this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
208 points (84.4% liked)
Memes
52795 readers
953 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
it comes down to capitalism vs socialism.
progressive + capitalist = liberal
progressive + socialist = leftist
Well. That one makes sense. So I’m leftist….. prepares for hate
leftist is pretty vague still because others are leftist too but each other's mortal enemies like like anarchists and communists.
you have to study political theories to understand what they actually mean. most people calling themselves leftist in the united states are democrat-socialist because they don't understand what socialism is due to not reading any sort of political theory.
Well, that, yes, and McArthysm and descendants.
Lemmy is primarily developed by Marxist-Leninists, and we have a ton of Marxists and anarchists in general. You aren't going to get hate for being a leftist unless you're on a more liberal instance.
I don’t think you’ll get hate for being a leftist on Lemmy.
Depends on instance and community, but in general I agree.
US politics is weird. Liberal in the rest of the world is more aligned to socialism than capitalism. Leftist is way more extreme.
I agree that US political vocabulary is weird. But this characterization just isn't true at all.
For example, in Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party is ideologically conservative. Same story with the Australian Liberal Party.
Whereas Liberalism in the US is associated with the left of the Overton Window.
The left of the US overtone window is very much right wing.
Correct, but your average yank still thinks of that as "left"
Same with the British liberal party
Liberalism isn't aligned to socialism anywhere, socialism is antithetical to liberalism. Liberalism is the ideology of capitalism, which is diametrically opposed to socialism.
That is classical liberalism. It doesn't reflect modern liberal ideals which have aligned more with socialism, and a lot of european parties regularly form coalitions with socialist or social-democratic parties because their ideals align so often in modern times.
Liberalism cannot align with socialism, they are diametrically opposed. Liberalism supports private property while socialism supports public ownership of property. Social Democracy is a subset of liberalism. "Modern liberalism" is just maintaining capitalism.
a liberal in the united states is a centrist in the rest of the world.
a leftist in the united states is a liberal in the rest of the world.
the united states is MUCH more conservative that the rest of the world
Indeed. I think I need to find a less US dominated instance maybe.
Lemmy.ml is less US-dominated than other general instances, though you can find country-specific instances.