Evergreen meme. 🇨🇺

I don’t mean “historical source” as an old source, but one that acknowledges the history of the terms. Your beloved Wikipedia explains the origins of liberalism in the same way I did. If I point you to Chinese economics institutions that agree with me, you’ll dismiss them. Again, liberalism is not a science, it’s an ideology centered around the dominant mode of production.

Even Time Magazine, itself an intensely liberal publication, recognizes the role of property relations in what determines left and right, ultimately chalking up the modern US viewpoint implicitly to the Overton Window, a political outlook that centers the median of any given society, rather than property relations.

This is not the “same argument” that Trump voters made. Again, you rely on equating me to the far-right to emotionally attack me, rather than the logic of my arguments or the overwhelming fact that you only accept western, liberal publications, and precisely the ones that focus on the Overton Window when describing concepts as left and right instead of their origin as property relations. You’re making an appeal to authority as your only argument, yet you don’t accept non-western sources.

It’s clear that by avoiding the discussion that you aren’t a serious person. I accept sources that aconowledge the historical answers to the questions I asked you.

Again, for the 5th time or so, the categorization of “left” vs “right” originated in France. When debating the power a King should hold, those who were against the monarchy sat on the left, and those who wanted to uphold the monarchy sat on the right. Liberalism, therefore, was a historically progressive and revolutionary ideology, as it was anti-monarchist and pro-bourgeois property. It was left not because it was liberal, it was left because it stood for progression onto the next emerging mode of production, that of bourgeois property.

Now, however, bourgeois property is dominant. Kings hold nearly no power on the global stage. The question of which position is revolutionary, which position stands for progression onto the next mode of production, is to be found in the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, not the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy as was found in the late 1700s. Liberalism is the status quo, as capitalism is the status quo. Socialism, whether it be Marxist, anarchist, etc, is the proletarian position, while liberalism is the bourgeois position, once revolutionary, now reactionary.

The publications that you listed, like Princeton, are portraying a narrow scope based on median viewpoints within liberal society. “Left-liberalism” is used in reference to liberals with socially progressive views, and perhaps supportive of some level of welfare expansion, but this doesn’t fundamentally change the property relations in society. It is “left” in comparison to conservativism (which itself is right-liberalism), but right wing overall.

Now, if you can make the case why you believe liberalism to be left, then please, do so, because you haven’t outside of linking liberals saying they are left in the context of a liberal-dominated society. Liberalism is not a science, it’s a viewpoint, so disagreeing with liberal economists is not the same as disagreeing with the CDC. The PRC’s economists are trained in Marxism, and there are far more of them than there are western liberal economists, so the argument that I disagree with economic consensus doesn’t hold water unless you take a western exceptionalist viewpoint.

What does “left” mean to you? What did it originally mean when it first became a phrase, and how does that apply to modern times? Again, I may be a Marxist, but this is a dominant viewpoint outside of highly western, liberal publications, and it isn’t just Marxists that have this understanding of right and left. Trying to equate my logic to anti-vaxx movements is just a baseless jab that avoids answering the arguments I made.

The reason it’s a false dichotomy is because the implicit point of the OP is that revolution is necessary. The original commenter either didn’t pick that up or ignored it, centering voting as the primary means of political engagement without addressing the point raised by the OP.

Voting is a very small part of what the average person can do to use their political power.

Deeply unserious behavior. Again, see my comment here.

See my comment here.

No problem!

I already explained elsewhere that it isn’t a binary, what’s important is which is the principle aspect, public or private ownership. There are elements of private property in socialism, and elements of public in capitalism.

Cooperatives do not eliminate the need for eventual full public ownership. Cooperatives are still based on competition and profit, not fulfilling needs. As cooperatives grow and develop, they will form monopolies, long past when coherent planning and public ownership becomes more efficient at fuflilling needs and growth.

Further, we as the workers cannot restructure capitalism. Capitalism is dominated by capital. In order for workers to have genuine power over the system, we need control of the state, large firms, and key industries, without ownership we cannot pivot to a cooperative society to begin with. Political economic systems are not thoughts in your head, recipes to be picked out, but real, material things, and as such what comes next will be what our current system is economically compelled towards. As centralization is a key side-effect of capitalism, common, collective ownership and planning is what will come next, after revolution sped up by capitalism’s own drive for disparity.

Ultimately, you have a very idealist, utopian view, and not a materialist, scientific view. That’s why you’re running into opposition so heavily.

It isn’t a binary. Elements of private property exist in socialism, and elements of public property exist in capitalism. What matters most is which is the principle aspect of the economy. Liberalism stands for the current, capitalist system, but usually argues for minor modifications. That lands it squarely in the right-wing side.

Cooperatives are neither left nor right. They do not fundamentally change property relations, in that they are based on private property and petite bourgeois class relations. Cooperatives can be part of early socialism, like Huawei in the PRC or the agricultural sectors in the USSR and PRC, or they can be a part of capitalist systems like Mondragon in Spain. At best, they could be considered quasi-socialist.

The reason why “fixing laws about investing” isn’t really “left” is because it doesn’t alter the base mode of production of society. It keeps capitalism intact, it just tweaks how you interact with it. This makes it less right wing than, say, Nazi Germany, but it doesn’t make it left, either.

I have a Marxist PoV, as I am a Marxist-Leninist, but that isn’t why liberalism is right-wing. Liberalism is right-wing because it is based on private property rights as the centerpoint, and that is the status quo. Maintaining the current status quo is a right-wing, conservative point of view, while the revolutionary, progressive point of view is in socialized ownership.

The definitions you keep linking are from liberal organizations that are benefited by constraining the window of political economic discussion to the confines of capitalist viewpoints. Often, they rely on the Overton Window, which is about what is considered more progressive or reactionary in a given window by the median opinion, ie if you have 100 people in a room, 3 are communists, 67 are bog-standard liberals, and 30 are conservative liberals, then by the Overton Window, you’d have 50 on the left and 50 on the right, with most liberals on the left. However, this erases the actually increasing momentum for socialism, and hides the fact that 97 people in the room are for the current system plus tweaks, and only 3 are for radical change.

The origin of the terms “left” began in France, when capitalism and liberalism were revolutionary, and monarchism was the status quo. We are far beyond the time when liberalism is capable of being seen as revolutionary, however, most of the world is dominated by private property. It is now socialism that is revolutionary, and it has been so for centuries.

I’ve provided a more nuanced, thorough, and complete analysis than you have, which is why other users are suggesting you listen to me. I can recommend some good works on political economic theory, if you’d like. There’s a difference between nuance, and vibes, and you’ve relied heavily on vibes over nuance.

In the sense of liberalism as the ideological superstructure of capitalism.

No problem, take care!

China is still here, and still socialist, and it isn’t leaving. This is because of Democratic Centralism, a fast and cohesive way to adapt to changing conditions while retaining democratic input. For less urgent decisions, the PRC has slower, more comprehensive, bottom-up systems, while it focuses more on a top-down approach for system-wide changes and direction. It’s kinda like “top down, from the bottom up.”

I agree with pragmatism over idealism, that’s why I’m a communist and push for socialism. Socialism is immensely practical.

Gotcha, so some form of socialism at minimum. You should check out the link to how the PRC functions.

Pretty much exactly what I am trying to say, even down to explaining that if the imperialist countries collapsed overnight, the remaining capitalist countries would try to re-assert themselves as the new imperialists. Very well said!

Social Democracy is just capitalism with welfare, and as such either funds itself via imperialism like the Nordic Countries, or is ultimately going to see capital use its political power to erase the gains of workers. Markets can play a useful role in spurring development of small and medium firms, but the larger firms and key industries should be publicly owned and planned, as market mechanics begin to lose all benefit towards higher development.

Really, it sounds like you just want Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.

Not sure what you mean by “authoritarian,” all governments are instruments of class oppression and socialist states oppress the bourgeoisie, but no socialist state has been imperialist before. Further, “state capitalism” refers to a system of heavily planned but ultimately dominated by private property, such as Singapore, South Korea, and Bismark’s Germany, and as such I’m not sure what you’re referencing here either.