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Comment by posterman | Hacker News Reader

i think you are getting liberalism and "the left" confused

as do many left-wing political parties

well, they wouldn't be left wing if they presented centrist liberal ideals would they? you, too, may be confusing liberalism with leftism. almost as if it was the intended function of the liberal project...

"Left" is a relative concept. The original French revolution left was liberalist. Liberalism is the core ideology of the current western world. Both Democrats and Republicans are liberalists. Even Putin is predominantly a liberalist.

> Even Putin is predominantly a liberalist.

He's an authoritarian autocrat. I've never come across a definition of "liberal" that includes that.

Liberalism is totally OK with authoritarian autocrats as long as they maintain the "freedom" of property holders to do as they please regardless of societal outcomes. Liberalism has a more problematic relationship with democracy. Quite expected as most people suffer from the liberalist economical order, making it somewhat tricky to maintain democratically.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/friedrich-hayek-dictatorshi...

yes, this is what i am saying. modern liberalism is indeed a "core ideology", or put another way, a hegemonic centrist ideal. it is definitionally not leftist. i think it is well understood that most leftist political ideologies recognize the importance of a liberal movement as a precursor. to the original comment this stems from, leftism is in no way an endorsement of consumerism.

I find it more useful to use more "absolute" terms. If by left you mean some fashion of socialism, then indeed left is not liberalist. But in contemporary politics such left is almost non-existant. E.g. most European "socialist" or even "communist" parties are staunchly liberal, and mostly celebrate consumerism.

I don't think "leftism" is really an ideology, or at least it can mean very different things in different contexts.

Edit: I find it also better to use "liberalist" instead of "liberal" when referring to the political movement and ideology. "Liberal" is easy to misinterpret and misuse, and it tends to hide the fact that liberalism a quite specific ideology, that e.g. has no monopoly on liberty.

Especially so called radical liberalism was very important for development of various forms of leftism such as anarchism.

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