• Tinidril@midwest.social
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    11 months ago

    It’s tough to be critical of “liberalism” when everyone has a different idea of what it means. It might help to specify “economic liberalism”.

    Along with it’s deep flaws, Liberalism is also associated with things like the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, LGBT+ rights, etc. Conservatives also muddy the waters by blaming these things for economic hardship.

    • davel@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      Liberalism has a definition, which Marxists have never forgotten, though thanks to two red scares and a cold war, others have forgotten. Now in Orwellian fashion, “liberalism” and “socialism” are floating signifiers, so we have liberals like Sanders calling themselves socialists despite never calling for the abolition of private ownership of the means of production.

      Slavery did end under liberalism, but then again liberalism started it.

      • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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        11 months ago

        Lol I’m sure Prolewiki is an unbiased source that the majority of people would agree with on the definitions of words. /s

        • Alsephina@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          Where did he say that the majority of people agree with this definition?

          Well, the majority of workers in the US probably did, until the labor movements were crushed in the 60s and 70s

          • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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            11 months ago

            If the majority of people don’t agree on the proposed meaning of a word then that isn’t what the words mean. In other words, it is wrong.

            • Alsephina@lemmy.ml
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              11 months ago

              It’s a materialist/Marxist definition, hence the

              Because Marxists are like seen-this-one

              https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Fascism

              All successful labor movements and mass organizations in the past have included teaching others how things work, handing out pamphlets, etc.

              And so we can choose to act towards restoring definitions to words with important meanings, so that we become capable of discussing the things they signify again.

              If we don’t use words as they mean, but instead use unorthodox terminology, then we allow the significance of such words to be lost, with no standardized alternatives in common use - i.e., no alternatives that are any more clear than the original word.

              There is a war on language. It’s primarily a subset of the class war. We can surrender, or fight what is probably the simplest fight of our life: We can use words as they were meant to be used.

              • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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                11 months ago

                Yeah, I’m glad you’re slowly starting to comprehend the conversation. I’m informing you that making up definitions for words is wrong and is the source of confusion when you try and fail to converse with others.