• @ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    None of the answers you’ve received are really correct.

    Liberalism has a specific meaning in political science. Modern Liberals support market economies, strong individual rights, and the right to own private property (not personal property like your house, car, or toothbrush - private property means capital).

    I’m going to use socialism as a proxy for Leftism broadly because Socialism + Anarchism is too broad. Socialism is a political philosophy characterized by public ownership of capital (aka the means of production). That is the primary thing that binds leftists together.

    Leftists view Liberalism as an improvement over feudalism, the system that it replaced, but criticize Liberals for protecting the status quo of neoliberal capitalism and the injustices, inequities, and evils it has perpetuated (slavery, colonialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, labor exploitation, etc.). They also assert that any Social Democratic reforms Liberals champion are ineffectual at addressing the core problems of capitalism.

    The reason that the leftists in the meme have guns is because Leftists have historically been violently opposed to fascism and have engaged in revolutions to overthrow feudal, liberal, and fascist regimes.