Liberalism is the ideology of capitalism. They emerged together and the former was formed to justify the latter. Over the years it has branched out and there are many forms such as classical liberalism, neoliberalism, social liberalism, etc. but they all defend capitalist property rights and the market. Socialism emerged as the working class response to/critique of liberalism. In the US the term only refers to social liberals, who are in reality centrists. Americans call them leftists only because centrists are slightly to the left of right-wing politics.

We're against liberalism as a whole because it's the ideology that justifies capitalism. We're against social liberals because they're seen as fence-sitting cowards and dangerous compromisers.

This is a very introductory overview to liberalism:

Taimur Rahman - Introduction to classical liberalism - John Locke

The most in-depth delving into it is Losurdo's Liberalism - A counter history, but you'd have to read many more foundational texts before that one.

[+] Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world -16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law.[1][2] Liberals espouse various and often mutually conflicting views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion.[3] Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern history.[4][5]: 11

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

Emerging together does not mean they are dependent on each other.

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 week ago (2 children)

How many books on this topic have you read? Are you aware of the conflicts between liberals and workers, prisoners, women, and colonized people for over 200 years? Do you know the history of the working class movement and its history of conflicts with liberals since the mid 1800s?

Any one of us can answer these questions. You clearly can't.

[–] merdaverse@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

the right to private property

Wow that sounds sooo leftist. I think you're about 150 years late in defining liberalism as "the left"

[+] Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world -6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Can you show me where private property is categorically right leaning and not left

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago

Because that is the status quo. Leftism is about progressing onto the next mode of production, not stagnating or regressing, which is right-wing.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Capitalism is right-wing; socialism is left-wing. Private property is not about your toothbrush or house, it’s about private ownership of the means of production, which is what capitalism is founded on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit.

[–] Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world -3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Partially true but not universally true. This is like saying Jazz is African American music and classical is white music. You're flattening these things into a very binary categorization. These are not binary categories like this. There's so much nuance.

There's so many more options and honestly I'm worried there's a push you radicalize the left against even considering it after seeing many comments here.

An example of the top of my head is cooperatives. We don't need public ownership of factories and production. We can restructure capitalism and how it works so it is more socialized. Worker owned business. Change the laws. Change how corporations are structured when they go public. Change investing laws since faceless stakeholders is a primary cause of a lot of issues we face.

The options are not capitalism or socialism. That seems like it's a toxic pill that's being pushed in the community. I really advise people to consider there's potentially some radicalization occurring in certain corners. Remember they have a lot of power to push ideas and kill others. If we all know Cambridge and Koch brothers and heritage foundations are out there manipulating things online, maybe it's important to be careful of dominant opinions in the niche corners as they grow.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago

I already explained elsewhere that it isn't a binary, what's important is which is the principle aspect, public or private ownership. There are elements of private property in socialism, and elements of public in capitalism.

Cooperatives do not eliminate the need for eventual full public ownership. Cooperatives are still based on competition and profit, not fulfilling needs. As cooperatives grow and develop, they will form monopolies, long past when coherent planning and public ownership becomes more efficient at fuflilling needs and growth.

Further, we as the workers cannot restructure capitalism. Capitalism is dominated by capital. In order for workers to have genuine power over the system, we need control of the state, large firms, and key industries, without ownership we cannot pivot to a cooperative society to begin with. Political economic systems are not thoughts in your head, recipes to be picked out, but real, material things, and as such what comes next will be what our current system is economically compelled towards. As centralization is a key side-effect of capitalism, common, collective ownership and planning is what will come next, after revolution sped up by capitalism's own drive for disparity.

Ultimately, you have a very idealist, utopian view, and not a materialist, scientific view. That's why you're running into opposition so heavily.