This discussion is funny from a German pov, as our main local liberal party (the FDP) is pretty right wing and has been so since the 1940s. "Liberalism" always had a quite neative connotation to me therefore. They are also the party most open to working together with the far right (the AFD).

Liberalism can be right wing or left wing. It makes more sense to structure the political specrum like this. But even that is far from prefect.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Liberalism can be right wing or left wing.

Eh. Its traditionally in that "economically conservative, socially liberal" pocket, wherein you can do whatever you want so long as you've got enough passive income.

Fascists tend toward a more rigid social caste system (ideologically) wherein being rich isn't enough to save you from state violence. That's a big part of its popular appeal, particularly when liberal institutions decay into kleptocracies.

Traditional Marxism tends toward the social egalitarianism that fascists can't stomach (race mixing, gender equality, and worker internationalism) while advocating full public ownership that liberal rent-seekers can't stomach.

So, in the modern political spectrum, liberals tend to be "centrists" who use their economic influence to rent out social egalitarianism. Fascists tend to be "right wing", advocating for those same private entities to purge themselves of unpopular social groups. And Marxists tend to be "left wing", advocating for an abolition of rents and a full egalitarian economy.

But if you go back a century (or move over to a country that's more left or right leaning) the colonial era monarchies and theocracies end up forming the right-wing pole, while fascists join liberals at the social center, and Marxists join a much more lively native anarchist community that's in its last-gasp efforts to resist colonial occupation.

[–] Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If you are saying gender equality is Marxist then I am guessing you haven't read much Marx friend. Marx was very about women being relegated to traditional gender roles and was more about whole "seperate spheres of excellence" thing. You are thinking more of the likes of Saint Simone and Robert Owen's Owenites.

Feminist scholarship has tried to adapt Marx by stripping out the veiws about women and applying his rhetoric more unilaterally but that's not his text and quite frankly there are other contemporary philosophers and movement leaders which did it better.

There is this habit to slap the name Marxist on a the most idealized reads of the work and call it his because he's the name people know and the few well known political labels on the far left or because people who have claimed the label of his movement after his death decided to non-canonically add to his work- but I personally wish that people could normalize other schools of leftist philosophy and not treat Marx particularly as the magnet that all of us will inevitably be drawn to or attribute stuff to him that he doesn't particularly deserve. Marxism as a sort of brand name philosophy is misleading and disappointing to those who read his work and find that their ideals aren't actually well represented there.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If you are saying gender equality is Marxist then I am guessing you haven’t read much Marx friend. Marx was very about women being relegated to traditional gender roles

Marxism does not end with Marx any more than Newtonian Physics ends with Newton.

That said, I've seen plenty of liberal writers approach the original works with cynical and dishonest takes. So it helps to cite your reference if you want to be taken seriously.

that’s not his text and quite frankly there are other contemporary philosophers and movement leaders which did it better.

Sure. Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Chavez, etc, etc.

but I personally wish that people could normalize other schools of leftist philosophy and not treat Marx particularly as the magnet that all of us will inevitably be drawn to

It's hard to escape Marx's gravitational pull without abandoning 19th century modes of industrial economics.

So long as colonial powers continue to apply old liberal economic theories of endless expansion and consolidated ownership in the face of diminishing returns, Marx's insights into failing rate of profit fueling economic contradictions will remain relevant.

[–] Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I believe what you are referring to is Communism. Let us divorce at least the name of a singular man from a body of work that by your own admission is made up of a number of different writers on the subject just as the elaborations on Newtonian Physics is considered also a part but not whole of Classical Mechanics.

The reductions of bodies of political thought to singular authors is often used to exclude others. Very often on this platform I am told that I am not a Socialist because I am not a Marxist simply because he simply coined a term to a body of thought that predated him and extended far beyond him so why should I extend to Marx the authorial intent by the political realm of thought baring his name? If you said you were a Maoist or a Leninist or a Chavezist would I not conclude that you are in agreement with their very specific realms of their personal philosophy?

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Let us divorce at least the name of a singular man from a body of work

If we had a collection of competing working applications of communism, that would be easier. But trying to divorce it from Marx is a bit like trying to divorce capitalism from Adam Smith or the more modern Anarcho-Capitalist attitude from Rothbard and Rand. Like talking about Protestantism without mentioning Martin Luther.

Show me a fully realized anarchist state and we might be able to talk about Peter Kropotkin or Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. But anarchists from Republican Spain to the Bodo League of Korea to American Native Tribes were wiped out by fascist militarism.

You could draw sharper lines between Leninism, Maoism, and Chauvism, but you'd still start from their common Marxist heritage.

The reductions of bodies of political thought to singular authors is often used to exclude others.

They're influential for a reason.

I am told that I am not a Socialist because I am not a Marxist

I mean, you can call yourself whatever you want. But I see the term "Socialist" pitched around to describe everything from corporate liberalism to primativist anarchism. If you want to talk about AES states, you're talking about countries that rooted themselves in Marxist philosophy.

If you said you were a Maoist or a Leninist or a Chavezist would I not conclude that you are in agreement with their very specific realms of their personal philosophy?

If I said I was a Maoist, I just didn't agree with anything in Mao's Little Red Book, I would not blame you for calling me a bullshitter.

[–] orrk@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

that's because liberalism in Europe is mainly "liberty" for rich people to do what they want

[–] Tryptaminev@lemm.ee 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Isn't it the same in the US though? They still don't have universal healthcare or basic worker protection like protecting women from being fired over giving birth.

[–] orrk@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

see, the difference is, in the US they already won, tho in the American context liberal s still more progressive than the neo-cons/fascists on the other side

[–] Sidyctism@feddit.de 2 points 6 months ago

Are they? I would say the CDU under Merz is more likely to work with the AfD