So this is lefty memes? Making fun of liberals by referring to them as centrists is nothing but a self-righteous attempt at driving a wedge. I’m guessing you don’t know many liberals.
I’m economically progressive with many liberal friends. I can say with confidence that your accusations are incorrect.
Liberals support increased taxation on the wealthy with proportional increase of social programs. Just because it isn’t full-on worker ownership of business does not make it any less a form of wealth redistribution. It’s just not the form you approve of.
What you are saying fits the american "liberal" label. What you are describing I would call social democrat, not a liberal. People calling themselves liberal in europe are, examples from sweden: compares public insight into publicly funded privatly owned companies to soviet, are for privatization of welfare institutions, collaborates with the far right, calls rightwing newspapers communist, and are against free speech at universities.
To be fair though, the meme is probably targeting socdems anyway so I guess fair enough.
Exactly, heavy taxation on the ultra wealthy and wealth caps are incredibly popular topics in liberal circles. I swear some people have never actually talked to a liberal and just attack some strawman they've lumped in together with conservatives.
I'm leftist and anti-capitalist, but I also recognize that most liberals are people who want the same things leftists do, but simply haven't thought deeply enough about what the true root causes of society's issues are. It's an issue of tactics rather than a fundamental disconnect in core principles and values. Ultimately they want a more equitable, less stratified society where society helps and supports the disenfranchised. The same thing leftists want. They just don't understand that capitalism has to go in order to achieve it.
Liberals, unlike conservatives, are actually generally quite reasonable people since they aren't motivated by hatred. As leftists, we should be doing everything we can to educate them and bring them into the fold, rather than tearing them down.
Liberals absolutely arent centrists, Social Democrats are centrist. Liberals are right wing, fundamentally you cannot be a leftist while supporting a "free" capitalist economy and minimal government (thats what Liberalism is).
Because it considers private property a core foundation it literally can’t be left wing. Leftists (whether socialists or anarchists) believe private (not personal) property should be abolished.
The diversity of liberalism can be gleaned from the numerous qualifiers that liberal thinkers and movements have attached to the term "liberalism", including classical, egalitarian, economic, social, the welfare state, ethical, humanist, deontological, perfectionist, democratic, and institutional, to name a few. Despite these variations, liberal thought does exhibit a few definite and fundamental conceptions.
And they all still enshrine the sanctity of private property which was my point when referencing the definition. All the variations of liberalism still boil down to a capitalist ideology.
Again, this meme is suggesting that liberals are against any form of wealth redistribution. Capitalism and wealth redistribution are not mutually exclusive. Social programs, funded through taxation, is a form of wealth redistribution commonly found in capitalist nations.
Didn’t say you couldn’t attempt some wealth redistribution under capitalism but it’s not really related to what the discussion was. The left/right dichotomy for political economics isn’t based on whether there’s an attempt at wealth redistribution it’s whether the economic system is capitalism.
Also at the end of the day you can try to gain concessions from the capitalist class through social programs but there’s a hard limit on what will be allowed and as soon as the capitalist class is able to they will push for austerity for the working class. It’s been seen numerous times in history.
The specific comment I responded to was talking about whether liberals are leftists.
If you’re asking whether I believe liberals support a little wealth distribution (specific amount depends on the individual) in the form of taxes for social programs I’d say yes the meme isn’t absolutely correct.
I’d also probably recommend to you just to save you time is to not take leftist memes (or any really) as a literal/specific endorsement of a policy or idea, it’s likely an exaggeration.
What are the tenants of the neoliberalism economic philosophy?
Edit: not saying the philosophy definition is the only def, just pointing out there are multiple common usages so when someone says 'liberal' without defining the term it's ambiguous.