Discussion
Discussion
65 comments
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"Not like that! We meant we should debate whether trans people should exist or not! Redistributing wealth is just evil."
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"OK FINE! You can own the means of sexual reproduction if you stay the hell away from the means of production, ya pleb!"
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"Actually, scratch that, we need more wage slaves to make line go up."
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The only wealth redistribution they allow is from the poor to the rich. Bonus points if they can:
- Increase tax pressure on the poor.
- Make it so the poor vote for tax cuts.
- Hand out said tax cuts to the rich.
- Profit from "donations".
The liberal play book is so dumb and yet so effective.
EDIT: To all those that got offended by the dunk on liberals, consider this: When did your liberal government in practice and in a meaningful capacity increase tax pressure on the rich and allocate the increased funds to the benefit of the poor? Also, if you are not for more equitable redistribution of wealth, what are you even doing in this community?
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You're forgetting the vehicle of modern plundering: the Corporation
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The corporation is the weapon the capitalist class uses to make liberal democracies into dictatorships of the bourgeoisie.
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They don't only exploit human resources but also natural resources and communal resources.
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The extraction of surplus value is usually done with no regard for and to the direct detriment of the well-being of the foundation on which value is being created.
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You spelled conservative wrong buddy
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US liberals are conservatives where I am from.
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I am living in a liberal (social) democracy and can give numerous reasons as to how and why it is currently failing, even as it is internally miles ahead of any shithole capitalist hellscape such as the US. Goals and ideals matter if they are based upon a factual understanding of material reality.
I am much more interested in a qualitative argument about socialist policy founded on proper material conditions, rather than what you deem to be the historical, and thus I infer the inevitable future, truth of a socialist system.
I am also not going to engage with effort if I do not see some effort in return, which I really do not at the moment.
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Things rarely go "swimmingly" for the left because it fights against existing power structures, and those power structures fight back. And the countries that tend to have socialist revolutions also tend to start out with terrible conditions, bad enough for people to rise up, and then made worse by the devastation of conflict. Then they have to grapple with future threats from invasions, sanctions, and clandestine subversion.
In spite of this, many socialist countries have made major improvements to people's lives, especially in comparison to what the previous regime had been doing.
For example, Cuba was a gangster state under the dictator Batista, who was in league with the American Mafia and plundered the country for his own profits and those of wealthy plantation owners. After the revolution, in spite of sanctions, life expectancy improved greatly surpassed the US, literacy skyrocketed, and the country now has the highest number of doctors per capita in the world, who are regularly sent abroad to provide aid. Cuba recently (2022) passed an amendment to its constitution which greatly strengthened LGBT rights and gender equality.
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Not really, the ones that had promise were conquered by capitalists, and all states should be abolished anyways.
Do you have any examples of right wing governments that don't primarily exist to protect the interests of their oligarchy?
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Hear me out, this isnt a flame.
The word liberal has lost some of its historic connotations.
I am a believer in Economic Liberalism, broadly defined as;
Economic liberals tend to oppose government intervention and protectionism in the market economy when it inhibits free trade and competition, but tend to support government intervention where it protects property rights, opens new markets or funds market growth, and resolves market failures.[2]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalism
Genuine question: Which party do I vote for?
As I see it, none of them are championing economic liberalism.
Note: before someone replies with: what about climate change, inequality etc. These are market failures that Economic liberals believe should be fixed by government.
As I see it, liberal economics is politically dead.
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Do you think the government should enforce some limits on wealth accumulation? Genuine question, because this doesn't appear on neither the pro nor con lists in that definition and I'd like to hear a take of a self described economic liberal on this
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I don't think total accumulation of wealth would be a problem in itself IF it was taxed properly.
If I was in charge I'd do the following:
- Simplify the tax code and remove exemptions.
- Set a threshold for inheritance tax, say $5m, and tax anything above that at close to 100%.
- Setup a department to review and adapt to tax avoidance strategies I.e. billionaires taking out loans to avoid paying themselves in dividends, which would have been taxed.
- Make the tax code progressive e.g. you pay more tax the more you earn. Set this up for capital, income, pension etc. Tax it all at the same level.
I think this provides enough of an incentive to work hard but removes the inter generational plutocracy issues.
Equality of opportunity and all that.
P.S. In my opinion, the accountancy profession should not need to exist. Rules should be simple enough for an average person to follow.
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Markets can only fail so long before the ideology that requires them to be bailed out dies with them.
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This is satire right? Like 9/10 satire of a neolib there, I almost believed you were suggesting labor didn't make the wealth hoarded by nonlabor.
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If you think someone can "earn" a billion dollars, you're beyond saving. You get that through exploiting laborers, not your own labor.
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65 comments
Exactly, heavy taxation on the ultra wealthy and wealth caps are incredibly popular topics in liberal circles. I swear some people have never actually talked to a liberal and just attack some strawman they've lumped in together with conservatives.
I'm leftist and anti-capitalist, but I also recognize that most liberals are people who want the same things leftists do, but simply haven't thought deeply enough about what the true root causes of society's issues are. It's an issue of tactics rather than a fundamental disconnect in core principles and values. Ultimately they want a more equitable, less stratified society where society helps and supports the disenfranchised. The same thing leftists want. They just don't understand that capitalism has to go in order to achieve it.
Liberals, unlike conservatives, are actually generally quite reasonable people since they aren't motivated by hatred. As leftists, we should be doing everything we can to educate them and bring them into the fold, rather than tearing them down.
Well said. Education over isolation is the only way we’ll move forward.
I think you are being overly generous here. The number of middle class or wealthy liberals who want meaningful wealth distribution is vanishingly small. I'll leave this comment because I agree with your closing sentiment, but please be mindful of rule 3. This is a space for lefty memes, not involved political discussion, or liberal apologia.
What's most important is that you get to feel smugly superior.
Liberals absolutely arent centrists, Social Democrats are centrist. Liberals are right wing, fundamentally you cannot be a leftist while supporting a "free" capitalist economy and minimal government (thats what Liberalism is).
Nah dude a liberal can be right wing and another lib can be left. You can be a liberal soc dem if you want
Liberals are Centrist they've always been centrists for 400 years.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/political-spectrum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum
What are the tenants of the neoliberalism economic philosophy?
Edit: not saying the philosophy definition is the only def, just pointing out there are multiple common usages so when someone says 'liberal' without defining the term it's ambiguous.
Classic liberalism =/= neoliberalism
The meme doesn’t say neoliberals. It says liberals.
What you are saying fits the american "liberal" label. What you are describing I would call social democrat, not a liberal. People calling themselves liberal in europe are, examples from sweden: compares public insight into publicly funded privatly owned companies to soviet, are for privatization of welfare institutions, collaborates with the far right, calls rightwing newspapers communist, and are against free speech at universities.
To be fair though, the meme is probably targeting socdems anyway so I guess fair enough.
Aren’t SocDems a type of liberal?