I keep seeing posts from this instance referring to capitalists as liberals. Since when are capitalism and liberalism related? As far as I’ve always known, liberalism is a social ideology, while capitalism is an economic system.

Why do y’all refer to all capitalists as liberals when at least half (probably more, at least in my experience) are conservatives?

I, for example, consider myself a liberal, but I’m most certainly not a capitalist. I’m stuck in a capitalist society in which I have to play by the rules if I want to feed my family, but that’s as far as my support for the system goes. I’m pretty sure a lot of Americans feel this way.

Looking it up, the definition of liberalism specifies a belief in maximum personal freedom, especially as guaranteed by a government. Considering that 90% of governments in the world are endlessly corrupt, capitalist or not, I’d much prefer one that guarantees its citizens rights as a matter of course rather than begrudgingly grants them privileges that can be taken away without public oversight.

Do y’all really trust your governments to look after your best interests? As a U.S. American, I know I wouldn’t trust my government or politicians to do anything but enrich themselves at my expense, but I don’t have to; my rights are guaranteed by our constitution.

Now if we could just get them to stop funding and committing genocide…

EDIT: So many incredibly well thought-out and researched responses! I have a lot of reading and thinking to do, so thank you all for your input. I’ll likely be referring back to this post for a while as I learn more about the world outside my U.S.-centric bubble. My biggest takeaways from all this after a quick perusal of the replies are that liberalism has a very different meaning outside the U.S. and has a lot more to do with private property, especially land ownership, than I’d thought.

My time is limited and there are so many responses that I likely won’t be replying to (m)any any time soon, but know that I appreciate all the knowledge bombs y’all have dropped.

  • Juice [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    37·
    9 months ago

    Here is a previous response to this question, I feel like a lot of socialists come off as having changed the definition of “liberal” when actually it was the capitalists who changed it.

    One important distinction is, there is no separation between the social and the economic: Economics are a social relation. False distinctions like this are an example of the sort of thinking that we often criticize.

    Liberals emerged as the opposition to the feudal system, along with enlightenment philosophy, science, industrialization, etc. Revolutionary liberals wanted freedom, democracy, self determination, independence, freedom of movement, and a world without the tyranny of a king. The class that emerged during these periods was the capitalists who also wanted to get away from the feudal system ruled by nobles and the church, who said, “the way to get rid of these feudal relations and get freedom, democracy and independence is a system built around private property rights.” But of course once the capitalists seized power and owned everything, those other values of self determination, freedom, independence all became wrapped up in and subordinated to private property.

    Now when people talk about these values, the only one that really has any social substance is property. Socialists are in many ways the inheritors of that first mission that early radical liberals were fighting for, but when we talk about liberals, what we mean is anyone who believes that private property is a core political and social value to uphold. This includes most conservatives and what would traditionally be considered as liberals, like the Democratic party. But we recognize that private property and capitalism was not the way to win freedom from tyranny, it was just a new form of tyranny. It was a big con, a game of switcheroo, and it continues to be that to this day. Liberals can’t really see it because there are things that they believe to be essential and natural that are really social and historically contingent. But becoming a socialist we have to sort of de-liberalize in that we purge those core beliefs that uphold private property and dictatorship of capitalists, which has this weird side effect of always having to distinguish our socialist beliefs from liberalism.

    • Pulptastic@midwest.socialEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      From what I have seen of the world, that sounds like an archaic definition of liberal and is not how it is commonly defined (in the US at least).

      • Doubledee [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        11·
        9 months ago

        But I think some of that is semantic gatekeeping. In the US things are often cast as more liberal or more conservative but this serves to contain acceptable political ideas inside a relatively narrow window. If socialists are just “more liberal” than democratic politicians then the distinction between them (namely that socialists are ideologically opposed to the goals of DNC politicians) then their actual opposition us hidden behind a smokescreen, where we just want a stronger version of what they claim to want.

        It is to their advantage for people to believe these are the available options, the only things people can seriously want for society.

      • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        8·
        9 months ago

        Is using gnarly to mean twisted, knotted and rough is an archaic use of the word? Is using the word cool to describe temperature archaic? The issue is that the politically illiterate first worlders have no clue what the real meaning of the word is and think the slang use is the only meaning. Western political slang has twisted the meaning of the word “Liberal” to mean “socially progressive” but that in no way dismisses the actual meaning of the word.

      • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        8·
        9 months ago

        The overwhelmingly majority of liberals do not want to abolish private property or capitalist social relations, and with the near universal lack of political education those ideas don’t even enter their heads

        So the definition can’t be archaic because it accurately describes the vast majority of liberals alive today

      • ExotiqueMatter@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        7·
        9 months ago

        These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world.

        • Frederick Engels