this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2024
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Genuinely clueless and wanting to understand here
What's the difference between liberalism and leftism? My understanding of them is very nebulous and there's a lot of overlap
Liberalism is the ideology of capitalism.
In the US, socialism has historically been shunned and not represented in the political sphere, to the point that the right started using "liberal" derisively and associated the term with socialism. Internationally, the term retains more of its original meaning, for example, in the UK the "Liberal Democrats," are more like libertarians.
Liberals are generally conservative, meaning they support the status quo or gradual change. US "conservatives" are sometimes more accurately called reactionaries or regressives, because they don't just want to preserve the status quo but to actively roll back progress that has already been made.
Because leftism is a very broad term, it's difficult to define exactly what leftists believe in an uncontroversial way, but generally speaking leftists support radical change away from capitalism.
Liberalism is also quite a broad term, which on its own can only really be said to constitute a belief in "equal rights for everyone including the right to private property". The Liberal Democrats, for example, are so-called because they were formed from the merger of the (classically liberal) Liberal Party, and the Social Democratic Party. They are more like libertarians in the sense that they were broadly pro-market but less authoritarian than the tories, but their policy platform has always been more like something that would be described as social liberalism.
In my experience, the word liberal is generally not used so much in UK politics (outside of the name of the Lib Dems), but if someone self-described themselves as a liberal, I think it would be generally understood as socially liberal rather than libertarian.
I wouldn't necessarily say that the left right spectrum is tied to economic views only, while economics are usually part of a political view judging only by that is a bit one dimensional (non us perspective)
Personally, I don't draw a distinction between economic and social issues, because solidarity between oppressed groups is vital for building collective power necessary to confront capitalism economically and laws that make people more vulnerable also affect us economically. But admittedly there are people who do view them as separate issues.
Although wealth distribution isgood, Socialism is not good for economics
Economics is merely the study of how scarce goods are distributed. There are many ways to do that. Capitalists argue that their system is the most efficient, but even taking that claim at face value, efficiency alone isn't the only measure. It also says little about how control of those resources consolidates power.
That depends on what your goals, methodology, and material conditions are.
If you have static and predictable demand for something, like, everybody needs enough food to eat and a roof over their heads, then the state can effectively plan for and deliver on that. When you have something that just needs to be done for its own sake, then introducing a profit motive isn't necessary or beneficial, and can lead to enshittification and cutting corners. There are also "natural monopolies," like for example cable where it doesn't really make sense to build another set of cable lines so the consumer is going to be left with one choice anyway, and it would be better for that to be run by the state where there's at least some democratic input on how things are done. There's also what's called "externalities" where for example building a train line makes an area more accessible and brings value to the surrounding area, beyond what can be captured by the line itself - and conversely, there are negative externalities, such as a factory putting out smog or dumping chemicals, that will lower the value of the surrounding area but the factory won't bear the brunt of the costs. There are also natural resources where the supply is inelastic so taxing them doesn't make the economy less efficient, as the Nordic countries do with their oil.
There are situations where private industry can make sense. Like, say people want plushies made of different anime characters. There's no real reason for the state to run that. There's a low barrier to entry, and different companies can use different methods to predict which character will be in higher demand and whether people will want higher quality or lower price. Or with cars, they can design different models balancing all sorts of factors from safety to performance to aesthetics.
There's also many cases where a state doesn't have the freedom to implement whatever system they want. Some states are rich in natural resources, but they are owned by foreign corporations that have owned them since colonial times. If they try to nationalize them, or even tax them, it would be beneficial to the economy but it could lead to sanctions, coups, or invasions. But generally the people in the country don't benefit from those situations and the relationship is parasitic.
The cause of the confusion:
Liberalism is the political project which gave us the 18th century liberal revolutions of for instance, the US and France. It centers invidivual freedoms like free speech, association, and the right to own and use private property without interference from the government. It can be seen as a reaction by the land owning middle classes of the 17th and 18th centuries to the power of divine right monarchs, and is the founding principal of both the Democratic and Republican parties. It centralizes human rationality and debate of ideas as means of finding true paths to the future.
Leftism is an umbrella term which holds a few groups in it (Most notably Social democrats, Communist Socialist, and Communist Anarchist ideologies). It can be traced back through history to many times and places, but modern forms of it originate in the utopian socialism of post-revolution France. Leftism promotes the primacy of human well being and equality (or at least more equally distributed material wealth) over property rights. Generally this takes the form of support for the abolition of class society (owner class vs worker class), belief in worker-centered policy, trade unionism, worker cooperativity, and internationalism... but again, it is a big umbrella, and there is a lot of deviation from this formula. In place of rationalism and debate of ideas, Leftism generally centers material conditions and material outcomes of policy.
Liberalism is a moral philosophy based on individual rights, liberty and equality - this is universally agreed apon terminology almost everywhere apart from here on Lemmy. Here for some reason people keep referring to classical capitalism as liberals like it's a historical discussion about the economic system of the 16th-18th centuries. We should really be using neoliberalism or libertarianism instead now days, because those are new words that evolved specifically to reduce confusion and refer to similar economic ideas but in modern context.
liberals tend to be democrats and support democrat views. leftists want something better and tend to vote democratic as there's not really a better option. liberals tend to be center, even center right, while leftists are actually on the left
Here you go: https://youtu.be/33p-8QHZpzY
It depends on the person. For some liberalism is capitalism and leftism is socialism. The real cut is for some any capitalism is liberalism and any socialism is communist. So folks who want managed capitalism (regulations) for like selling crap but want social safety nets (government run programs) for necessary things like education and healthcare. Whelp one side says they are way right liberalists (classical) capitalist facists and the other says they are way left radical communist facists. Those who embrace the centerism (not very central now due to the overton window) disagree but are usually willing to give one way or another to get close to what they want. In the us they are called democrats (sorta, again, overton window).