

            He didn’t equate it as the same thing as capitalism

            Yes he did.

            And no, Marx was not a liberal.

            People are using the word liberal to describe things that capitalism did.

            Yes, because they did it under a liberal system. Liberalism allows capitalists to do these things. Thats the problem with liberalism.

            I don’t even know what to say to this. What am I missing?

            I don’t even know what point you’re trying to make.

            • WhatsTheHoldup@lemmy.ml
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              2 days ago

              I assure you, socialists already know how capitalism coopts ideology.

              Then there should be no issue in using the term liberal without anyone getting confused. But yet…

              Yes, because they did it under a liberal system. Liberalism allows capitalists to do these things. Thats the problem with liberalism.

              Correct. Liberalism let it’s guard down to capitalism for too long under the idea that competitive markets increase efficiency and now society is having to face with that mistake.

              I don’t even know what point you’re trying to make.

              I posted a Marxism.org link to quote a Marxist philosopher I told you to read and you replied

              “Yes, that’s all well and good, but it still not anti-capitalist or marxist.”

              • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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                2 days ago

                Then there should be no issue in using the term liberal without anyone getting confused. But yet…

                Like I said, you’re using a wildly heterodox definition of liberal. When you use a definition of a word that is different from its general usage, people are going to get confused.

                Liberalism let it’s guard down to capitalism for too long

                Letting the guard down to capitalism is a core part of liberalism. In order to not let your guard down to capitalism, you would have to abandon liberalism.

                I posted a Marxism.org link to quote a Marxist philosopher I told you to read and you replied

                To make what point?

                • WhatsTheHoldup@lemmy.ml
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                  2 days ago

                  Letting the guard down to capitalism is a core part of liberalism. In order to not let your guard down to capitalism, you would have to abandon liberalism.

                  Yes I understand you want me to believe that.

                  I have my guard up and describe myself as a liberal. You see my guard up and say I’m not a liberal.

                  At the end of the day these are just labels. Losing our minds at someone describing themselves as “socialist” or “liberal” is not worth it to me if we agree on the concepts.

                  So many people here seem to be more focused on the label than the concept.

                  To make what point?

                  Read the original context. It all makes sense if you read what I was quote responding to.

                  You said, to paraphrase cause I don’t want to go find it, “if liberalism means that then the US isn’t liberal” or something, so I quoted a Marxist who described the development of the frontier less as a liberal democracy and more as primitive Libertarianism.

                  • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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                    2 days ago

                    Yes I understand you want me to believe that.

                    Yes, I’m glad you understand how a discussion works. Presumably you then don’t want people to believe what you say?

                    I have my guard up and describe myself as a liberal.

                    Is it? Because capitalism has rolled over the top of you none the less. My whole point was that liberalism ideologically compels itself to hand over material power to capital. That’s why, even though ‘your guard is up’, you can’t do anything about it; because you’re just a random person with no power. Having your guard up is meaningless when they’ve already stormed the fortress and thrown you in the dungeon.

                    So many people here seem to be more focused on the label than the concept.

                    That’s because we communicate using words, we can’t just directly transmit pure concepts to each other. If people can’t understand your labels they can’t understand you concepts.

                    Marxist who described the development of the frontier less as a liberal democracy and more as primitive Libertarianism.

                    So not as socialism. I’m sure hoping you don’t think mob rule by bands of genocidal settler colonists is socialism?