Sure, there are always outliers and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s just the overall impression I have.
(I wasn’t sure if [email protected] or this community would fit better for this kind of question, but I assume it fits here.)
Sure, there are always outliers and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s just the overall impression I have.
(I wasn’t sure if [email protected] or this community would fit better for this kind of question, but I assume it fits here.)
No. Liberalism is against most things that the right wing of the political spectrum explicitly stands for. Liberalism exists as a counter argument to conservatism. As I mentioned earlier US political language has twisted and distorted what these words really mean.
I’m assuming you’re talking in a US perspective.
Leftism describes a spectrum of political ideologies that seeks to minimize hierarchies and desires to achieve equality and egalitarianism. Liberalism is a pro-capitalist ideology, and capitalism is hierarchial and is unequal. Thus, liberalism is right wing. Progressivism isn’t related to right or left wing. You can be a communist but socially conservative. You can be fiscally conservative and be progressive. In the US, being left wing or right wing is mainly measured on how progressive, or if you support social programs (a little leftist, but still can be right wing, just center-right). Liberalism is right wing. Conservatism is far right.
No. I’m not talking from a US perspective. I’m talking from a political perspective. Liberalism is a moral and political philosophy - that is available in more than one flavour. Many things liberalism stands for are incompatible with right wing governments. Conservatism is far right? No, fascism is far right and there is an enormous difference between being conservative and being a fascist. Right and left are both part of a spectrum and run the whole gamut from dipping your toe in the water to being fully submerged. It’s disingenuous to suggest otherwise.
The whole left and right label is very ambiguous and hard for me to define. I agree liberalism is an umbrella term for a variety of political ideologies. I was mainly talking about classic liberalism, while it seems that you are talking about social liberalism. Social liberalism, at most, is center left. So is social democracy. I was mainly thinking about neoliberalism, and such.
Again, no. I was talking about John Locke and David Lloyd George type characters - to suggest that the last Liberal party prime minister of the UK was to the right of the political spectrum was an interesting take I’d never heard before.
Seems that I am not as educated as you on liberalism. I focus more on socialist ideologies rather than liberalism or other ideologies, So I’ll give this one to you.
Have a great weekend :)
I’m no expert - it’s just that the (UK) liberal party merged with a left of centre party, the SDP (Social Democratic Party) and were briefly called the SDLP; before rebranding to the Liberal Democrats. They are still left of centre.
I think a lot of the liberal views towards capitalism can only be seen through the context of trying to humanise the inherent framework of capitalism. I think you’re correct that they never looked beyond existing within capitalism and therefore perhaps ultimately paid a price for that.
Thanks for the weekend wishes, same to you.