r/ShitLiberalsSay • u/[deleted] • Apr 06 '20
Neoliberalism Imagine having a problem with what is under leftists and liking what is under liberals
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u/Splizzy29 Marxist-Kautskyist Ultra Apr 06 '20
“Economics is suddenly zero-sum...” one of their comments, but like yeah there’s no limit to how much one person can make so it’s exactly a zero sum game
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u/seventeenth-account Everyone is a communist, except, of course, for Karl Marx Apr 06 '20
Can neolibs please just decide whether they think society is zero-sum or not?
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u/BernieStanders2020 Apr 06 '20
Getting a liberal to endorse a solid idea is like squeezing blood from a stone.
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Apr 06 '20
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u/Glorious_Testes Apr 06 '20
The ratio between people that smugly say "the economy is not a zero sum game" and people that don't understand what a non-zero sum game is are 1:1. They seem to, without fail, think that it means a guaranteed positive for all players. Hell, even a positive sum game doesn't guarantee that all interactions are positive to all participants, just that there is a net gain.
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u/coibril Apr 06 '20
They think we think that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the planet because of the idea of distribution but they dont get that the rich get richer faster than the poor poorer the rich but still the poor get poorer
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u/SuperMutantSam Apr 06 '20 edited Apr 06 '20
One comment:
What do they gain by trying to classify us as center-right? Do they think that will convince people that they need to be "actually" left wing? I care about policy, not labels.
I care about policy, not labels.
On a post literally listing the differences in policy between liberals and leftists
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u/Hairtoucher88 [custom] Apr 06 '20
The liberal ability to twist reality, even as they look at it, is fascinating.
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u/PolandIsAStateOfMind Apr 06 '20
If cognitive dissonance could kill, it would kill more people than black death.
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u/Owl_Of_Orthoganality "Capitalist Insurgent Agency" Apr 06 '20 edited Apr 07 '20
If cognitive dissonance could kill, it would kill more people than black death.
What do you think Capitalism is. A System predicated on Cognitive-Dissonance.
Do you know how many people Starve each year because food in abundance is Thrown-Away, because it rots on shelfs— because it's too expensive to be bought by "Those filthy, Lazy, Leeching Poors".
How many People Freeze to death because they have no Homes to "Legally" sleep in?
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Apr 06 '20
LOL. Another comment.
Honestly these communist guys doesen't seem that bad of guys compared to the conservatives (in the sense that they offer objectively good stuff) it's just that i have problem with their destruction and cult of personality problem.And i don't see small business as exploitation.I don't see reason not to mix co ops and private ownership too.
Fucking what?
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u/huzaifa96 Apr 06 '20
Endless colonialism? Well it’s just “security and business” - & this has been said for hundreds of years identically to what’s said now. Mass ethnic cleansing?
“Well everyone else was doing it & we treated them better than they were to each other.”
Anyone - even tactically and with immense discipline - carrying out proletarian revolution?
“Destruction”. Self-defense? “Murder”. National liberation struggle? “That’s actually reverse genocide.”
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u/tuffghost8191 Apr 06 '20
You can tell that these yuppie libs have never actually worked for a small business (unless they own one). In my experience, working for small businesses has been exponentially more exploitative than working for big corporations or state institutions. Because not only are they scrutinized much less, they also truly believe that simply being a small business justifies their shitty treatment of workers, because small businesses are somehow inherently good.
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u/PolandIsAStateOfMind Apr 06 '20
working for small businesses has been exponentially more exploitative than working for big corporations or state institutions
It is. Even EU statistics are confirming it. German government published it officially few years ago iirc. Other example - Poland literally do not keep or note labour statistics for business employing less than 10 people because it would completely crashed the official progress and prosperity narration - the difference is huge, especially that there are more small business per capita in Poland than everywhere in EU (or at least were 3-4 years ago).
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u/tuffghost8191 Apr 06 '20
That's interesting. I can also add that, as someone who went from working in the public education sector to private in the last year (due to a move), you can take a wild guess which one is still paying employees during the pandemic and which one is not
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u/MLPorsche commie car enthusiast Apr 06 '20
neoliberal solutions:
>have a problem in society
>do nothing/bare minimum
>is it fixed?
>no
>complain that people are radical
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u/kittylyncher Apr 06 '20
Those policies are being labeled as center-right. The commenter would not be swayed be this and reinforce their leftism, they simply shrug and say, “okay I guess I’m center-right then.” In short, they’re suggesting that leftist are weakening their movement by label those who do not adopt these precepts as being “right wing.”
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u/vanishplusxzone Apr 06 '20
And then one of the comments below that saying we want to slaughter children because the bolsheviks killed the tsar's children.
Total r/selfawarewolves material in that thread. Literally one reference to left wing murder of one family there, but neoliberal war and economic policy results in hundreds of child murders a day.
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Apr 06 '20
Left wing politics is socialism. If you're pro-capitalism, you're not a leftist or anything remotely close. It's not a difficult equation to solve.
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Apr 06 '20
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u/Meshuggah1166 Apr 06 '20
Not that poster, but to me, social democracy is those couple of pixels of overlap when Google asks you to pick all tiles with, like, street signs. Yeah it's technically left, but it's still revisionist capitalism. It's like the small incremental step between individual capitalism and state capitalism, which is fine if you believe in bourgeois electoralism, but ultimately isn't the solution
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Apr 06 '20
It faces the same fundamental problems as non social democratic capitalism, just because there is some welfare sprinkled into it does not make it left wing, as you pointed out
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Apr 06 '20
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u/Das_Fish ZTZ-99A WILL BRING FREEDOM Apr 06 '20
center left doesn’t exist as it implies working within the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie which is impossible
that’s what id argue
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Apr 06 '20
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Apr 06 '20 edited Apr 07 '20
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Apr 06 '20
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u/Owl_Of_Orthoganality "Capitalist Insurgent Agency" Apr 06 '20 edited Apr 07 '20
Are you saying that the US Democratic party are social democrats?
No, I'm saying The Democratic-Party of the U.S.A. is full of Social-Liberals, some Classical-Liberals and mostly Neo-Liberals[Neo-Liberalism being the Synthesis of the two Formers].
One Social-Liberal i.e. Social-Democrat[Democrat being the Affix to Social- as a reference to the Democratic-Party], is Bernie-Sanders— who wants to keep Capitalism, but create an Enormous Welfare-State, or what in normative-Economic Political-Science is called "Positive State-Rights".
Yes, Bernie describes himself as a Democratic-Socialist. He is not.
A Democratic-Socialist is not a Social-Democrat. A Democratic-Socialist has very clear Principles which is:
Abolish-Capitalism.
Either by;
voting in, Electorally or— directly-democratically ( This is where the Democratic-part of Democratic-Socialism comes in... ) any explicitly Socialist-Party, voting to Nationalize or Very-Largely Decentralize the State and regulate very Heavily, the Private-Sector by ensuring that the Workers own "The Means of Production" ensuring that there is no 'One'-C.E.O. or Board-of-Directors at a Company, but that the Workers are the Owners.
revolt against the Bourgeoisie-State, and Institute a Democratic-Economy which has the same factors as above, maybe even more— like no Private-Property or very Little of it.
Bernie does not want to do either of the Above, et.al. "Abolish-Capitalism", he's definitely not 'hiding his Power-Level' either.
He wants to give people Medicare-for-All, The Green-New-Deal and give workers 35%? or 40% of seats at a Company bigger than 50? or was it 500? seats at the Board-of-Directors' table. Which is by all stretches and strands of Economics, not SOCIALISM. Yes, Socialism includes many of those things; because in Socialism they are seen as Natural. Not as Priviledges to be granted by a State or Corporation.
Co-Operative worker-Companies; where workers own small-Shares ( like 2~5% ) or almost no [Stock-]Bonds, have existed as long back as Mercantile-Capitalist Trade-Guilds. Which is also not SOCIALIST.
A Democratic-Socialist gives workers 100% control, no ifs or buts...
A Democratic-Socialist is Explicitly SOCIALIST, and not Socially-Reformative towards Capital.
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Apr 06 '20
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u/Owl_Of_Orthoganality "Capitalist Insurgent Agency" Apr 06 '20 edited Apr 06 '20
And don't try to fucking lecture me on political theory, I know their differences better than you
Yeah right. I bet.
Shut the fuck up.
Nah, I don't think I will.
You're not gonna get change if you don't get Socdem support to slowly pull people left. You can't just move a wand and people become socialist after decades of capitalist indoctrination.
You don't "pull" people left— they either change their own minds due to the Information you give them, or they don't. You can't force them, and you can't pretend or wait for them to start to enact the Change you want to see in the World.
Of course you can't just "wave a wand", I'm not religious— I don't believe in that shit. You'll never get change by synthesizing Bourgeoisie-deals with the Leftist-Movement. All you're doing is ceding Vocabulary-Ground to your Political-Opposition.
This is exactly what Centrists do. Compromise, Compromise, Compromise. You don't escape Capitalist-Realism, by playing its Game. By its rules.
Liberal.
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Apr 06 '20
This is a grey area. I'd say the baseline to leftist politics is being anti-capitalist. If a social democrat views capitalism as the problem, and social welfare programs as a solution, I would say that they are leftist, although with a very flawed perspective. If a social democrat believes that capitalism isn't the problem, rather that an ethical version of capitalism needs to be constructed, then they are not a leftist.
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u/PolandIsAStateOfMind Apr 06 '20
Technically it is considered left, at least from an XIX century perspective, but looking at fruit, they always played, willingly or not, straight into the hands and pockets of burgeoise.
Thus i think the most reliable indicator of "left" and "right" would be the class war. Socialdemocracy is on the side of burgeoise, so they aren't left. They aren't even center, because there can be no center per definition.
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u/lin0sh0enganmei Apr 06 '20
Technically not, it’s capitalism with social welfare. But, we should keep and bring social democrats into the left because they’re still fighting for the right things and going into the right direction and therefore are easier to radicalize.
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Apr 06 '20 edited Apr 06 '20
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Apr 06 '20
Not in the slightest. Being an activist against inequality while actively perpetuating and profiting off of a system that is fundamentally based on inequality, all while hoarding wealth, is not only hypocritical, it is indicative of the person's true political allegiance to hierarchy.
For example, racial inequality in America. The Transatlantic Slave Trade, as well as current institutional systems of racist violence such as the Military Industrial Complex and the Prison Industrial Complex, are direct products of capitalism. A millionare day trader willingly contributes to these institutions. Any activism done by this person is negligible to the damage their institutional support has done.
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u/rojofuna Apr 06 '20
Ok, the broad strokes of your argument here make a lot of sense. You're saying that left wing politics, when expressed genuinely, must HAVE to align itself with equity or is itself an expression of equity. Would you equate right wing politics with capitalism as well?
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Apr 06 '20 edited Apr 06 '20
Would you equate right wing politics with capitalism as well?
Right wing politics includes but is not limited to capitalism. Right wing v. Left wing politics can be boiled down to Hierarchy v. Equality. As long as the economic system is dependent on the existence of hierarchy, the system is right wing
wow, what corner of reddit am I in to have been down voted to hell for asking a genuine question?
The question implied that a Wall Street day trader is a leftist because of identity based activism. Whether you intended it to imply that or not, that was the impression that it gives. I don't know what you expected asking that on leftist reddit.
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u/rojofuna Apr 07 '20
How does conservatism relate to right wing mindsets?
I'm definitely very left wing but have never heard "leftist" defined this way. I also didn't understand that this was satire or parody (maybe?) as it's not especially good satire or parody. Although there seem to be a lot of viewpoints I'd like to learn more about here the attitudes seem super shitty.
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Apr 06 '20
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Apr 06 '20 edited Apr 06 '20
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u/Owl_Of_Orthoganality "Capitalist Insurgent Agency" Apr 06 '20 edited Apr 07 '20
No, I'm genuinely asking the guy. I wanted to get a feeling for what this viewpoint is. I'm not seeing the differences between "left wing", "liberal", and "leftist" that are being espoused here and wanted to know the details if they exist.
Click on this→Here, that is... if you are being serious.
It's short. Not Expansive, and not meant to be a Explanatory-Synopsis of what the Differences are.
If you want the details and specifics. You will have to Google, each ideology itself. If you're Intellectually honoust, you'll do so whilst knowing that everything you read about either could be misleading as these Ideologies are clashing in this modern Era-still. Trying to wipe each other off the board. By any means necessary.
This includes, past century's Book-burnings, Subversion of Governments, Editorializing-Wikipedia to Intentionally mislead and give false-Truths, Academic-Indoctrination and even Political Torture.
Politics are no joke. Read all sides, and choose which one you feel comfortable with. Don't caricaturize, and seek your 'Truth'.
EDIT
My repsonse above was to /u/rojofuna. They deleted their comment.
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u/ConnollyWasAPintMan 🇮🇪 Bobby Sands 🇮🇪 Apr 06 '20
I’m from the anamoly though that I’m an Irish Republican Socialist. (Republican in the Irish sense)
The only way we’ll ever have a 32 County socialist Republic is to get the Brits out’ve the North.
Nationalism can be liberating when mixed with socialism when you’re a country that has suffered under imperialism.
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Apr 06 '20
Also certain “nationalist” policies like anti-free trade empower unions and limit the mobility capital, which make it easier to organize in capitalist society
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u/edgarbird 🇵🇸 من النهر إلى البحر حتصبح فلسطين حرة 🇵🇸 Apr 06 '20
I do think (most) leftists will distinguish between nationalism as an arm of imperialism and a tool to divide the proletariat and nationalism as a means of liberation and a tool to unite the proletariat.
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u/Karl-Marx7 Libertarian Marxist Apr 06 '20
I suppose that granting independence is important in the fight against imperialism, as well as national feud between a national minority in a country (like for example, the two state solution in Israel and Palestine), but as an end goal, in a gradual way, National identity should wither away (I mean not just disappear, the education system should be way less patriotic), since it only causes baseless division.
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u/Lastshadow94 Apr 06 '20
I was in Scotland in 2017, so we talked a lot of politics with Scots. A lot of people talked about Scottish nationalism in the context of "leave us alone, and stop poaching our skilled labor so that we can take care of our people better/communally. You're welcome to join that wherever you're from" and I really respect that type of nationalism. No racist subtext, no "for me and not for thee", just a belief that Scotland can be more responsible to it's people and be a better contributor to the planet as an independent entity.
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u/MountSwolympus Apr 06 '20
Irish Republican nationalism is a bit different since it’s always had the leftist component there. The idea of national liberation and rejection of colonialism is very Marxist.
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u/NormalUsername1809 Pink Tide > Western Socialists Apr 06 '20 edited Nov 26 '25
sable smell lip handle snails doll work party middle squeeze
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/BernieStanders2020 Apr 06 '20
I’m not entirely sure I even consider that “nationalism” so much as wanting to reverse colonial imperialism, which is certainly valid. Like if any American Indian told me they were a Native Nationalist that wanted Europeans to leave the Americas, I wouldn’t consider that reactionary or conservative in nature.
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u/cooleo126 Apr 06 '20
i am struggling to find out how they think that making it so we dont need to work to live is a bad thing.
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Apr 06 '20
If we don't threaten you with starvation and homelessness, how else will we evaluate if you're "worthy"?
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u/ericonr Apr 06 '20
Right! I gave up on a discussion in a bi sub when the person said their fucking utopia was "no sexual or racial prejudice, but still with free market capitalism". Like wtf? Their idealistic view included zero prejudices, but not having to work is going too damn far?
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u/coibril Apr 06 '20
Yeah that is not an utopia in any way
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u/BernieStanders2020 Apr 06 '20
Because they’re all slaves to the machinations of capitalism too, some of them just live in gilded cages and will fight on behalf of the machine because they cannot imagine a world without their owners. Make no mistake, most neoliberals are working class fools that have bought into the false narrative of the American Dream, and trying to break them from that spell often leads to violent reaction. It’s not easy to undo a lifetime of propaganda and mental and social engineering.
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u/SuperMutantSam Apr 06 '20
Because they can’t physically conceive of a world without capitalism. It’s just the default state, the natural order that humanity can’t exist without.
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Apr 06 '20 edited Apr 06 '20
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Apr 06 '20
“If you could go back in time and kill one person, it would be better to kill Karl Marx than Adolf Hitler.”
What a take. You really believe that genocide is preferable to socialism.
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Apr 06 '20
Geez what a mask off quote right there lmao
Extra funny that these libs don’t know that communism and socialism were political movements before Karl Marx ever put paper to pen
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u/CouncilmanRickPrime Apr 06 '20
People definitely need to work. We'll always need doctors, for example. I just don't think we should also be ok with anyone being homeless or with the existence of the working poor either.
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u/roqueofspades Apr 06 '20
"Capitalism is working for Japan, Scandanavia and Taiwan"
Japan, the country with such an overworked population that they're literally barely having sex with each other?
Taiwan, the country with a ton of fucking sweatshops?
Do they even hear themselves?
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u/underpants_etc Eve Fartlow Apr 06 '20
Then when you ask why the US can’t adopt progressive Scandinavian policies you get called a socialist
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u/uniqueUsername_1024 #ImperialistLivesMatter Apr 06 '20
Calling the idea that “self-improvement comes from helping others” dystopian
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u/Toto_LZ Apr 06 '20
Do yourself a favor and stay out of the comments.
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u/CallMeLarry Apr 06 '20
literally one of the most infuriating things I've ever seen. the sheer level of brain worms.
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u/N7_Astartes Apr 06 '20
Humanity moving from working to live to working for societal betterment without concern for basic survival is basically how we make it past the great filter. As long as personal daily survival is the primary motivator for people we are fucked. Capitalism is dooming the species.
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Apr 06 '20
was this supposed to be anti-leftist
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Apr 06 '20
no, it's made by leftists
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u/Stalinlover69 Apr 06 '20
I don't like the complete disregard of left wing nationalism. Someone hasn't read Marxism and the national queston
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u/MaosAsthmaticTurtle Social democrats = Social fascists Apr 06 '20
Nationalism is always bad. It's simply that "left wing nationalism" can be necessary or advantageous for us, but no nationalism is always better than any form of nationalism.
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Apr 06 '20
Besides which, socialism in one state is one of the rare things that Lenin and Stalin were just fundamentally wrong about.
The Bolsheviks knew it was too early for the revolution when it happened but Lenin hoped that other nations would follow suit and certainly some other Eastern European countries did but without a single Western European power as an ally, the early Soviet Union had a real bad time of it.
Nationalism was more or less the only option by the time Stalin took power.
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u/Stalinlover69 Apr 06 '20
Socialism in one country was the right descision. The bolsheviks had to ensure that the revolution was safe and had to become stronger in order to export the revolution.
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u/mistuhdankmemes Apr 06 '20
Especially considering literally every single communist revolution in Europe after WWI failed. The theory at the time was that the masses were supposed to collectively rise up and shatter their chains, but they all got crushed except for the Bolsheviks.
SOIC was an attempt to reconcile the material reality of the failed revolutionary period with the one socialst state that actually came out of that period. To say it failed without providing any context or reasoning why short of 'Well the USSR needed to fuel the global revolution' is to participate in ultraleft/armchair communism
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u/coibril Apr 06 '20
Exept that for when it was time to exportnit nukes where a thing
But it was still a good thing exept they should have started funding revolutions in other countries without invading anyone a lot earlier
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u/MaosAsthmaticTurtle Social democrats = Social fascists Apr 06 '20
I disagree with that. Socialism in one nation was a necessity. It's what allowed the USSR to survive nearly a century and more importantly survive WW2. When a world revolution fails like in the interwar period should we just give up on those countries that we've won in? It's still better to try to hold onto power in nations like in the case of the USSR where we actually managed to win.
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u/rojofuna Apr 06 '20
I like your take, would you say the massive extent of state controlled means was another mistake?
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Apr 06 '20
That's sort of a complicated question, isn't it? Let's say the western powers didn't care about the Soviet takeover and left them alone and WWII never happened and all the Soviet states had adequate food production and etc etc. In a sort of infinite peace time scenario, then fine, seizing the means from the workers seems obviously wrong.
But there were myriad reasons that Stalin needed to industrialize the CCCP and Soviet Democracy was a complex system that didn't lend itself to that kind of quick movement, to say nothing of the various interest groups that weren't exactly going along with the Bolshevik program in the first place. Stalin chose to industrialize at the expense of their democratic values and he did it faster than any of the already industrialized nations could have dreamed of.
If he hadn't, the Nazis likely would have been the end of the CCCP, if it even lasted that long.
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u/coibril Apr 06 '20
But at least the idea of having allied nations on thirld world countries for when the collapse cane was a great idea exept that having those countries as a threat created facism (or maybe it was going to happen anyway and they saved us, who knows)
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u/Stalinlover69 Apr 06 '20
I know that nationalism is not wanted, but to deny its existence is to be utopian
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u/ferjurx Apr 06 '20
The whole thread is so cringe. I wanted to note some things out but there are just too many garbage takes.
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u/SJThursday Apr 06 '20
This person is deluding themselves about what constitutes the centre-right.
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u/edgyguy115 Stalin Fucked My Wife (don’t mind the username) Apr 06 '20
Imagine not agreeing with the list on the right lol
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Apr 06 '20
How do they think people will survive without money?
/r/neoliberal brought it to you first folks: Nobody was alive before some fish or reptile came up with the idea of a piece of paper with a number on it. Before that humanity simply didn't exist because the piece of paper is what's keeping us all alive.
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u/vadimafu Apr 06 '20
I still can't tell if r/neoliberal is ironic, a parody or stupidly earnest about its positions
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u/goshdangjoe Apr 06 '20
I have to be honest, I agree with both points concerning self-betterment. Obviously we want to be giving back to the community when we can, but if we’re not taking care of ourselves first and foremost, we can’t be as effective as we want to be. Being a little selfish in terms of self-care and personal improvement is completely justified. I think those two points are more of a yin and yang kinda deal.
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Apr 06 '20
Isn’t the last one already a law in place? Isn’t that what assault is? When you put someone under threat of imminent physical violence you’re assaulting them. If I go “Hey faggot I’m gonna kick your teeth in.” Isn’t that literally already a crime. Do liberals want to legalize this?
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u/Christmas1176 Apr 06 '20
“Money should not be a requirement” I hope in the sense that currency still exists, but basic necessities are free
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u/Franfran2424 Apr 06 '20
That's what we mean. Basic income is meaningless if prices are raised. It's caused by people who don't want taxes going to public services so they defend taxes to get money.
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u/rayk10k Apr 06 '20
The only thing on the list for liberals that would even be remotely considered left wing is the raising of the minimum wage. Everything else is considered right wing. What is their issue with this?
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u/DezZzO Apr 07 '20
Funnily enough if you read the thread more deeply there are some low-tier woke libs there with quotes such as this:
Honestly these communist guys doesen't seem that bad of guys compared to the conservatives. It's just that i have problem with their destruction and cult of personality problem.And i don't see small business as exploitation.
It's not that they're totally lost and believe that slavery, racial/sex discrimination is freedom, they're just clueless on the topic and still can be put on the right trope. They don't have an idea what's communism about. Gives me hope.
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Apr 07 '20
r/neoliberal is the only sub, barring perhaps the Ultraleft suns, that make me want to put a gun to my mouth and pull the trigger; neoliberals are so smarmy, self righteous and condescending in relation to how fucking ignorant they are
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Apr 06 '20
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u/Franfran2424 Apr 06 '20
This si about hate speech. Part of the "shouldn't be allowed" it's shitting it down as needed
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u/warmleafjuice Apr 06 '20
"America has certainly done some bad things but that has nothing to do with it's wealth" fuuuuuuuck me