this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2025
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Liberalism itself, in that it upholds capitalism, is "authoritarian." Not sure what you're getting at, ideologies all vary in quantity of holders and historic importance, I see no reason to pretend monarchists are equally as relevant to the right as liberals.
Well that's certainly a take. But I'm not talking about just monarchists, lots of other groups than monarchists that don't subscribe to ideas of liberalism. It's just not capitalism = liberalism.
And the point was just that this is directed at liberals for some reason when it could be directed at all the groups that do the same thing. That's all.
Can you name an example with any actual significance that complains about communism but isn't liberal?
Most authoritarian conservative right-wing movements gaining popularity right now are far away from the values that make up liberalism. There's no shortage of those. In Europe they're likely going to sweep most of the continent, if the recent polls hold true.
Those are subsections of liberalism, I think you're trying too hard to wishcast an ideal form of liberalism and cut out all of the other significant forms of it. Liberalism was used to justify colonialism, the slave trade, and continues to be used to justify imperialism.
I think you're using a much wider definition for liberalism than is common or at least what I'm familiar with. And it's a big tent to begin with. Many of those movements are against most of what are typically considered core values of liberalism, so that's why they're often not included, as a subsection or otherwise.
I'm using the common, historically relevant definition, the ideology supportive of individualism and private property rights. We can go more into its origins and how its changed over the years, but that's liberalism at its core.
I'm using basically what's
here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_parties_by_country
And the subsets too get a wider view
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism#Parties_and_organisations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism#Classical_liberal_parties_worldwide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_liberalism
Etc.
Their definitions don't include the parties I was thinking about, that are doing the "alt-right" wave right now for example. So for that reason I think we're working from different definitions.
The "alt-right" is still working on the foundations of liberalism. Fascism and liberalism aren't really categorically different ideologies, but the same ideology in different conditions, with different class character, ie fascism is capitalism in crisis and comes from the petite bourgeoisie, while liberalism is capitalism when it's doing better and nornally comes from the bourgeoisie proper.
Idk the Wikipedia definition that I commonly see people use doesn't seem to agree with that. If you throw in fascism, alt-right, all of that under liberalism then the meme of course covers more ground but it can get more confusing to those not using the same definition of liberalism as you seem to use.
Copying wikipedia's opening paragraph:
I agree with all of that being the general constructs of liberalism, especially the part where it is often conflicting. When some aspects win out over others, you get the different "flavors" of liberalism under its broad umbrella.
Wikipedia itself (and fwiw commonly others don't either in my experience) doesn't the talked about movements and parties as fitting under that umbrella, since they're conflicting with too much of the basic defining principles. Imo that makes sense, but if you were to use a broader definition or going "if it fits even one part then it counts", then I guess I could see them fitting under it.
It fits more than one part, though, and that's because ideology has to be judged in the context of the base mode of production. Both fascism and liberalism are founded on capitalism.
It just doesn't seem like the sort of Wikipedia definition and the common interpretation I usually encounter agree with you on this one since the mentioned movements aren't counted. But of course it's not one interpretation to rule them all, just using Wikipedia as representative of the common viewpoint.
I still don't see where wikipedia disagrees with me, here.
In that it doesn't count those movements as part of liberalism or those parties under that umbrella. It's the reason I posted those lists above.
I don't think Wikipedia is trying to be an exhaustive resource, but instead a quick overview.
Sure and it could be a salient point if it left out a few. It does tell you something when none of the parties in those movements are included though. Even in the articles for those particular ideologies you don't see the claim that they're subsets of liberalism, but a few mentions how they're trying to counter liberal values.
I don't think it's an accidental omission.
Wikipedia isn't going to word for word agree with Marxists, my point is that using Wikipedia at its own word, parties like Republicans fit into liberalism.
I mean I'm not sure if Wikipedia actually counts MAGA part of the party as liberals. I don't think it does. That's more along the lines of movements I was talking about. European alt-right the same deal.
But if you're working from a specifically Marxist viewpoint I'm guessing it uses a broader definition that includes those movements.
Do you disagree that MAGA fits the underlying principles of liberalism, such as a reliance on individualism, private property rights, etc? MAGA fits into that, it isn't a distinct ideology.
I'm not sure it counts at Wikipedia, with how they describe it (they call it "Trumpism")
I don't mean how Wikipedia themselves view it, but how we take Wikipedia at their word for liberalism's definition and apply it independently.
I mean the whole point of bringing up Wikipedia was to show a common definition and what sort of movements are counted. If you use wider Marxist definition it covers a lot more, from what I've understood. The common Wikipedia counting doesn't cover as much, so it leaves out some pretty popular movements, in which case the meme just mentioning liberals doesn't make as much sense. But this being on .ml I think using the Marxist definition makes sense
I'm not using a Marxist definition, I'm applying Wikipedia's definition independently. Taking Wikipedia at their word for liberalism, MAGA fits.
I think you and Wikipedia disagree here. But that's neither here nor there really. By their counting, there's plenty of non-liberals who would fit the meme. In your view there aren't. So that explains the difference.
I don't really see what you mean, but either way, I don't think this conversation is going to be particularly productive. I generally agree with how Wikipedia described liberalism in that intro paragraph, MAGA fits a lot of it as well.
I meant the original topic of this discussion about non-liberal movements. Why you and Wikipedia consider MAGA (Trumpism) differently is, yeah that's a discussion for some other day. The original topic is cleared up
Fair enough. I see the whole DNC vs GOP division as liberal infighting.