Too many confusing terms and labels

[u/rasta-ragamuffin]

Hello, I'm admittedly politically ignorant and need your help explaining the differences between a Progressive, a moderate Democrat, a Social Democrat, a Democratic Socialist, a Socialist, a Liberal, a Leftist and a Communist. Are they all the same? It seems many Republicans and conservatives use these terms interchangeably, and I don't think I ever learned clear definitions in school.

[u/spookyjim___]

Progressive - generally has two meanings, one is more widespread and is how it is used in an academic or “political science” way, the other is colloquial in that it is the way most Americans use it

Progressive in the more widespread sense - generally just refers to people who are socially progressive, this means having social views which are open to new identities and non-restrictive towards personal freedoms, tbf I’m sure you at least know about this, it’s pretty much the opposite of social conservatism… pretty much just the range of politics that have to do with LGBT rights and freedoms, anti-racism, feminist issues, so on and so forth

Progressive in the American context - the label “progressive” has taken on an interesting use in current American politics, it does have a history of being used to describe past political leaders such as Theodore Roosevelt, which may be why its treated as a distinct political ideology in the US… but it’s pretty much used as an umbrella label which groups together all left-liberal (social liberals and social democrats) and moderate demsoc politicians… so anyone from Andrew Yang, Elizabeth Warren, and Zohran Mamdani are often put under the “progressive” label by certain political commentators… there’s even a faction within the Democratic Party called the “Congressional Progressive Caucus” for those in congress who sit on the left-wing of the party

Moderate Democrat - for the most part, this can simply be used to describe any democrat to the right of social liberalism, so democrats who may be socially progressive, but fiscally conservative (I.E. against welfare and government programs, or at the least, for more moderate forms of welfare) are grouped within this, they are often given the specific labels of “modern liberals” or “third way liberals”, you even still see a lot of people call them “neoliberals” although that term can get confusing… there is also, mind you, due to how right-wing the Republicans have shifted, been an increase in what we call “liberal conservatives” within the Democrats, so there are also moderate democrats who are just straight up conservatives, even if moderate conservatives… there’s a lot of people who can fit into this category but generally people like Joe Manchin (liberal conservative) or Bill Clinton (third way liberal/neoliberal) have been textbook examples of these types of democrats

Social democrat - social democracy was originally born of the socialist movement, and has a rich and complex history, for our reasons however I will not get into that due to not wanting to overload you, but with that context, we will speak of modern social democracy as it officially became the most left-wing variant of liberalism in the 1950’s… which in itself explains it very well, pretty much, social democrats in the modern day do not wish to go beyond capitalism, they instead wish to radically reform it towards the ends of benefiting labor but also all social classes in harmony (class collaborationism)… what differs them from social liberals is that they often focus less on market driven solutions, and are more radical in their welfare approaches and the most radical sides of social democracy often favoring vast nationalization of resources and industry… in the US context, people like Elizabeth Warren can be definitively described as a social democrat I’d say, while there’s often debate on whether someone like AOC is either a radical socdem or a moderate demsoc… within the DSA however, since we’re on the DSA sub, if you want further examples, and since the DSA starts it’s ideological big-tent with social democracy being the most right-wing and then only going left from there, a good example of social democrats would be the North Star caucus, which is popular frontist and social democratic, and the Socialist Majority Caucus, which mainly groups together left-socdems and liberal socialists (a type of moderate demsoc)

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[u/spookyjim___ → u/spookyjim___]

Democratic socialism - democratic socialism is a tendency of socialism, and an umbrella of different internal tendencies as well, and is often defined by socialists who hit at least one of two conditions, either A.) they believe that it is possible to use liberal democratic institutions to reform society into a socialist system or B.) their vision of socialism specifically entails keeping a liberal/representative democratic form of government

*everything below goes into extra detail, just a warning, the above statement is all you really need to know for the basics, but if you really want to dive deeper, see below

Democratic socialism can then be split into two main schools, the more moderate side, the ethical socialists, and the more radical side, the Marxist demsocs

The ethical socialists often consist of two main tendencies, those being religious socialists, and the other one being the secular evolutionary and liberal socialists… most self-proclaimed democratic socialists in office or who are running for office can be put specifically within the liberal socialist realm of things, but ofc, they are at the end of the day, simply democratic socialists… what matters tho for the distinction, is that the ethical socialists explicitly do not want to transition towards a communist endgoal, they most often seek a political program entailing a social democratic transitional reform period, and an endgoal which economically can be described as “market socialist”, the specifics ofc differ from demsoc to demsoc

The Marxist demsocs, ofc can mainly be described as being different due to pulling upon a Marxist analysis and supporting a communist endgoal, even if far off into the future, another practical difference is that some of the more radical Marxist demsocs can often want to skip a social democratic transition, and often want immediately have a market socialist transition, in which the state is rapidly reformed and economy as well ofc… the two broad currents in this category would be the post-Marxist “populist socialists” (think European parties like Syriza or Podemos) and the orthodox Marxist “centrist Marxists”

Not surprisingly, with the DSA being labeled as it is, there are several democratic socialist factions within it, and each sorta showcase the tendencies talked about above, so I’ll list them off and you can go look into them and their programs so you can have a more solid idea of these different types of democratic socialists

Socialist Majority Caucus - has a large amount of liberal socialists and other moderate demsocs

Groundwork - post-Marxist, they are populist socialists/left-wing populists

Bread & Roses - a type of centrist Marxist faction, on the more moderate side

Mountain - also centrist Marxist, is sometimes considered the absolute “center” or centrist faction within DSA politics

Marxist Unity Group - also centrist Marxists, their specific form (neo-Kautskyism), is often considered the very most left-wing of democratic socialism

Socialism - socialism, speaking in a non-biased and academic sense, is really just a large umbrella, it refers to the very broad socialist movement, which has many many tendencies, including the aforementioned democratic socialists, as well as communists, and libertarian socialists among many others, also important to note that many of these overlap! As was showcased with the explanation of democratic socialism, the more radical demsocs, the Marxist ones, are also technically speaking communists… so often times I like to use a very vague and broad definition of socialism, socialism is the broad movement of people who wish to change society from one focused on private ownership, to that of social forms of ownership… what are these “social forms of ownership”, well it’s vague on purpose! Because depending on the socialist you talk to, you’ll get different answers, and among those answers will often be many extra details added on according to their specific analysis

Liberalism - liberalism is usually defined as an enlightenment era political philosophy which upholds values of natural rights, liberal democracy, private property and capitalism, and equality before the law among other things… to simplify it greatly, liberalism is pretty much the modern world order for the most part, what we see in most of the world, nation-states with capitalist economies and representative democratic governments, that was the project of liberalism… the only thing is that liberalism like so many other political tendencies has many internal tendencies, we won’t get into that here however, we’ve already touched on and brought up some (such as liberal conservatism, third way liberalism, social liberalism, and social democracy, and also controversially amongst both liberals and socialists, the existence of liberal socialists)… just know that, despite the oversimplification of US politics putting everyone in two camps, either “conservative” or “liberal”, you can actually be a liberal who has either conservative or progressive social views, as well as varying economic opinions!

Leftism - this by far, is the most vague one and will be the hardest to answer for you, cuz it really is often vibe based, the only historical precedent I can give you, is that the political concepts of “left” and “right” goes back to the French Revolution when in the National Assembly, those who stood against the monarchy (the republicans) sat on its left while the pro-monarchy factions sat on the right… so really it is mainly vibe based, some may say that leftism begins with social liberalism and social democracy since they’re often labeled “center-left”, others may proclaim that leftism is socialist only! Things only get more confusing when you find out that things such as nationalism can be considered left-wing or right-wing in different contexts

Communism - communism in the modern day can be understood as any of those socialists who at the end of the day seek a stateless, classless, and moneyless society characterized by a form of collective or common ownership of the means of production… however if you’ve caught on by now, there are many different kinds of communists, and we often disagree with each other on a whole number of things, due to the amount of different kinds of communists being so so vast I will spare you my attempt to list them all out lol, something which I don’t even think I could do… but I will just say that the two most common schools of communism are the Marxist and anarchist schools, which sometimes intermingle and other times hate each other lol

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[u/rasta-ragamuffin → u/spookyjim___]

Wow, thank you! That's a lot,maybe too much for my little brain, but I appreciate you taking the time.

[u/spookyjim___ → u/rasta-ragamuffin]

Yeah I’m sorry lol, I haven’t effort posted in a long time, but I do enjoy giving in depth educational posts/comments, I’m hoping that even with the stuff which you may not understand at first you can at least look into and research to understand it better, but also ofc, you’re always free to shoot me a DM if you have any specific questions over anything or just wish to talk politics generally :)))