If conservatism was monarchism and liberalism was mercantilism that is what they’d be called. They’re different and it matters especially when discussing these concepts specifically together.
It’s like calling pink red or turquoise blue. They’re related but they are not the same and we don’t call them the same for a reason.
If conservatism was monarchism and liberalism was mercantilism that is what they’d be called.
I understand why that would appear to be the case. But it’s not. Conservatism and Liberalism are political philosophies and movements. Monarchism is a system of governance. Conservatism the movement supports Monarchism the system. Liberalism the movement supports Capitalism the system. Just because they are one-to-one doesn’t mean they are identical.
it matters especially when discussing these concepts specifically together.
It does matter indeed, I agree with you, and it’s important that we understand that Liberalism cannot lead to universal liberation because it is foundationally tied to private property. Eliminating private property is an illiberal move, and it is the foundational move of communism. Moving from aristocracy to private property ends Monarchism and it is the foundational move of Liberalism. Conservatism fought against private property in favor of the old system. Liberalism fought for private property in favor of Capitalism. And Communism fights against private property in favor of universal liberation.
Conservatism the movement supports Monarchism the system. Liberalism the movement supports Capitalism the system.
It doesn’t. That’s a complete misunderstanding of all four of those terms.
And Communism fights against private property in favor of universal liberation.
I think you have your head twisted a tad.
Liberalism also fought in favor of universal liberation. Not understanding that or how liberalism lead to conversations for socialism is a glaring hole in one’s historical understanding. Either both Liberalism and Communism fight/have fought for universal liberation or, following your logic, Communism fights for a specific system structure as well because “universal liberation” actually doesn’t mean anything you could define. With that in mind it probably would read more like, Communism fights for Authoritarianism.
Communism demands extreme power towards a central point, it relies extensively on what you’d call the state having the first and final say in things. Whether that state is successfully run by “the proletariat” or not is a whole other conversation. But historically stacking all that power in the center begins to circle back towards monarchism maybe without a hereditary line but still you’re handing all power to a single political entity and that’s some heavy Authoritarianism.
You can’t just say it’s a misunderstanding of the four terms and then not present any argument to the contrary. What am I supposed to do? Provide you the historical context of Liberalism emerging during a time of increasing trade and promoted by people working explicitly for the large merchants and bankers? Or provide you the historical context of how Conservatism emerged as a response to Liberalism in defense of monarchy? Like, I have no idea how ignorant or knowledgeable you are on this topic, only that you think I misunderstand. Give me something.
Liberalism also fought in favor of universal liberation.
It absolutely did not. John Locke was a major shareholder in the Royal Africa Company, the slave trading monopoly of England. He wrote the constitution for the colony of Carolina, and explicitly wrote that every “freeman” would have total control over his “negro slaves”. Does that sound like the father of Liberalism fighting for universal liberation? No. It does not.
Not understanding that or how liberalism lead to conversations for socialism is a glaring hole in one’s historical understanding.
So now you’re moving the goal posts to “liberalism led to conversationa for socialism”? You think I don’t understand the history of philosophy and how we build on what came before? You know what led to conversations about abolition? Slavery. Slavery itself brought about conversations of abolition. Would you say that the institution of slavery is somehow the progenitor of the abolition movement? No. You would not.
The conversation about socialism emerged because of the failure of Liberalism to actually achieve its lofty rhetoric. And when analyzed materially, it was shown that Liberalism cannot lead to universal liberation because of it’s fundamental attachment of private property and thus it is inescapable from capitalism. This is not only theory. It was theory used to explain why Liberalism was sold the masses on universal liberation and near-utopia promises and yet a century or more of Liberalism resulted in prolonged horrible terrible conditions for the vast majority of people.
Either both Liberalism and Communism fight/have fought for universal liberation or, following your logic, Communism fights for a specific system structure as well because “universal liberation” actually doesn’t mean anything you could define.
This is ridiculous. Like straight ridiculous. I have to imagine you’re having an emotional reaction where you feel like I am insulting or attacking you because I cannot understand how you can write these words with a clear head.
You’re saying that because I don’t think Liberalism was structured on universal liberation because it privileged white male Christian land-owning Europeans and everyone else was either genocided, enslaved, or left to suffer and die of neglect and poverty, that somehow this means Communism is not fighting for universal liberation? Like, it doesn’t make any sense at all.
How do we know Conmunism is for universal liberation? Because it analyzed the failures of liberation, identified a root cause for the failure (class society) and then developed a theory to eliminate class society, and then executed it. Because when communists overthrow liberals they immediately set to work addressing mass poverty and eliminate the majority of it within 10 - 30 years. Because they developed the theories of national self-determination that the entire world now uses as a framework against settler colonialism. Because Communist theory explicitly states that a society built on limited liberation is doomed to fail as the contradiction between classes sharpens until there is a collapse and communists movements never set out to build a society that they know will collapse eventually.
With that in mind it probably would read more like, Communism fights for Authoritarianism.
This more than anything makes me think you have no idea of Liberal history. During the first 100 years of any liberal society they were constantly crushing workers rebellions with their military. The Americans, the English, the French, all had Liberal revolutions and then spent a century repressing their working population to force them work under intolerable conditions. Honestly, it wasn’t until the Bolsheviks were successful that progressive Liberalism really started to take root because suddenly all the Liberal robber barons were afraid that the workers would actually try to win.
Communism demands extreme power towards a central point, it relies extensively on what you’d call the state having the first and final say in things.
Yup. That’s how a democracy would be run if it were designed to enforce universal liberation instead of allowing robber barons to hire private police to beat striking workers to death. The central point is required for democracy to actually have an effect at the national level and the first and final say is required to override special interests.
But historically stacking all that power in the center begins to circle back towards monarchism maybe without a hereditary line but still you’re handing all power to a single political entity and that’s some heavy Authoritarianism.
Ok, jackass, now I’m upset. You think I don’t understand political philosophy terms but you’re going to sit here and say that communism trends toward monarchism? Are you high? Could you read fucking book on the topic before running your fucking mouth? Christ why do I even bother to assume you people are arguing in good faith.
Whatever dude. I don’t care to convince you of a reality you’re clearly running around Lemmy trying to sell. China has a history of sweat shops, labor abuse, overseas policing to keep their citizens in check, heavy monitoring of their citizen’s everyday lives and a strict adherence to do what they’re told. Everything but slave labor. Sure. 🙄
You wrote an entire manifesto just to prove you can be confidently wrong at an exceptional length, embarrassing.
Apparently “historical context” means picking whichever examples tickle your fancy and declaring everything else irrelevant. You accuse me of not understanding political theory while casually collapsing liberalism, capitalism, democracy, and authoritarianism into whatever argument you need at the moment. If your position requires this much profanity and condescension to survive basic scrutiny, maybe the books you keep telling me to read aren’t helping as much as you think? Shame.
Ok, jackass, now I’m upset. You think I don’t understand political philosophy terms but you’re going to sit here and say that communism trends toward monarchism?
Wow. Someone is triggered. What do you call a consolation of wealth, eliminating dissent and turning your state into a personal checkbook? Have some kids to take power and you’re a monarchy. Pathetic Korea has already done this, Cuba is sorta on the fence of doing this with Raul Castro. Let’s see how the others are doing, Laos has the Siphandone Family, and the Phomvihane Family hm weird how much of their cartel holds power. How about Vietnam, what’s that? Con Ong Chau Cha? You say that means “Children of the Father”? It’s basically slang for nepotism and insider coercion of privilege kids? Hm where have I seen that sort of structure in the government before…
Liberalism is based on the word liberty, i.e. the right to self determination. Mercantilists are generally liberal. As is anyone that isn’t trying to conserve the monarchy.
…it depends who or what you’re talking about doesn’t it?
Monarchism is pretty clear about what it is, support of a monarchy or basically a bloodline that rules the government. Conservative is a broad political outlook that depends entirely who or what topic or group you’re talking about. You can be a social conservative, you can be fiscally conservative, National conservative. None of those have anything to do with a monarchy.
Mercantilists are literally not liberal at all. Mercantilism and Liberalism at a time were completely opposed to each other, you know laissez-faire capitalism and whatnot. Mercantilism is about government regulated trade where Classic Liberalism was about unregulated trade. A social liberal has basically nothing to do with Mercantilism. Then you have neoliberalism which is a rehash of classical Liberalism electric boogaloo style.
Honestly China’s system is closer to being like mercantilism than the neoliberal governments today because of their focus on exports and heavy handed government intervention but you wouldn’t really call what they’re doing mercantilism.
So it’s all pretty different. Words matter you know?
Oh, no, no, no. There is a very specific thing that conservatives conserve. Its like the people that claim the US civil war was about “states rights”–states rights to do what?
Conservatives are traditionally an explicitly monarchist party. They just didn’t call themselves monarchists, because the French were getting a bit choppy when it came to kings back then. Liberals were the anti-monarchists. Even now, modern conservatives all seek to implement some sort of hierarchical power structure, economic, social, whatever.
Mercantilism is a rebuke of government controlled trade. Hence mercantilism–from merchant. Regular folks could become merchants and make fortunes that were not the purview of the crown.
No they’re not. In some countries conservatives might embrace those ideas but that is not true across the board. I’d agree conservatives generally support power structure but claiming they’re monarchists just isn’t true. Conservatives in China for instance have absolutely nothing to do with a monarchy.
Mercantilism is literally not a rebuke to government controlled trade. It is government controlled trade. Like you can literally Google this and read about it.
It was intended as a means for the crown to have even more control. It maximized wealth and authority of the central state which is why the term laissez faire came about. You’re literally mixing up a core belief of Liberalism with Mercantilism.
…fair enough. I was looking at mercantilism as more state-adjacent trade. State-chartered corporation type stuff, East india company and such. I guess it was more directly centralized outside of Britain. I still see it as the beginning of the decoupling of the economic system from the crown to some extent, as it implied trade could happen without the direct involvement of the king.
I don’t think you can ignore that conservatism was developed as a method of reinforcing the control of the aristocratic feudalist system over society in the face of anti-monarchists change. Sure, it ends up with a slightly different flavor in every country, but the fundamental push towards a central authority and “knowing your place” in a rigid hierarchy is pretty much monarchism in practice. I’m pretty sure the thing that makes it a monarchy is that the hierarchy is justified by the divine right of kings.
If conservatism was monarchism and liberalism was mercantilism that is what they’d be called. They’re different and it matters especially when discussing these concepts specifically together.
It’s like calling pink red or turquoise blue. They’re related but they are not the same and we don’t call them the same for a reason.
I understand why that would appear to be the case. But it’s not. Conservatism and Liberalism are political philosophies and movements. Monarchism is a system of governance. Conservatism the movement supports Monarchism the system. Liberalism the movement supports Capitalism the system. Just because they are one-to-one doesn’t mean they are identical.
It does matter indeed, I agree with you, and it’s important that we understand that Liberalism cannot lead to universal liberation because it is foundationally tied to private property. Eliminating private property is an illiberal move, and it is the foundational move of communism. Moving from aristocracy to private property ends Monarchism and it is the foundational move of Liberalism. Conservatism fought against private property in favor of the old system. Liberalism fought for private property in favor of Capitalism. And Communism fights against private property in favor of universal liberation.
It doesn’t. That’s a complete misunderstanding of all four of those terms.
I think you have your head twisted a tad.
Liberalism also fought in favor of universal liberation. Not understanding that or how liberalism lead to conversations for socialism is a glaring hole in one’s historical understanding. Either both Liberalism and Communism fight/have fought for universal liberation or, following your logic, Communism fights for a specific system structure as well because “universal liberation” actually doesn’t mean anything you could define. With that in mind it probably would read more like, Communism fights for Authoritarianism.
Communism demands extreme power towards a central point, it relies extensively on what you’d call the state having the first and final say in things. Whether that state is successfully run by “the proletariat” or not is a whole other conversation. But historically stacking all that power in the center begins to circle back towards monarchism maybe without a hereditary line but still you’re handing all power to a single political entity and that’s some heavy Authoritarianism.
You can’t just say it’s a misunderstanding of the four terms and then not present any argument to the contrary. What am I supposed to do? Provide you the historical context of Liberalism emerging during a time of increasing trade and promoted by people working explicitly for the large merchants and bankers? Or provide you the historical context of how Conservatism emerged as a response to Liberalism in defense of monarchy? Like, I have no idea how ignorant or knowledgeable you are on this topic, only that you think I misunderstand. Give me something.
It absolutely did not. John Locke was a major shareholder in the Royal Africa Company, the slave trading monopoly of England. He wrote the constitution for the colony of Carolina, and explicitly wrote that every “freeman” would have total control over his “negro slaves”. Does that sound like the father of Liberalism fighting for universal liberation? No. It does not.
So now you’re moving the goal posts to “liberalism led to conversationa for socialism”? You think I don’t understand the history of philosophy and how we build on what came before? You know what led to conversations about abolition? Slavery. Slavery itself brought about conversations of abolition. Would you say that the institution of slavery is somehow the progenitor of the abolition movement? No. You would not.
The conversation about socialism emerged because of the failure of Liberalism to actually achieve its lofty rhetoric. And when analyzed materially, it was shown that Liberalism cannot lead to universal liberation because of it’s fundamental attachment of private property and thus it is inescapable from capitalism. This is not only theory. It was theory used to explain why Liberalism was sold the masses on universal liberation and near-utopia promises and yet a century or more of Liberalism resulted in prolonged horrible terrible conditions for the vast majority of people.
This is ridiculous. Like straight ridiculous. I have to imagine you’re having an emotional reaction where you feel like I am insulting or attacking you because I cannot understand how you can write these words with a clear head.
You’re saying that because I don’t think Liberalism was structured on universal liberation because it privileged white male Christian land-owning Europeans and everyone else was either genocided, enslaved, or left to suffer and die of neglect and poverty, that somehow this means Communism is not fighting for universal liberation? Like, it doesn’t make any sense at all.
How do we know Conmunism is for universal liberation? Because it analyzed the failures of liberation, identified a root cause for the failure (class society) and then developed a theory to eliminate class society, and then executed it. Because when communists overthrow liberals they immediately set to work addressing mass poverty and eliminate the majority of it within 10 - 30 years. Because they developed the theories of national self-determination that the entire world now uses as a framework against settler colonialism. Because Communist theory explicitly states that a society built on limited liberation is doomed to fail as the contradiction between classes sharpens until there is a collapse and communists movements never set out to build a society that they know will collapse eventually.
This more than anything makes me think you have no idea of Liberal history. During the first 100 years of any liberal society they were constantly crushing workers rebellions with their military. The Americans, the English, the French, all had Liberal revolutions and then spent a century repressing their working population to force them work under intolerable conditions. Honestly, it wasn’t until the Bolsheviks were successful that progressive Liberalism really started to take root because suddenly all the Liberal robber barons were afraid that the workers would actually try to win.
Yup. That’s how a democracy would be run if it were designed to enforce universal liberation instead of allowing robber barons to hire private police to beat striking workers to death. The central point is required for democracy to actually have an effect at the national level and the first and final say is required to override special interests.
Ok, jackass, now I’m upset. You think I don’t understand political philosophy terms but you’re going to sit here and say that communism trends toward monarchism? Are you high? Could you read fucking book on the topic before running your fucking mouth? Christ why do I even bother to assume you people are arguing in good faith.
Fuck off until you read something.
https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/country-studies/china/
Modern slavery in China
Estimated number living in modern slavery:
5,771,000 (4.0 per thousand)
https://www.endslaverynow.org/act/action-library/learn-about-forced-labor-in-china
Great Communism you got there. Hope it stays the fuck away from me.
“cOmMunIsm LiBeRaTEs”
“bUt jOhN lOckE oWnEd StOcks!!!”
Removed by mod
“cHiNa doEsN’T dO fOrCeD LabOr!!!”
Whatever dude. I don’t care to convince you of a reality you’re clearly running around Lemmy trying to sell. China has a history of sweat shops, labor abuse, overseas policing to keep their citizens in check, heavy monitoring of their citizen’s everyday lives and a strict adherence to do what they’re told. Everything but slave labor. Sure. 🙄
Big loser energy from a big cry baby.
You wrote an entire manifesto just to prove you can be confidently wrong at an exceptional length, embarrassing.
Apparently “historical context” means picking whichever examples tickle your fancy and declaring everything else irrelevant. You accuse me of not understanding political theory while casually collapsing liberalism, capitalism, democracy, and authoritarianism into whatever argument you need at the moment. If your position requires this much profanity and condescension to survive basic scrutiny, maybe the books you keep telling me to read aren’t helping as much as you think? Shame.
Wow. Someone is triggered. What do you call a consolation of wealth, eliminating dissent and turning your state into a personal checkbook? Have some kids to take power and you’re a monarchy. Pathetic Korea has already done this, Cuba is sorta on the fence of doing this with Raul Castro. Let’s see how the others are doing, Laos has the Siphandone Family, and the Phomvihane Family hm weird how much of their cartel holds power. How about Vietnam, what’s that? Con Ong Chau Cha? You say that means “Children of the Father”? It’s basically slang for nepotism and insider coercion of privilege kids? Hm where have I seen that sort of structure in the government before…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy
Enjoy your reading you angry little troll.
…what do you think the conservatives conserve?
Liberalism is based on the word liberty, i.e. the right to self determination. Mercantilists are generally liberal. As is anyone that isn’t trying to conserve the monarchy.
…it depends who or what you’re talking about doesn’t it?
Monarchism is pretty clear about what it is, support of a monarchy or basically a bloodline that rules the government. Conservative is a broad political outlook that depends entirely who or what topic or group you’re talking about. You can be a social conservative, you can be fiscally conservative, National conservative. None of those have anything to do with a monarchy.
Mercantilists are literally not liberal at all. Mercantilism and Liberalism at a time were completely opposed to each other, you know laissez-faire capitalism and whatnot. Mercantilism is about government regulated trade where Classic Liberalism was about unregulated trade. A social liberal has basically nothing to do with Mercantilism. Then you have neoliberalism which is a rehash of classical Liberalism electric boogaloo style.
Honestly China’s system is closer to being like mercantilism than the neoliberal governments today because of their focus on exports and heavy handed government intervention but you wouldn’t really call what they’re doing mercantilism.
So it’s all pretty different. Words matter you know?
Oh, no, no, no. There is a very specific thing that conservatives conserve. Its like the people that claim the US civil war was about “states rights”–states rights to do what?
Conservatives are traditionally an explicitly monarchist party. They just didn’t call themselves monarchists, because the French were getting a bit choppy when it came to kings back then. Liberals were the anti-monarchists. Even now, modern conservatives all seek to implement some sort of hierarchical power structure, economic, social, whatever.
Mercantilism is a rebuke of government controlled trade. Hence mercantilism–from merchant. Regular folks could become merchants and make fortunes that were not the purview of the crown.
No they’re not. In some countries conservatives might embrace those ideas but that is not true across the board. I’d agree conservatives generally support power structure but claiming they’re monarchists just isn’t true. Conservatives in China for instance have absolutely nothing to do with a monarchy.
Mercantilism is literally not a rebuke to government controlled trade. It is government controlled trade. Like you can literally Google this and read about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism
It was intended as a means for the crown to have even more control. It maximized wealth and authority of the central state which is why the term laissez faire came about. You’re literally mixing up a core belief of Liberalism with Mercantilism.
…fair enough. I was looking at mercantilism as more state-adjacent trade. State-chartered corporation type stuff, East india company and such. I guess it was more directly centralized outside of Britain. I still see it as the beginning of the decoupling of the economic system from the crown to some extent, as it implied trade could happen without the direct involvement of the king.
I don’t think you can ignore that conservatism was developed as a method of reinforcing the control of the aristocratic feudalist system over society in the face of anti-monarchists change. Sure, it ends up with a slightly different flavor in every country, but the fundamental push towards a central authority and “knowing your place” in a rigid hierarchy is pretty much monarchism in practice. I’m pretty sure the thing that makes it a monarchy is that the hierarchy is justified by the divine right of kings.