Luke's right about the lack of a core liberal ideology. There is no coherent economic analysis or position in any liberal tradition, in the US or elsewhere. Liberalism is all about the removal of obatacles and expansion of "opportunity". This fits well into the American national narrative and is does not criticize Capitalism. This liberal tradition goes back to the 18th century and has never had a coherent response to Capitalism or to the social and political destruction wrought by this economic system.
Liberalism is capitalistic. It doesn't want to respond to capitalism in the way you allude to. It seeks to find a productive balance of market and state measurements. And you have adaptations of Liberalism that prescribe differing measurements. These adaptations often virulently disagree with one another--for example, most Liberals demise neoliberals as much as the Marxist/socialist Left and the national conservative Right do. The debates within Liberalism are testament to its intellectual vitality and freedom, and within the specific adaptations there is coherency. So it's daft to think that there is no coherent analysis or position on economic issues in Liberalism--there's plenty of it. What confuses me are Leftists like Luke Savage who are socialists(?)--who ultimately support or provide apologia for authoritarian Leftist governments--purporting to care about Liberalism. It's strange. I'm aware that there is a muddy area on the Left where Liberal values are rhetorically permitted--SocDems, for example--but, fundamentally, Marxism-Socialism is explicitly illiberal, so I don't understand this concern for it.
@@SacClass650 Good point. Savage didn't go into the historical roots of Liberalism in the 18th century. In the USA this seems to align firmly with the landed gentry and property owning class, though it might be different in Europe, particularly in France and Germany. This would help to explain the almost magnetic attraction of liberals to Capitalism, which I have not been able to understand other than by the lingering effects of the cold war and destruction of the left in the USA - admittedly a local phenomenon.
@@MCJSA The American constitution was inspired by the English Bill of Rights which was disseminated to parts of Europe, too. Codified by Locke's Two Treatise. Of course, all of the ideas derive from Greco-Roman learning and Christianity and the unique course of European history. It's no coincidence that the Puritans pioneered American democracy with Protestantism's focus on the freedom of the individual. And briefly, Liberals believe capitalism is in accordance with human history and psychology. Capitalism incubates productive societies wherein people can cooperate economically and socially.
Liberalism is the ideology of Capitalism. Its end was from the outset to clear the way for capitalism. The obstacles that they sought to remove were both the old feudal system and the working class movements (ranging from the 17th century English agrarian socialist movements such as that of The Diggers to the European socialist movements of the mid 19th century to worldwide Communist and anti-imperialist movements of the 20th century). Liberalism has no economic analysis because it is blind to capitalism by design. This way capitalism is seen as free and natural while any opposition to it is seen as an imposition and oppression. Emergent properties of capitalism are invisible, so every observable phenomenon in capitalism is seen as the mere aggregate of choices made by free individuals. When you put these liberal glasses on, even simply arguing against capitalism just looks foolish.
And to answer the question about Marxism, Marxists saw their mission as realising the promises of liberalism. Marx himself was a great admirer of the US, even wrote to Lincoln praising the union's effort to end slavery and it is said that the London office of the International Workingmen's Association (of which Marx and Engels were key members) sported a US flag in support of the Union. There are still many Marxists of this variety. The Platypus Affiliated Society emphatically push this line. Just look up any lecture by Spencer Leonard. The early Bolsheviks themselves saw their work along these lines, to an extent. If you look at forced collectivisation for instance, it is easy to write it off as illiberal. However, it is pretty much the same thing as what happened in England from the 1300s to the 1600s (namely the British Enclosures) that ended up giving birth to capitalism and modernity. The only difference in the USSR was that centuries happened in decades and instead of destroying small farms and peasantry in favour of large private land holding entities, the same were destroyed in favour of large state owned or state sponsored entities.
Inspired by the teachings of Richard wolff I’ve started a democratized bread company. By workers for workers. We vote on what bread we will produce next week. Think it will be Naan.
Radlibs refuse to go as hard as is needed. The whole “my friend Biden” bs really drove me nuts. Full throated radical socialism is what we need, we just don’t have anyone with the conviction or courage to really stir up the working class. Bernie should have gone up there and stated that corporate media is the enemy of the people and that every single candidate on the debate stage was owned by lobbyists, as was the entire Democratic Party. While completely disingenuous, Trump calling out all of Washington and the US political machine was a winning strategy.
There are different kinds of Centrist: -The "Everyone has good points, lets just do both" mediator -The "Politicians used to appeal to everyone before gerrymandering was invented" political castaway -The aristotlian "Both too much and too little of any virtue is a vice" philosopher -The "Y'all f*cking crazy, I'm just going to smile and back away slowly" average person
@@MCJSA yeppers, commodify EVERYTHING! It's the world order now. We are no wiser than the yeast in William Catton Jr's book "Overshoot", even though we call ourselves sapien sapiens. We lie to ourselves and hypocrisy is our only consistency.
Rad Libs can be found streaming on twitch ordering Uber eats and reading donos while they complain about capitalism. Perhaps they should build more democratized businesses in the way richard wolff prescribes. He lays out step by step how to. How hard can it be 🤷
Eliminating poverty is not the goal of capitalist liberalism it's an essential part that must be maintained. Capitalism maintains an artificial pool of unemployment it deems necessary and healthy for capitalism. Because without unemployment and crushing poverty they cannot maintain a monopoly on employment or wages that favor capital.
2:53 Oh, yeah. Centrism isn't really an ideology. But it does have an "ism" right in front of it. Totally not an ideology as if you really need to be a "centrist" in order to that. 😁
I'll repeat what I posted on the full VOD, for the sake of debate and discussion. I'm always left with a feeling of cognitive dissonance on the part of the Left when they attempt to discredit Liberalism. There's conflation and misunderstanding--purposeful or genuine--of certain political philosophies (like neoliberalism); and it all ultimately amounts to the convient catharsis of "Liberalism's ends are nice but impossible without socialist means". Yet, here we are, and Liberalism seems to be doing pretty well on its merits. Indeed, here you guys are--socialists--freely exhibiting dissension, the type of which has not and would not be allowed in the types of societies you ultimately advocate for, or at the very least extend clemency to. Here we all are, 225 years since the declaration of independence and progress has been made on social and racial issues, and will continue to be made; institutions, though battered by the Left and Trump in recent years, remain robust and effective; individual freedom, property rights, innovation, elections every four years, separation of power all in check. The perennial problem the Left have in attempting to tackling Liberalism is you are testament to its efficacy and functioning. The momentous thing about Liberalism is that it affords a constant dialogue. Cogitation and negotiation--from the individual, to the governing bodies--over its on-going form and its failings in order for them to emended. Your guest bemoaned Liberalism's acknowledgment of people's differing values and fallibilities. This is not a bad thing, you plonker! Liberalism acknowledges the thousands-of-years of observed human history and psychology showing that, indeed, not everyone possesses the same value; not everyone can or wants to be, say, an astrophysicist. Society requires binmen, and there's nothing wrong with that career. This speaks to the fundamental schism between everyone and the Left - the latter refuses reality and prescribes utopianism.
@@augustuslxiii The fundamental view that humans are inherently good and that it's society that is the corrupting element. Humans do have an inherent capacity for good and can innately decipher it, of course; but we're also fallible, we're inclined to develop hierarchies and be jealous and avaricious etc, etc. All of which Marxism rejects and-or claims to be the antidote to; and I also touch upon it in what I wrote regarding this idea of everyone being able to do and be whatever they what. All this, then, I find to be utopian. (What Liberalism seeks to do is to find a balance; to mediate our bad inclinations and amplify our productive and healthy ones.)
"progress has been made... And will continue to be made" That is an assumption that is not backed by the current trajectory of reality. And liberalism has not only not stopped the current regression but actually been stewards of it. The president himself has long been a proponent of many of the ways in which we are going backwarda on racial and social issues. He may be being pushed towards those better outcomes lately but only because of overwhelming grass roots push back. The root of that is liberalism. The issue is that the astrophysicist and the bin man don't have the MARKET value but do have the same human value, but the liberal can't solve why one of those people lives in much more precarious situations than the other while the left can. Liberalism is popular when everything is going well but when there are problems, like now, it does not have solutions.
"The momentous thing about Liberalism is that it affords a constant dialogue." I think this statement summarizes quite well the general view you express here. You appear reluctant to separate political from economic philosphy, so, perhaps we should now ask, how does this constant dialogue and expansion of right and opportunity translate to the economic sphere? Is it possible to have meaningful political rights without economic rights? And, if so, what does that really look like? Your characterization of liberal institutions in the West being robust and effective might have been more convincing several years ago. I think what many of us are experiencing now is an rising anxiety about precisely this: How robust are those institutions and how fragile is our political culture today. Where is this "constant dialogue"?
@@akphison You have a grasp of irony, Andy, I'll give you that. Personally, I think the transition away from forcing people into chains to work for nothing--something that had the standard throughout most of human history--on the basis of their race; the extension of universal suffrage among other factors, including the fact that it is a point of shame to be considered racist today in America today--all constitutes 'progress'. Literally. So, in reality, I don't just 'think'--I know progress has been made, and you do too. Huge amount more to be done to bring about color blindness--but, with time, it can be done.
Luke's right about the lack of a core liberal ideology. There is no coherent economic analysis or position in any liberal tradition, in the US or elsewhere. Liberalism is all about the removal of obatacles and expansion of "opportunity". This fits well into the American national narrative and is does not criticize Capitalism. This liberal tradition goes back to the 18th century and has never had a coherent response to Capitalism or to the social and political destruction wrought by this economic system.
Liberalism is capitalistic. It doesn't want to respond to capitalism in the way you allude to. It seeks to find a productive balance of market and state measurements. And you have adaptations of Liberalism that prescribe differing measurements. These adaptations often virulently disagree with one another--for example, most Liberals demise neoliberals as much as the Marxist/socialist Left and the national conservative Right do. The debates within Liberalism are testament to its intellectual vitality and freedom, and within the specific adaptations there is coherency. So it's daft to think that there is no coherent analysis or position on economic issues in Liberalism--there's plenty of it.
What confuses me are Leftists like Luke Savage who are socialists(?)--who ultimately support or provide apologia for authoritarian Leftist governments--purporting to care about Liberalism. It's strange. I'm aware that there is a muddy area on the Left where Liberal values are rhetorically permitted--SocDems, for example--but, fundamentally, Marxism-Socialism is explicitly illiberal, so I don't understand this concern for it.
@@SacClass650 Good point. Savage didn't go into the historical roots of Liberalism in the 18th century. In the USA this seems to align firmly with the landed gentry and property owning class, though it might be different in Europe, particularly in France and Germany. This would help to explain the almost magnetic attraction of liberals to Capitalism, which I have not been able to understand other than by the lingering effects of the cold war and destruction of the left in the USA - admittedly a local phenomenon.
@@MCJSA The American constitution was inspired by the English Bill of Rights which was disseminated to parts of Europe, too. Codified by Locke's Two Treatise. Of course, all of the ideas derive from Greco-Roman learning and Christianity and the unique course of European history.
It's no coincidence that the Puritans pioneered American democracy with Protestantism's focus on the freedom of the individual.
And briefly, Liberals believe capitalism is in accordance with human history and psychology. Capitalism incubates productive societies wherein people can cooperate economically and socially.
Liberalism is the ideology of Capitalism. Its end was from the outset to clear the way for capitalism. The obstacles that they sought to remove were both the old feudal system and the working class movements (ranging from the 17th century English agrarian socialist movements such as that of The Diggers to the European socialist movements of the mid 19th century to worldwide Communist and anti-imperialist movements of the 20th century).
Liberalism has no economic analysis because it is blind to capitalism by design. This way capitalism is seen as free and natural while any opposition to it is seen as an imposition and oppression. Emergent properties of capitalism are invisible, so every observable phenomenon in capitalism is seen as the mere aggregate of choices made by free individuals. When you put these liberal glasses on, even simply arguing against capitalism just looks foolish.
And to answer the question about Marxism, Marxists saw their mission as realising the promises of liberalism. Marx himself was a great admirer of the US, even wrote to Lincoln praising the union's effort to end slavery and it is said that the London office of the International Workingmen's Association (of which Marx and Engels were key members) sported a US flag in support of the Union. There are still many Marxists of this variety. The Platypus Affiliated Society emphatically push this line. Just look up any lecture by Spencer Leonard. The early Bolsheviks themselves saw their work along these lines, to an extent. If you look at forced collectivisation for instance, it is easy to write it off as illiberal. However, it is pretty much the same thing as what happened in England from the 1300s to the 1600s (namely the British Enclosures) that ended up giving birth to capitalism and modernity. The only difference in the USSR was that centuries happened in decades and instead of destroying small farms and peasantry in favour of large private land holding entities, the same were destroyed in favour of large state owned or state sponsored entities.
The core issue to what is driving almost all political dissent, both left and right, is that the politics of the center are not working.
Worse than that. The so called center is only useful to stop and destroy any kind of leftist opposition while helping the right/far right.
Inspired by the teachings of Richard wolff I’ve started a democratized bread company. By workers for workers. We vote on what bread we will produce next week. Think it will be Naan.
Radlibs refuse to go as hard as is needed. The whole “my friend Biden” bs really drove me nuts. Full throated radical socialism is what we need, we just don’t have anyone with the conviction or courage to really stir up the working class.
Bernie should have gone up there and stated that corporate media is the enemy of the people and that every single candidate on the debate stage was owned by lobbyists, as was the entire Democratic Party.
While completely disingenuous, Trump calling out all of Washington and the US political machine was a winning strategy.
Michael & Us fan here, love Luke and looking forward to reading his new book. Great interview 😎
There are different kinds of Centrist:
-The "Everyone has good points, lets just do both" mediator
-The "Politicians used to appeal to everyone before gerrymandering was invented" political castaway
-The aristotlian "Both too much and too little of any virtue is a vice" philosopher
-The "Y'all f*cking crazy, I'm just going to smile and back away slowly" average person
"Any Rational Adult 2020" signs in yards was the same thing.
Haha, loved the jab at "rad-libs".
Obama is to blame for the cancellation of the second space race. Space-X brought it back.
Wim kok in the Netherlands (Holland) 1994 to 2002
We are toast, please pass the organic marmalade and vegan butter.
Great example. Vegan butter won't save the cows - or the goats - it just creates a new niche market for the processed foods industry.
@@MCJSA yeppers, commodify EVERYTHING! It's the world order now. We are no wiser than the yeast in William Catton Jr's book "Overshoot", even though we call ourselves sapien sapiens. We lie to ourselves and hypocrisy is our only consistency.
Rad Libs can be found streaming on twitch ordering Uber eats and reading donos while they complain about capitalism. Perhaps they should build more democratized businesses in the way richard wolff prescribes. He lays out step by step how to. How hard can it be 🤷
Eliminating poverty is not the goal of capitalist liberalism it's an essential part that must be maintained.
Capitalism maintains an artificial pool of unemployment it deems necessary and healthy for capitalism.
Because without unemployment and crushing poverty they cannot maintain a monopoly on employment or wages that favor capital.
I love that the guy who wrote a book about centrism looks like an AI-generated image of a centrist
Look at social democrats in Denmark and Sweden,
So Luke..would your current life be supported under "socialism?" Just looking at your backdrop. Do you own your own property?
.
sehq haq liz mawg lehq, yad nehax paw lar che haq liz nud lawd kor khuhn yuhq chehd lawz che haq gha mawg che yaog.
2:53 Oh, yeah. Centrism isn't really an ideology. But it does have an "ism" right in front of it. Totally not an ideology as if you really need to be a "centrist" in order to that. 😁
meh cheawg lehr, awr ye ux peg khuhn maq hu ser thad loar muhd nuh maq cuh yad meh vid lar peg che yaog.
lawn ghod ver, chaw awg gha lia awg pun ha lehg tug ir jad che tawd khuhd koz ax tug ngag lag che yaog.
FDR wasn’t a contemporary liberal, he was a progressive
Talkin a whole bunch of nothin
Jacobin lib arc
I, like, wish, like, Jen and, like, Kyle, wouldn't, like, use the word "like", like, so much, like. It's, like, really, like, quite, like, annoying.
I'll repeat what I posted on the full VOD, for the sake of debate and discussion.
I'm always left with a feeling of cognitive dissonance on the part of the Left when they attempt to discredit Liberalism. There's conflation and misunderstanding--purposeful or genuine--of certain political philosophies (like neoliberalism); and it all ultimately amounts to the convient catharsis of "Liberalism's ends are nice but impossible without socialist means".
Yet, here we are, and Liberalism seems to be doing pretty well on its merits. Indeed, here you guys are--socialists--freely exhibiting dissension, the type of which has not and would not be allowed in the types of societies you ultimately advocate for, or at the very least extend clemency to. Here we all are, 225 years since the declaration of independence and progress has been made on social and racial issues, and will continue to be made; institutions, though battered by the Left and Trump in recent years, remain robust and effective; individual freedom, property rights, innovation, elections every four years, separation of power all in check.
The perennial problem the Left have in attempting to tackling Liberalism is you are testament to its efficacy and functioning. The momentous thing about Liberalism is that it affords a constant dialogue. Cogitation and negotiation--from the individual, to the governing bodies--over its on-going form and its failings in order for them to emended.
Your guest bemoaned Liberalism's acknowledgment of people's differing values and fallibilities. This is not a bad thing, you plonker! Liberalism acknowledges the thousands-of-years of observed human history and psychology showing that, indeed, not everyone possesses the same value; not everyone can or wants to be, say, an astrophysicist. Society requires binmen, and there's nothing wrong with that career. This speaks to the fundamental schism between everyone and the Left - the latter refuses reality and prescribes utopianism.
Define Utopianism for me? (Beyond the dictionary definition.) I ask, because I get different answers from different people.
@@augustuslxiii The fundamental view that humans are inherently good and that it's society that is the corrupting element. Humans do have an inherent capacity for good and can innately decipher it, of course; but we're also fallible, we're inclined to develop hierarchies and be jealous and avaricious etc, etc. All of which Marxism rejects and-or claims to be the antidote to; and I also touch upon it in what I wrote regarding this idea of everyone being able to do and be whatever they what. All this, then, I find to be utopian.
(What Liberalism seeks to do is to find a balance; to mediate our bad inclinations and amplify our productive and healthy ones.)
"progress has been made... And will continue to be made"
That is an assumption that is not backed by the current trajectory of reality. And liberalism has not only not stopped the current regression but actually been stewards of it. The president himself has long been a proponent of many of the ways in which we are going backwarda on racial and social issues. He may be being pushed towards those better outcomes lately but only because of overwhelming grass roots push back. The root of that is liberalism. The issue is that the astrophysicist and the bin man don't have the MARKET value but do have the same human value, but the liberal can't solve why one of those people lives in much more precarious situations than the other while the left can. Liberalism is popular when everything is going well but when there are problems, like now, it does not have solutions.
"The momentous thing about Liberalism is that it affords a constant dialogue." I think this statement summarizes quite well the general view you express here. You appear reluctant to separate political from economic philosphy, so, perhaps we should now ask, how does this constant dialogue and expansion of right and opportunity translate to the economic sphere? Is it possible to have meaningful political rights without economic rights? And, if so, what does that really look like? Your characterization of liberal institutions in the West being robust and effective might have been more convincing several years ago. I think what many of us are experiencing now is an rising anxiety about precisely this: How robust are those institutions and how fragile is our political culture today. Where is this "constant dialogue"?
@@akphison You have a grasp of irony, Andy, I'll give you that.
Personally, I think the transition away from forcing people into chains to work for nothing--something that had the standard throughout most of human history--on the basis of their race; the extension of universal suffrage among other factors, including the fact that it is a point of shame to be considered racist today in America today--all constitutes 'progress'. Literally. So, in reality, I don't just 'think'--I know progress has been made, and you do too.
Huge amount more to be done to bring about color blindness--but, with time, it can be done.