Do any of them know what the word “liberal” actually means?

    • Don’t know why you’re being downvoted.

      Liberal literally means free. As in “If it doesn’t harm me, you’re allowed to do it”. So yes, openminded, permissive, tolerant.

      Don’t know why a lot of the US-Americans had to twist the meaning of it.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Because in politics, liberal means something else entirely. It’s an ideology defined by support for capitalism.

          • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            It’s actually specifically not true in American politics.

            Liberal in America = left wing, favors greater regulation of markets

        • That’s absolutely not what it means

          In the very closest definition, liberal means “if there isn’t a law against it, you’re allowed to do it”

          liberal more broadly is just as simple: “if it doesn’t hurt me, you’re free to do it”

          I mean, what do you think a “liberal democracy” is? The majority of Europe is made up of liberal democracies while also being social-democratic. France is a liberal democracy despite being heavily unionized and having huge welfare. How does that work?

          It works because that’s not what liberal means.

          Socially-Liberal, for example, is when you are liberal (freedom-loving / diversity-loving) in social aspects. You support gay marriages, you support freedom of religion, you support cultural diversity. Other Examples include religiously-liberal, culturally-liberal, or even politically liberal (you support the right to different political opinions than yours)

          What comes closest to what you think it is is economically-liberal. Which essentially says that “as long as it doesn’t hurt me, you’re free to do what you want economically”. But even that isn’t what you mean. Is Pollution and accelerating Climate change harming me and therefore not protected under liberalism? yes, says the absolute majority of liberals.

          Is lobbying harming me by making my Voice less weighted? Yes, say a lot of us.

          So not even economically-liberal is a good term to describe what you mean.

          I don’t know, what a good term for it is. But it isn’t Liberal. So please, for the love of god, stop misusing it. Words have meaning. Invent a new one if you have to, they all began that way anyways.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          In European politics.

          American liberals do not support free markets. They’re advocates of greater regulation amd stronger unions.

          • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            yes, they do. Both* US political parties are neoliberal parties. Regulation of markets is still a free market. Unions do not inherently oppose free markets either.

            * must go back at least 10 years for this to be true for Republicans

            • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Stop prevaricating.

              More regulation = less free markets. It’s a spectrum, not a light switch. Dems want more restricted markets. Repubs want more free markets.

    • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      It means you support capitalism, hence why “liberalization of the economy” means selling off public utilities, land, housing, and resources.

        • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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          2 months ago

          My parents used to called corned beef stew “Pig soup” so my brother and i would eat it. That doesn’t mean it was pork in there.

          • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            300 million Americans call corned beef “pig stew” and it’s in the dictionary. Welcome to living languages. Corned beef is now pig stew.

      • Aux@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        You cannot be open minded, tolerant and support human rights and freedoms while opposing capitalism. If you oppose capitalism - you’re pretty much an authoritarian shill.

        • Cowbee@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          Care to elaborate? Why is wanting to democratize production more authoritarian than wanting many competing dictators?

            • Cowbee@lemmy.ml
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              2 months ago

              Definitionally, it cannot. Capitalism is individual ownership, Socialism is collective ownership. By definition, workers in Capitalism have no real say.

              • Aux@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                Capitalism is individual ownership, That’s the key! It gives you all the rights and freedoms to create your own business and lead it the way YOU see fit. By definition, Capitalism doesn’t have workers or other classes, everyone is equal. Socialism is an authoritarian ideology, which puts the needs of a social construct (a virtual entity, if you prefer) over the needs, rights and freedoms of an individual. One must be very delusional to support authoritarian socialist ideas in any way, shape or form.

                • Cowbee@lemmy.ml
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                  2 months ago

                  Individual rights to become a Capital Owner and exploit the majority of society is by definition class society. In Socialism, there are no classes, because ownership is shared. There are no Capitalists exploiting workers.

                  You don’t know enough about Socialism or Capitalism to discuss either.

                  • Aux@lemmy.world
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                    2 months ago

                    No, you don’t know enough if you think that equal freedoms and rights lead to “exploitation” and “classes” while inherently authoritarian ideology means there are no classes. Like, lol, what kind of lunacy is that?

    • Andrzej@lemmy.myserv.one
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      2 months ago

      Look rather than dunk on you, I’m going to recommend Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast, because it gives a fair overview of what the liberal revolutions were about, why socialism grew out of that moment, and how there came to be this irreconciliable beef between liberalism and socialism. The whole thing is great, but 1848 is the real crisis point if all you care about is the schism.

      • FozzyOsbourne@lemm.eeOP
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        2 months ago

        OK, but that’s not what the word liberal actually means to most people in my experience. Or perhaps another way of saying it is that a lot of people I see getting angry on Lemmy read the word “liberal” and assume economically liberal, whereas every person I’ve ever encountered IRL would use it to mean socially liberal.

        • dudinax@programming.dev
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          2 months ago

          The very idea that a liberal can’t be socialist and a socialist can’t be liberal is nonsensical. They are orthogonal concepts.

          The division between liberals and socialists is plainly promoted in order to divide people.

        • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          In the US political media ‘Liberal’ is deliberately used to reference the policies of the Democratic Party, which is demonstrably Neoliberal. This confusion is working as intended.

          Thanks Rush Limbaugh and all the hellspawn you’ve enabled.

          • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            This confusion is working as intended.

            And is exploited by tankies/fascists. By making “liberal” an insult from both the right and the left, using different definitions, they solidify in the mind if low information voters that Democrats are bad. Republicans, by being left out of this insulting, sound better by comparison.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          That’s because the socially liberal definition is almost exclusively American, and lemmy has a large number of EXTREMELY Eurocentric users. Almost like a weird mirror world of the typical “everything is assumed to be American until proved otherwise” in most social media.

          According to lemmy, there’s the American definition, and then there’s the correct definition. And they’re not being tongue in cheek about it, they’re serious.

        • Glytch@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          A liberal believes capitalism is broken and needs to be fixed.

          A socialist believes capitalism is working as intended and needs to be destroyed.

          • db2@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            What’s someone who believes capitalism is broken and needs to be destroyed?

            • mhague@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Someone who doesn’t have conspiracy-brain. The people that say capitalism is working as intended seem to live by the inverse razor of “never attribute to collective stupidity of the implementors what can be attributed to deliberate malice by illuminati-like mechanisms.”