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To most Americans (including myself before reading into it due to Lemmy) Liberal is simply a synonym of 'left-wing' and has no distinction at all from that and other terms like 'leftist', 'progressive', etc. All of these terms mean exactly "not conservative" - mostly in a social sense.
My (weak) understanding is that outside the US, Liberal is a (mostly) economic position - specifically one supportive of capitalism, which both major parties in the US are. (With slight policy differences.)
My (weak) understanding is that outside the US, Liberal is a (mostly) economic position - specifically one supportive of capitalism, which both major parties in the US are. (With slight policy differences.)
As a European: this precisely. There are slight variations in terminology: liberalism, libertarian, neoliberal... but nobody reads that as "left". The "liberty" hinted at is always that of the market.
In my country the liberals are about both economic and social liberty. They want both gay and heterosexual people to have the freedom to pay for healthcare and education, which currently are free. The conservatives want at least healthcare and potentially education to remain free, but also want only white cishet people to exist. Socdems luckily exist to balance out the idiots.
Back in the 60s, Phil Ochs described a liberal as "10 degrees to the left of center in good times and 10 degrees to the right if it affects them personally".
I agree that most people understand it to mean anyone left of center, but the meaning of a weak or disingenuous leftist who often sides with the enemies of the left goes back a while.
American conservatives have capitalized on denigrating the word "liberal" so thoroughly that using it in a remotely similar vein makes us ignore you immediately.
Interesting. Hadn't heard that one. (Or the sentiment)
On a side note, these days I feel like something affecting someone personally means it's more likely to move them left - see leopards and faces.
(Unless it's a tax or regulation, perhaps that's what Phil was thinking of)
To be more specific on the capitalism front, liberals generally support a well-regulated market which also has safety nets like welfare. As opposed to positions like neoliberalism which supports As opposed to positions like neoliberalism, which supports laissez-faire markets and opposes welfare.
It drives me nuts when people treat liberals and neoliberals as the same thing.
positions like neoliberalism, which supports laissez-faire markets and opposes welfare.
Neoliberalism certainly supports welfare, ie every single corporate bailout since the 1980s. Neoliberalism is the natural conclusion to liberal democracies that fail to address class stratification properly and allow massive imbalance of power to grow so large the whole system becomes irreparable.
I understand what you’re saying and the political point you’re making but welfare, in political terms, is defined as state intervention via public institutions to ensure the economic and social wellbeing of its citizens.
It's wild to me that almost everyone seems to be mixing up classical liberalism and neoliberalism to ~~a~~ some significant degree; two wildly different paradigms only related by name. The former is defined by the freedom of the individual, the latter by the freedom of markets. The conflation of the two is wildly good marketing from the neolibs.
Liberal philosophers John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill were massive advocates for the abolition of slavery, women's equality, free speach, worker cooperatives, inheritance tax, etc.
The father of neolibrolism Milton Friedman believed in unfettered free markets, minimal government, deregulation and monetarism (influencing the economy through the supply of money)
It's so frustrating. Neoliberalism is explicitly a postliberal ideology.
Yes.
In the US it seems to be conservative capitalist neoliberals probably in the democratic party who are called liberals.
In the EU it seems to be your description of emancipation, equality, individual freedoms and societal security funded by taxes, or just any progressive view. Basically leftist (divided between if capitalism can be reformed or needs to be abolished) takes who are liberals.
I'm started to become convinced that there is a coordinated effort to misdefine the term liberal among the political left in order to divide us.
I see supposed progressives dedicating significant amounts of time demonizing liberals (when they mean neoliberal), despite the fact that they would mostly agree on policy if that was the topic of conversation.
Enacting progressive taxation, punishing white collar crime, establishing strong environmental protections, establishing a strong social safety net, ensuring high quality universal healthcare, enforcing anti-trust legislation, and enacting electoral finance reforms are all things that liberals support... but instead they are often shouted down by progressives online for being status quo capitalists?
We're fighting the rise of literal fascists right now, but instead of joining forces we keep arguing about labels among people we agree with.
Imperfect allies are still allies. We need unification against the ultra wealthy.
American liberals think they’re left wing. European liberals understand they are basically conservatives.
When I say I'm a liberal I take it seriously by definition. And I think conservatives do too because when you see someone on social media with a nose ring and dyed hair someone will call "a dumbass liberal" and all I can think of is "yes, they're using their free will to dye their hair whatever color they want. How is that bad"?
Nah man. The democratic party is billed as left wing. Some Americans believe that. A ton of us know that is false and are actually left wing but don't have great options to vote for.
In the US, they use "liberal" to mean "left-wing" (and their left wing is also most countries' right-wing or centre).
Liberalism actually refers to, essentially, the ideology of the bourgeoisie: of individual freedoms, markets, inalienable property rights, etc. In most countries with a political party that calls itself "liberal", these parties will be centre to right wing and generally support a "freer" market as well as some social freedoms.
Liberalism in America refers to social liberalism. IE: justice, government management of social services(health, education, welfare, infrastructure). In this scenario, the government looking after its citizens.
Liberalism in the rest of the world refers to Neoliberalism. IE: capitalism on a pedestal, privatization of public services, limited government intervention in all areas(business, labour, environment, health, education). In this scenario, private business and "the free market" determine what is and isn't good(IE profit is the greatest good).
Liberal in the UK definitely doesn’t mean neoliberal
Not entirely no.
"
Scholars primarily use the term to refer to classical liberalism.
British liberalism is now organised between two schools;
Neoliberalism is a more contemporary version of classical liberalism
That over-simplifies the definition of neoliberalism, and the contested nature of definitions of that term. It also ignores the differences between the liberalism that Thatcher claimed and her actual policies (although I’m not claiming that Hayak, for example, wasn’t part of the then-current definition of liberalism), particularly her social policies.
I promise you, despite what Wikipedia claims, if a British newspaper were to refer to a liberal politician, they would not include Thatcher and Johnson.
Firstly, the social aspect of the term liberalism is more prominant than the economic. And secondly, it would be rare in the modern age to see it applied to Hayakian economics as opposed to Keyensian.
Neoliberalism, as a term, is to liberalism as Libertarian is to liberalism. They share a root and you can point to similarites, but once you scratch beneath the surface they aren’t all that similar and have important areas of opposition.
Nope. Some political parties use it as neoliberal but ordinary people don't.
Liberal (US): a moderate conservative.
Liberal (EU): a moderate right libertarian.
For clarity: The Democratic party in the US, based on their talking points, is considered right wing in much of the world. The conservative party in the US, based on their talking points, is considered far right wing in much of the world.
In the US: We have "actual" left wing politicians, who frequently are shouted down and forced to align themselves with Democrats to get any sort of movement.
The two party system works to keep those two teams going.
American liberals are still right wing, they don't have a real left
for the sake of learning, in what ways? As a non american I just get fed the stereotype that american liberals are blue haired lesbians who yell at everyone
There's another commenter who posted better definitions just after you left this comment, fyi
Nah that’s just the stereotype for feminists (which is not at ALL representative of feminism)
You’re looking at the wrong axis.
American liberals mostly - though not exclusively - tend to be capitalistic. American conservatives are definitely capitalistic. Their disagreement largely centers around “should we or should we not make any attempt whatsoever to be egalitarian”
I.e. every country has a different relative scale/centre?
Yes but only if you remove the US from the math. With the US in the mix everyone except Russia and North Korea look like the left, and Russia gets moved closer to center than their government deserves.
Source: I'm in the US, it's exceptionally stupid here lately.
It's exceptionally stupid everywhere lately, you guys just got a head start, but we're doing our worst to catch up.
Your whole political spectrum is from right to far right to us. There is no liberal or left at all.
And they still find so much to bicker about. I wonder how European coalition governments look like to Americans.
In the broader world of politics, "liberal" usually refers to "classical liberalism": representative democracy, a capitalist market economy with limited government involvement, and an emphasis on individual liberty over communal well-being. This is the ideology the US was founded upon (for white people, at least) and that it still largely embraces. Both major US political parties are liberal parties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
Within the US, the use of the term is very different. Republicans use "liberal" as a pejorative to describe anyone even slightly to their left. You could be a progressive, a social democrat, a communist, an anarchist, or simply a pragmatic individual who wants to fund libraries and public schools, and you would be branded a "lib."
The problem here is twofold: First, the American political spectrum lies to the right of that of most of the first world (though many are playing catch up now), so Americans feel the need to distinguish between liberals and conservatives far more than between liberals and anti-capitalist leftists, therefore the latter two get tossed together. Second, "liberal" in America includes social liberals, which in the rest of the world would be called some variety of social democrat, but it can also refers to classical liberals (with the right marketing, i.e Harris and the Clintons), again making distinguishing between these groups difficult. So the distinction you want is the one between social liberals and classical liberals, which is as follows:
Social liberalism[a] or progressive liberalism[9] is a political philosophy and variety of liberalism that endorses social justice, social services, a mixed economy, and the expansion of civil and political rights, as opposed to classical liberalism which favors limited government and an overall more laissez-faire style of governance. While both are committed to personal freedoms, social liberalism places greater emphasis on the role of government in addressing social inequalities and ensuring public welfare.
Classical liberalism (sometimes called English liberalism[1][2][3]) is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics and civil liberties under the rule of law, with special emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government, economic freedom, political freedom and freedom of speech.[4] Classical liberalism, contrary to liberal branches like social liberalism, looks more negatively on social policies, taxation and the state involvement in the lives of individuals, and it advocates deregulation.
They're both liberals in that they both believe in capitalism and a free market economy, but they differ on the details of what the government ought to do or not to do within said free market economy. So to directly answer your question: In North America "liberal" usually refers to social liberals, while in the rest of the world it refers to classical liberals.
One difference is that U.S. liberals are still likely to believe in American exceptionalism.
Americans almost universally believe they are fundamentally the best - moral leaders of the world, even if they have temporarily lost their way.
The great protest folk singers from the U.S., such as Woody and ArlonGuthrie, the Seegers, and so many others, feel that they're fighting the good fight to bring the U.S. back to where it was meant to be: the 'leader of the free world.'
It's an infectuous ego that taints the U.S. psyche on a deep and profound level.
It all depends who you ask. There are no fixed definitions, not globally. That's why policies are important points for grounding.
They don't use the word "liberal" to define whatever American liberals are supposed to be (not too xenophobic imperialists?), they don't use the word at all tbh. Idk if it's an Anglo thing or a particularly American one, though.
It's because the default, globally, is now liberal. Liberalism was the movement away from monarchism. Conservatism was the movement to preserve monarchism in the face of liberalism. American liberals are liberal. American conservatives are also liberal. The alternatives are monarchist/conservative (generally only exist in countries with royalty still), communist/socialist, and anarchist (which has both right and left flavors, and even liberal flavors)
Bold of you to assert that the American right isn't effectively a monarchist movement. Trump and his hangers-on have been stridently in favour of a presidency that is king in everything but name, and they have shown an abiding disdain for democracy since at least the Reagan era - though those dots connect backwards as far as you please.
They don't believe in hereditary monarchy, they don't believe that private property should be abolished and that the crown should dole out land based on politics. They're liberals who want a strong executive that can champion the private property foundations of liberalism against the democratic foundations of liberalism. Remember, liberalism didn't start because people wanted the common peasants to control the county, it started because the merchants wanted their ill gotten wealth from their rapacious adventures to translate into political power and the crown was not willing to allow lowly merchants to usurp multiple generations of aristocratic family ties.
Musk is a liberal, not because he loves democracy but because he justifies his actions on the basis of free speech, freedom to profit, private property claims, free movement of capital, and the rights the employer. None of these things are compatible with monarchy.
Yes, there is actually a monarchist movement in the USA still, but it is very very small and very fringe and they hold that position in a way that seeks to take the current owning class, turn them into a formal aristocracy, and eliminate not merely democracy but also the liberal foundations of capitalism. It's anachronistic and impossible, but there are some who think that way
Most conservatives just want to go back to the liberalism of our forefathers that genocides and enslaved millions, when the poor and the women and the brown couldn't vote because they weren't considered fully human, and where conquest was a valid legal foundation for a state.
Musk funded an illiberal president that uses the power of the government to terrorize people with draconian anti-immigration policies and pushes highly destructive import tariffs. How much does Musk receive every year from government subsidies and government contracts?
Thanks for the explanation!
The term originally meant things like free market economies, being able to vote, implementing civil liberties like ending slavery and serfdom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
Modern day it has different meanings depending on which country you're talking about.
In Portugal the liberal party is a right-wing party +- socially progressive. But economically very right wing. So a liberal in Portugal is perceived as someone probably well off and urban.
American conservatives are liberals by definition, and liberals are right wing globally speaking