• Codex@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    “Liberal” is opposed to “Authoritarian” and just means a person who favors democracy and personal freedom. Or it should, but in America our fascist conservative party has convinced people that “liberal” is a slur and also means “progressive,” which is the actual opposite of conservative. But liberals aren’t always progressive, which is why actual American leftists, who are progressives, use the term “liberal” to derisively refer to centrists. American centrists are politically conservative but hold some socially progressive values.

    The wake-up occurs when you realize that politically/economically conservative policies lead to and support socially conservative ones. One can’t actually be socially progressive but economically conservative, it’s an incoherent ideology. Americans are raised to be good at double-think and distracting ourselves so we’re able to cope with the contradiction.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The large emphasis on protection of property from the government in classical liberalism directly led to the slave trade getting as bad as it did. And still contributes to free market ideology and corporate right to make a profit on anything. There’s definitely more to liberalism than taking down monarchies.

      • J Lou@mastodon.social
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        5 months ago

        Liberalism developed the theory of inalienable rights that showed that slave trade, non-democratic constitution, coverture marriage, later capitalist property relations, and later non-democratic firms are invalid. Inalienable rights theory rules out the application of property rights to persons or their actions. Inalienable means consent is not a sufficient condition to transfer or extinguish the right. This is especially important for criticizing voluntary self-sale and employment @politics

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          It certainly developed that way, but it did not start there. And neo liberalism is an attempt to roll back quite a bit of that progress.