What makes a progressivist changes depending on the society they are in.
When liberalism was first invented, it was extremely progressive. People that deny it today are extremely regressive. But yes, it’s not progressive anymore, it’s just the bare minimum.
That’s just not true. Nearly every liberal revolution that occurred in the West was followed by at a century of abject mass poverty. This is because Liberalism posited that everyone who wanted a good life could work hard and get it so there was no need for the wealthy to contribute to society if they didn’t want to. Conservatives (not American conservatives who are actually liberals) said this would be bad and that one reason to maintain the monarchy and the aristocracy was to maintain the system of nobilesse oblige which had been developed to provide for the common good.
The people who spawned liberalism were all ultra wealthy and they hired people to write treatises to make their ideas into palatable systems. John Locke worked for the Earl of Shaftesbury and personally held investment in the Royal Africa Company, England’s slave trading monopoly.
In so far as liberal ideas were progressive, that was primarily their propaganda to get peasants turn on their lords, join the rebellion and fight for the merchants. Once the merchants were in charge, Liberals crushed any populism with the military.
I like this framing as liberalism is just the trojan horse the wealthy used to justify their takeover of the aristocrat class. It is the propaganda used to placate the masses because they don’t know what is actually going on.
No wait. That’s not it at all. Liberalism is the whole thing. It contains within it the myths and propaganda to motivate the masses to its defense, but it is not identical with those things.
Liberalism is, fundamentally, a political movement of, by, and for commercial interests. Commercial interests were international and thus could have greater span of control than national interests. But commercial interests could not be totalizing because national interests were locked into monarchical/noble/aristocratic structures that explicitly locked out commercial interests.
The idea of personal autonomy was absolutely felt earnestly and genuinely by the merchant class because they had gone out, many risking their own lives, and managed to find that one deal that made them an eye-watering fortune and then they had to work politics tirelessly to keep their wealth. They genuinely felt that they should be free by virtue of their wealth, so when they said men should be free to pursue their interests, they genuinely meant it.
They weren’t being devious by defining men to be white European men. That was in-built to their culture already. The Overton Window, so to speak, didn’t include a position that black people were men.
But yes, they ALSO said to the peasants “you can one day be as rich as us” and they sort of meant it
I don’t believe it. I’m saying they actually believed it and saw themselves as heroes. They didn’t really consider the poor to be worth thinking about and fully believed they would produce a utopia with their ideals.
What makes a progressivist changes depending on the society they are in.
When liberalism was first invented, it was extremely progressive. People that deny it today are extremely regressive. But yes, it’s not progressive anymore, it’s just the bare minimum.
That’s just not true. Nearly every liberal revolution that occurred in the West was followed by at a century of abject mass poverty. This is because Liberalism posited that everyone who wanted a good life could work hard and get it so there was no need for the wealthy to contribute to society if they didn’t want to. Conservatives (not American conservatives who are actually liberals) said this would be bad and that one reason to maintain the monarchy and the aristocracy was to maintain the system of nobilesse oblige which had been developed to provide for the common good.
The people who spawned liberalism were all ultra wealthy and they hired people to write treatises to make their ideas into palatable systems. John Locke worked for the Earl of Shaftesbury and personally held investment in the Royal Africa Company, England’s slave trading monopoly.
In so far as liberal ideas were progressive, that was primarily their propaganda to get peasants turn on their lords, join the rebellion and fight for the merchants. Once the merchants were in charge, Liberals crushed any populism with the military.
I like this framing as liberalism is just the trojan horse the wealthy used to justify their takeover of the aristocrat class. It is the propaganda used to placate the masses because they don’t know what is actually going on.
No wait. That’s not it at all. Liberalism is the whole thing. It contains within it the myths and propaganda to motivate the masses to its defense, but it is not identical with those things.
Liberalism is, fundamentally, a political movement of, by, and for commercial interests. Commercial interests were international and thus could have greater span of control than national interests. But commercial interests could not be totalizing because national interests were locked into monarchical/noble/aristocratic structures that explicitly locked out commercial interests.
The idea of personal autonomy was absolutely felt earnestly and genuinely by the merchant class because they had gone out, many risking their own lives, and managed to find that one deal that made them an eye-watering fortune and then they had to work politics tirelessly to keep their wealth. They genuinely felt that they should be free by virtue of their wealth, so when they said men should be free to pursue their interests, they genuinely meant it.
They weren’t being devious by defining men to be white European men. That was in-built to their culture already. The Overton Window, so to speak, didn’t include a position that black people were men.
But yes, they ALSO said to the peasants “you can one day be as rich as us” and they sort of meant it
Oof, if you believed that last line that you can be rich you might just have fallen for propaganda.
You are very generous to their motives.
I don’t believe it. I’m saying they actually believed it and saw themselves as heroes. They didn’t really consider the poor to be worth thinking about and fully believed they would produce a utopia with their ideals.
Of course, you were just explaining their point of view.
got a source to back this up? Am genuinly curious.
Capitalism and extreme poverty by Jason Hickel
The Great Transformation by Polanyi (About England)
“What about the Poor?” From France
There’s a bunch more I am not familiar with regarding Latin American liberal transitions and there are others about different European countries.
But also, this is why Marx and Engels got anywhere at all