Liberals would be against “government interventionism” such as getting rid of large corporations or taxing to then spend that money on public transportion.
Modern liberalism is not at all aligned with the Left on the Economic space, only on the non-Economic, personal freedoms, one.
Granted, big picture thinking would eventually end up concluding that differentiated treatment depending on wealth together with wealth inequality in overall reduces individual freedom (a few are freer to do what they want but the many are less free) which would end up aligning at least some liberals with leftwing thinking, but sadly that’s not what liberalism is nowadays.
Sorry I’m from Canada and we have an actual political system still and not a charade. Trust me everywhere outside of the U.S liberal still means progressive. Your ‘liberal’ centrism is unique. We call that conservative.
I’m in Europe and I’m making my comment mainly based on my experience with the British Liberals (both the overt ones - the Liberal Party - and the less overt ones - New Labour) as I lived in Britain for over a decade and was even involved in politics there.
Next to the traditional Left in most of Europe, Liberalism isn’t at all Left: it’s just Neoliberalism with an Pro-Equality But Not The Economic Kind coat of paint to make it seem left of center.
You do get elements of liberalism within leftwing parties in Europe, but they’re not liberal in the full sense, probably because of the contradiction I pointed out in my first post (that on the economic side, complete freedom for money results in quality of life going down for most people, which goes directly against the leftwing principle of “the greatest good for the greatest number”).
It’s not by chance that Liberals constantly talk about what’s good for businesses or for the Economy in absolute terms (if it’s good for those, then it’s overall good) whilst not everything that’s “good for businesses or the Economy” is actually good for people: businesses and the Economy are at most a means to an end for democratic lefties (in that they can make life better for most people and must be regulated to stop them from doing the opposite), not an end in itself.
If the definition of the word was that clear we would both know and agree on exactly were “liberalism” starts and were it ends, and wouldn’t be having this discussion, plus you wouldn’t have made the distinction in your previous post between the meaning of liberal in the US and “everywhere outside the US”.
In the absence of such perfect and worldwide agreed definition for “liberalism”, the best we can use is real-world examples of those who proclaim themselves as “liberals” (and in the case of New Labour, it’s not even in the party name) to show the common understanding of the word in various countries and the ones I listed on my last post are my real world examples which directly contradict your statement that “everywhere outside the US liberal still means progressive”.
My notion of “liberalism” is one anchored on my experience of living and voting in 4 different countries of Europe so while I can’t prove to you that “that’s what’s understood as liberalism all over the World” (and, frankly, I doubt it is), it certainly provides a Western and Southern Europe-centric first person observation of what is said to be “liberalism” over here, a reasonably large area of the world which most definitelly counts as “outside the US”.
Liberals would be against “government interventionism” such as getting rid of large corporations or taxing to then spend that money on public transportion.
Modern liberalism is not at all aligned with the Left on the Economic space, only on the non-Economic, personal freedoms, one.
Granted, big picture thinking would eventually end up concluding that differentiated treatment depending on wealth together with wealth inequality in overall reduces individual freedom (a few are freer to do what they want but the many are less free) which would end up aligning at least some liberals with leftwing thinking, but sadly that’s not what liberalism is nowadays.
Sorry I’m from Canada and we have an actual political system still and not a charade. Trust me everywhere outside of the U.S liberal still means progressive. Your ‘liberal’ centrism is unique. We call that conservative.
I’m in Europe and I’m making my comment mainly based on my experience with the British Liberals (both the overt ones - the Liberal Party - and the less overt ones - New Labour) as I lived in Britain for over a decade and was even involved in politics there.
Next to the traditional Left in most of Europe, Liberalism isn’t at all Left: it’s just Neoliberalism with an Pro-Equality But Not The Economic Kind coat of paint to make it seem left of center.
You do get elements of liberalism within leftwing parties in Europe, but they’re not liberal in the full sense, probably because of the contradiction I pointed out in my first post (that on the economic side, complete freedom for money results in quality of life going down for most people, which goes directly against the leftwing principle of “the greatest good for the greatest number”).
It’s not by chance that Liberals constantly talk about what’s good for businesses or for the Economy in absolute terms (if it’s good for those, then it’s overall good) whilst not everything that’s “good for businesses or the Economy” is actually good for people: businesses and the Economy are at most a means to an end for democratic lefties (in that they can make life better for most people and must be regulated to stop them from doing the opposite), not an end in itself.
Just because a party calls themselves that and then does some shit, doesn’t change the definition of a word
If the definition of the word was that clear we would both know and agree on exactly were “liberalism” starts and were it ends, and wouldn’t be having this discussion, plus you wouldn’t have made the distinction in your previous post between the meaning of liberal in the US and “everywhere outside the US”.
In the absence of such perfect and worldwide agreed definition for “liberalism”, the best we can use is real-world examples of those who proclaim themselves as “liberals” (and in the case of New Labour, it’s not even in the party name) to show the common understanding of the word in various countries and the ones I listed on my last post are my real world examples which directly contradict your statement that “everywhere outside the US liberal still means progressive”.
My notion of “liberalism” is one anchored on my experience of living and voting in 4 different countries of Europe so while I can’t prove to you that “that’s what’s understood as liberalism all over the World” (and, frankly, I doubt it is), it certainly provides a Western and Southern Europe-centric first person observation of what is said to be “liberalism” over here, a reasonably large area of the world which most definitelly counts as “outside the US”.
The definition of the word liberal in the dictionary is being open to new ideas and beliefs.
Well, that’s definitelly not how the politicians that claim to be liberals in the various countries I lived in practice it.
Dishonest politicians. Who knew.