#liberalism — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #liberalism, aggregated by home.social.
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An excellent episode. From the description of this episode of The Minefield on ABC Listen:
The suspicion of hidden influence and the fear of special consideration undermine the faith of citizens in our shared institutions to behave justly.
Even when these institutions are conducting themselves equitably and representatives are making decisions on principled grounds, the ubiquity of money in politics breeds mistrust and ensures that suspicion lingers just below the surface of democratic life.
This is why any healthy political order depends on trust and is sustained through rigorous forms of public accountability.
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An excellent episode. From the description of this episode of The Minefield on ABC Listen:
The suspicion of hidden influence and the fear of special consideration undermine the faith of citizens in our shared institutions to behave justly.
Even when these institutions are conducting themselves equitably and representatives are making decisions on principled grounds, the ubiquity of money in politics breeds mistrust and ensures that suspicion lingers just below the surface of democratic life.
This is why any healthy political order depends on trust and is sustained through rigorous forms of public accountability.
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Growing up, I was always told to mock #socialism as a form of utopianism, as if that was a bad thing. #Utopianism was never a belief that something would happen, or that anything would be perfect. It was a thought experiment to consider what a perfect outcome would look like, so we could implement the ideas and get as close as possible. Meanwhile, #capitalism , #conservatism , #liberalism , and #libertarianism are just as #utopian in their dreams. Capitalism and libertarianism believe that if we JUST get government out of the way, we could have the #freemarkets work the way they are supposed to and lead to prosperity for all, never mind that corporations only exist because of #bankruptcy laws and standards created by Congress. Modern conservatism believes that if we just went back to a specific, unspecified time point when religion ruled, we would have prosperity again, never mind that America was never like that, even when we were at our most religious. #Liberals believe that if freedom, equality, and equity are guaranteed, but with a true free market that does require governments to regulate it, we would have true prosperity. The only difference is that #Marx , using arguments by #AdamSmith himself, poked holes in all of these ideas at their core. That the structure itself needed an overhaul of who holds power, or at least patched with a strong welfare state, and to work toward that utopian dream where the people held the power instead of the lords or #oligarchs and everyone was a lawmaker with direct democracy, there was a return of #thecommons that was just the norm for most of human history, and #personalproperty was something you physically used, erned and worked instead of from trading, hoarding and wasting while people starved aka #privateproperty . The day the lords stole the commons from the people was the day that socialism started to exist, with the Diggers and the Levelers attempting to take on the power of the lords and realizing they already ran their own villages, or communes and affairs in their areas, and the lords were just a middleman that contributed little to nothing. Hence the term #communism , which is a return to the natural commons people like #John Locke and #Voltaire and other #Enlightenment thinkers idealized, but capitalism has brainwashed people to ignore, forget, or never know in the first place they believed this while we were told to look up to them. Utopianism gives us the power to dream, to coalesce our ideas and our ideals. When we were told not to dream of our ideal world but were told to dream of their ideal, that's when the dream died and we just all became doomers. -
Growing up, I was always told to mock #socialism as a form of utopianism, as if that was a bad thing. #Utopianism was never a belief that something would happen, or that anything would be perfect. It was a thought experiment to consider what a perfect outcome would look like, so we could implement the ideas and get as close as possible. Meanwhile, #capitalism , #conservatism , #liberalism , and #libertarianism are just as #utopian in their dreams. Capitalism and libertarianism believe that if we JUST get government out of the way, we could have the #freemarkets work the way they are supposed to and lead to prosperity for all, never mind that corporations only exist because of #bankruptcy laws and standards created by Congress. Modern conservatism believes that if we just went back to a specific, unspecified time point when religion ruled, we would have prosperity again, never mind that America was never like that, even when we were at our most religious. #Liberals believe that if freedom, equality, and equity are guaranteed, but with a true free market that does require governments to regulate it, we would have true prosperity. The only difference is that #Marx , using arguments by #AdamSmith himself, poked holes in all of these ideas at their core. That the structure itself needed an overhaul of who holds power, or at least patched with a strong welfare state, and to work toward that utopian dream where the people held the power instead of the lords or #oligarchs and everyone was a lawmaker with direct democracy, there was a return of #thecommons that was just the norm for most of human history, and #personalproperty was something you physically used, erned and worked instead of from trading, hoarding and wasting while people starved aka #privateproperty . The day the lords stole the commons from the people was the day that socialism started to exist, with the Diggers and the Levelers attempting to take on the power of the lords and realizing they already ran their own villages, or communes and affairs in their areas, and the lords were just a middleman that contributed little to nothing. Hence the term #communism , which is a return to the natural commons people like #John Locke and #Voltaire and other #Enlightenment thinkers idealized, but capitalism has brainwashed people to ignore, forget, or never know in the first place they believed this while we were told to look up to them. Utopianism gives us the power to dream, to coalesce our ideas and our ideals. When we were told not to dream of our ideal world but were told to dream of their ideal, that's when the dream died and we just all became doomers. -
"Things always get better" yeah kind of but it took a thousand fucking years for ~safe travel and trade to return to Europe after the fall of the western Roman Empire.
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Geoff Russ: Canada's weak classical liberal foundations
https://www.withoutdiminishment.com/p/geoff-russ-canadas-weak-classically-liberal-foundations#CanPol #cdnpoli
#liberalism #libertarianism
#WithoutDiminishment -
Geoff Russ: Canada's weak classical liberal foundations
https://www.withoutdiminishment.com/p/geoff-russ-canadas-weak-classically-liberal-foundations#CanPol #cdnpoli
#liberalism #libertarianism
#WithoutDiminishment -
I wish Mill had been aware of and engaged with the arguments of his London contemporary Karl Marx.
In fact, I wish they had met over a series of evenings to debate the foundations of political economy.
Wouldn't that dialogue, had it ever taken place, still be a continuing feast for all of us on the left?
#JohnStuartMill #KarlMarx #PoliticalThought #Economics #PoliticlEconomy #Marxism #Liberalism #Socialism #Philosphy #History #Counterfactual
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I wish Mill had been aware of and engaged with the arguments of his London contemporary Karl Marx.
In fact, I wish they had met over a series of evenings to debate the foundations of political economy.
Wouldn't that dialogue, had it ever taken place, still be a continuing feast for all of us on the left?
#JohnStuartMill #KarlMarx #PoliticalThought #Economics #PoliticlEconomy #Marxism #Liberalism #Socialism #Philosphy #History #Counterfactual
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Richard Reeves -- John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand
Although the author was not an academic philosopher or historian but a journalist, his 2007 biography of Mill will not only serve as an excellent introduction to Mill and his work for those unfamiliar with this seminal liberal thinker but will also illuminate the philosopher's historical context for those mainly accustomed to examining his philosophical arguments.
Reeves stresses the importance of seeing Mill as a passionately engaged public intellectual and is concerned to dispel the myth of Mill as a dessicated humourless, purely cerebral intellectual.In addition to providing a more accurate representation of Mill's character, the demythologization that Reeves offers can also add to rebuttals of those continual conservative claims that reformers and radicals are bloodless "sophisters, economists, and calculators".*
In fact, as Reeves points out, conservative thinkers such as Carlyle and Coleridge exercised a significant influence on Mill's thought. Operating in conjunction with his Wordworth catalyzed opening to the poetic sensibility, these thinkers helped Mill escape the narrow confines of Benthamite thought. Yet Mill never became a conservative himself, even if some of his beliefs regarding capital punishment, the secret ballot, or universal suffrage might strike today's reader as such.
Mill's continuing commitment to progressive reform might best be seen in his commitment to feminism, a commitment unusual for his time, which deepened over the course of his life, and which will still grate with many conservatives today, not merely the incels and inmates of the manosphere. Reeves argues that his thinking on these matters was much his own as that of his beloved wife, Harriet. To what extent this is true must be debateable.
The most enduring part of Mill's intellectual legacy must be , as Reeves puts it, a " clearly and repeatedly articulated vision of a flourishing human
life―self-improving, passionate, truth-seeking, engaged and colourful―which it
was the job of individuals to cultivate, and the duty of society to promote". This characterization of Mill's core commitments should remind us, as his biographer points out, that "On Liberty" is as much concerned with the threats to autonomy posed by conformity and dogma as those from the excesses of government."On Liberty" still provides much to argue with and argue about. In spite of Mill's own reservations about democracy, it's a text that can play a valauble role in discussions about the ethos of democracy, or democracy as a way of life.
Although Reeves does mention Mill's work for the East India company, this aspect of his life deserves deeper research and more attention, even though Mill himself dismissed this work as being of no significance in his intellectual development.
Th biography reads easily without being simplistic, even if many of Mill's arguments are not analyzed with the thoroughness of professional philosophers. All the same, one might wish that many of those scholars would try harder to match their analytical rigor with a Reevesian readability!
* "But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever." Edmund Burke, "Reflections on the Revolution in France".
#Books #JohnStuartMill #RichardReeves #Biography #History #Philosophy #Liberalism
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Richard Reeves -- John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand
Although the author was not an academic philosopher or historian but a journalist, his 2007 biography of Mill will not only serve as an excellent introduction to Mill and his work for those unfamiliar with this seminal liberal thinker but will also illuminate the philosopher's historical context for those mainly accustomed to examining his philosophical arguments.
Reeves stresses the importance of seeing Mill as a passionately engaged public intellectual and is concerned to dispel the myth of Mill as a dessicated humourless, purely cerebral intellectual.In addition to providing a more accurate representation of Mill's character, the demythologization that Reeves offers can also add to rebuttals of those continual conservative claims that reformers and radicals are bloodless "sophisters, economists, and calculators".*
In fact, as Reeves points out, conservative thinkers such as Carlyle and Coleridge exercised a significant influence on Mill's thought. Operating in conjunction with his Wordworth catalyzed opening to the poetic sensibility, these thinkers helped Mill escape the narrow confines of Benthamite thought. Yet Mill never became a conservative himself, even if some of his beliefs regarding capital punishment, the secret ballot, or universal suffrage might strike today's reader as such.
Mill's continuing commitment to progressive reform might best be seen in his commitment to feminism, a commitment unusual for his time, which deepened over the course of his life, and which will still grate with many conservatives today, not merely the incels and inmates of the manosphere. Reeves argues that his thinking on these matters was much his own as that of his beloved wife, Harriet. To what extent this is true must be debateable.
The most enduring part of Mill's intellectual legacy must be , as Reeves puts it, a " clearly and repeatedly articulated vision of a flourishing human
life―self-improving, passionate, truth-seeking, engaged and colourful―which it
was the job of individuals to cultivate, and the duty of society to promote". This characterization of Mill's core commitments should remind us, as his biographer points out, that "On Liberty" is as much concerned with the threats to autonomy posed by conformity and dogma as those from the excesses of government."On Liberty" still provides much to argue with and argue about. In spite of Mill's own reservations about democracy, it's a text that can play a valauble role in discussions about the ethos of democracy, or democracy as a way of life.
Although Reeves does mention Mill's work for the East India company, this aspect of his life deserves deeper research and more attention, even though Mill himself dismissed this work as being of no significance in his intellectual development.
Th biography reads easily without being simplistic, even if many of Mill's arguments are not analyzed with the thoroughness of professional philosophers. All the same, one might wish that many of those scholars would try harder to match their analytical rigor with a Reevesian readability!
* "But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever." Edmund Burke, "Reflections on the Revolution in France".
#Books #JohnStuartMill #RichardReeves #Biography #History #Philosophy #Liberalism
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https://www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/all-you-fascist-liberals
I enjoyed this article about #fascism and #liberalism - fleshes out the old problems of liberals being handmaidens of fascism in a contemporary context. I don't always agree with #zizek BUT I do think he's one of the better diagnosticians for liberalism.
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https://www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/all-you-fascist-liberals
I enjoyed this article about #fascism and #liberalism - fleshes out the old problems of liberals being handmaidens of fascism in a contemporary context. I don't always agree with #zizek BUT I do think he's one of the better diagnosticians for liberalism.
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CW: Graphic descriptions of bodily mutilation.
This story and that of Marius Gustavson (linked in the article) engaged my interest because I have read very little about the sexual preferences and practices described. I find them more than a little off-putting.
Nevertheless, beyond the sensationalistic interest, the articles did get me thinking.
I am aware of this equation:
My Thing That I Really Like = Your Fetish = Their Weird Fixation.
Yet in addition to the standard liberal thoughts about the harm principle, the licitness or otherwise of paternalism, informed consent and so on, I also found myself wondering about the propriety of terms like "disgust" and "perversion".
I still have not sorted my thoughts out.
#NeilHopper #MariusGustavson #BodyModification #Amputation #SexualPreference #Sex #Liberalism #harm #Consent #Disgust #Perversion #Apotemnophilia #BodyIntegrityDisorder
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CW: Graphic descriptions of bodily mutilation.
This story and that of Marius Gustavson (linked in the article) engaged my interest because I have read very little about the sexual preferences and practices described. I find them more than a little off-putting.
Nevertheless, beyond the sensationalistic interest, the articles did get me thinking.
I am aware of this equation:
My Thing That I Really Like = Your Fetish = Their Weird Fixation.
Yet in addition to the standard liberal thoughts about the harm principle, the licitness or otherwise of paternalism, informed consent and so on, I also found myself wondering about the propriety of terms like "disgust" and "perversion".
I still have not sorted my thoughts out.
#NeilHopper #MariusGustavson #BodyModification #Amputation #SexualPreference #Sex #Liberalism #harm #Consent #Disgust #Perversion #Apotemnophilia #BodyIntegrityDisorder
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About liberalism and fascism
In the early 19xxs, many countries in Europe still were monarchies. The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy ended only in 1918 with the end of World War I. The reason for WWI was because the heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was assassinated.
In the early 19xxs also, Europeans were sick of monarchies and proposed liberalism as an ideology to implement (political) democracy instead. But liberalism struggled to be born. American Robber Barons and the European capitalist class supported European fascists such as Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. It took another World War and a period of fascism with unspeakable horros to transisition from monarchies to politicial democracy.
Some people (those who had read Karl Marx, the socialists) realized early on though that liberalism is not enough, that *politicial* democracy is not enough, that democracy must be both politicial and *economical*. Otherwise, if some people (the billionaires) can "out-buy" all the other people and subvert their politicial power, you'll end up with fascism again.
> Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.
—Tommy Douglas, Canadian politician
- Liberals: No kings, fuck monarchies, we want a politicial democracy. Power to the people.
- Socialists: Agreed, but don't forget economical democracy. Nobody should be significantly better off than the rest. We're against injustice from inequality.Now what does this say today about all the "apoliticial" people who are "neither right nor left"? About the Democrats in the USA and the Greens in Europe? They fail to understand any of this and constantly attack The Left rather than The Right.
All these Progressives/Liberals … they aren't leftists. They are right-wing. They are privileged and would rather have fascism again than give up their privilege. It requires what the socialists are asking for—*economical* democracy, not just political democracy—otherwise we'll end up with fascism again. This is exactly what we're seeing nowadays. Be a socialist.
#fascism #capitalism #liberalism #socialism #Democrats #Habeck
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About liberalism and fascism
In the early 19xxs, many countries in Europe still were monarchies. The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy ended only in 1918 with the end of World War I. The reason for WWI was because the heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was assassinated.
In the early 19xxs also, Europeans were sick of monarchies and proposed liberalism as an ideology to implement (political) democracy instead. But liberalism struggled to be born. American Robber Barons and the European capitalist class supported European fascists such as Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. It took another World War and a period of fascism with unspeakable horros to transisition from monarchies to politicial democracy.
Some people (those who had read Karl Marx, the socialists) realized early on though that liberalism is not enough, that *politicial* democracy is not enough, that democracy must be both politicial and *economical*. Otherwise, if some people (the billionaires) can "out-buy" all the other people and subvert their politicial power, you'll end up with fascism again.
> Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.
—Tommy Douglas, Canadian politician
- Liberals: No kings, fuck monarchies, we want a politicial democracy. Power to the people.
- Socialists: Agreed, but don't forget economical democracy. Nobody should be significantly better off than the rest. We're against injustice from inequality.Now what does this say today about all the "apoliticial" people who are "neither right nor left"? About the Democrats in the USA and the Greens in Europe? They fail to understand any of this and constantly attack The Left rather than The Right.
All these Progressives/Liberals … they aren't leftists. They are right-wing. They are privileged and would rather have fascism again than give up their privilege. It requires what the socialists are asking for—*economical* democracy, not just political democracy—otherwise we'll end up with fascism again. This is exactly what we're seeing nowadays. Be a socialist.
#fascism #capitalism #liberalism #socialism #Democrats #Habeck
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When a citizen points to their country's constitution as evidence that their government's actions are unlawful, that apparently renders the citizen a foreign agent. The message should be clear to all those even considering lending the country the benefit of the doubt: "Freedom has no place in Russia!" (https://reason.com/2026/07/22/russia-labels-libertarian-party-a-foreign-agent-effectively-ending-its-political-activity/)
#Russia #freeSpeech #VladimirPutin #authoritarianism #democraticBacksliding #anarchism #liberalism #libertarianism -
Shared Article — Yuval Noah Harari: The Myth of Freedom
Shared reading from The Guardian by Yuval Noah Harari — not an original Free Will Is a Bad Joke article. -
Shared Article — Yuval Noah Harari: The Myth of Freedom
Shared reading from The Guardian by Yuval Noah Harari — not an original Free Will Is a Bad Joke article. -
"In the final video (for now) in the Fascism series, I bring what we've learned about the Fascist period then to now, asking whether MAGA is Fascist and theorising a future that could lead to a 'Liberal-Fascism'."
https://youtu.be/ncpvlpc63ow?si=bxkvscdKjkxUurcg
#MAGA #USfascism #USpol #liberalism #LiberalFascism #neoliberalism #fascism
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"In the final video (for now) in the Fascism series, I bring what we've learned about the Fascist period then to now, asking whether MAGA is Fascist and theorising a future that could lead to a 'Liberal-Fascism'."
https://youtu.be/ncpvlpc63ow?si=bxkvscdKjkxUurcg
#MAGA #USfascism #USpol #liberalism #LiberalFascism #neoliberalism #fascism
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"Fundamentally: Klein is a leftist, Wolf was a liberal. The classic leftist distinction goes: leftists want to abolish a system where 150 white men run the world; liberals want to replace half of those 150 with women, queers and people of color."
#CoryDoctorow, 2026
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine
This is not to say that leftists don't agree with liberals on anything (we do) and can't work politically with them on single issues (we can). But we have fundamentally different goals.
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"Fundamentally: Klein is a leftist, Wolf was a liberal. The classic leftist distinction goes: leftists want to abolish a system where 150 white men run the world; liberals want to replace half of those 150 with women, queers and people of color."
#CoryDoctorow, 2026
https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine
This is not to say that leftists don't agree with liberals on anything (we do) and can't work politically with them on single issues (we can). But we have fundamentally different goals.
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Liberals relearning they directly caused fascism
https://quokk.au/c/mop/p/1041999/liberals-relearning-they-directly-caused-fascism
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Liberals relearning they directly caused fascism
https://quokk.au/c/mop/p/1041999/liberals-relearning-they-directly-caused-fascism
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The Retreat of Western Liberalism
"An insightful and harrowing analysis of the state of Western-style democracy"
Sale: $20 to $1.99
by Edward Luce
Rating: 4.3/5 (1604 Reviews)
#booksky #liberalism #democracy #economics #history #politics #books
The Retreat of Western Liberal... -
The Retreat of Western Liberalism
"An insightful and harrowing analysis of the state of Western-style democracy"
Sale: $20 to $1.99
by Edward Luce
Rating: 4.3/5 (1604 Reviews)
#booksky #liberalism #democracy #economics #history #politics #books
The Retreat of Western Liberal... -
“In her magisterial book The Great Partition, Yasmin Khan offers a sobering conclusion: The Partition of 1947 is also a loud reminder, should we care to listen, of the dangers of colonial interventions and the profound difficulties that dog regime change. It stands testament to the follies of empire, which ruptures community evolution, distorts historical trajectories and forces violent state formation from societies that would otherwise have taken different—and unknowable—paths. Partition is a lasting lesson of both the dangers of imperial hubris and the reactions of extreme nationalism. For better or worse, two nations continue to live alongside each other in South Asia and continue to live with these legacies.”
―Caroline Elkins, "Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire"#liberalism #raceMaking #hinduism #violence #brutalization #ethnic #religion #IndianSubcontinent #India #Pakistan #Bangladesh #colonialism #British #BritishEmpire #BritishRule #CarolineElkins #Elkins #book #quotes #regimeChange
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“In her magisterial book The Great Partition, Yasmin Khan offers a sobering conclusion: The Partition of 1947 is also a loud reminder, should we care to listen, of the dangers of colonial interventions and the profound difficulties that dog regime change. It stands testament to the follies of empire, which ruptures community evolution, distorts historical trajectories and forces violent state formation from societies that would otherwise have taken different—and unknowable—paths. Partition is a lasting lesson of both the dangers of imperial hubris and the reactions of extreme nationalism. For better or worse, two nations continue to live alongside each other in South Asia and continue to live with these legacies.”
―Caroline Elkins, "Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire"#liberalism #raceMaking #hinduism #violence #brutalization #ethnic #religion #IndianSubcontinent #India #Pakistan #Bangladesh #colonialism #British #BritishEmpire #BritishRule #CarolineElkins #Elkins #book #quotes #regimeChange
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On the Fediverse, it is common to come across discourse on the critical importance of “privacy” for “democracy” and for “human rights”. How the liberal notion of privacy arose is rarely, if ever, interrogated. The liberal advocates of privacy do not even register the dialectic of privacy and surveillance in a capitalist system.
Given this context, I think the following passages from the second edition of Christian Fuchs’s book, “Social Media: A Critical Introduction”, are worth sharing.
From page 187:
The problem of secret bank accounts/transactions and the intransparency of richness and company profits is not only that financial privacy can support tax evasion, black money and money laundering, but also that it hides wealth gaps. Financial privacy reflects the classical liberal account of privacy. So, for example, John Stuart Mill formulated a right of the propertied class to economic privacy as “the owner’s privacy against invasion” (Mill 1965, 232). Economic privacy (the right to keep information about income, profits or bank transactions secret) protects the rich, companies and the wealthy. The anonymity of wealth, high incomes and profits makes income and wealth gaps between the rich and the poor invisible and thereby ideologically helps legitimizing and upholding these gaps. It can therefore be considered an ideological mechanism that helps to reproduce and deepen inequality.
From page 189:
Capitalism is grounded in the idea that the private sphere should be separated from the public sphere and should not be accessible by the public, and that therefore autonomy and anonymity of the individual are needed in the private sphere. The rise of the idea of privacy in modern society is connected to the rise of the central ideal of the freedom of private ownership. Private ownership is the idea that humans have the right to as much wealth as they want, as long as it is inherited or acquired through individual achievements. There is an antagonism between private ownership and social equity in modern society. Many contemporary societies treat how much and what exactly a person owns as an aspect of privacy. Keeping ownership structures secret is a precautionary measure against the public questioning of or the political and individual attack against private ownership.
Capitalism requires anonymity and privacy in order to function. But full privacy is also not possible in modern society because strangers enter social relations that require trust or enable exchange. Building trust requires knowing certain data about other persons, especially in capitalist market relations. It is therefore checked with the help of surveillance procedures whether or not a stranger can be trusted. This means that companies try to find out as much as possible about job applicants, workers, consumers and competitors and that various forms of monitoring and espionage are common means for doing so. Corporations have the aim of accumulating ever more capital. That is why they have an interest in knowing as much as possible about their workers (in order to control them) and the interests, tastes and behaviours of their customers. This results in the surveillance of workers/employees and consumers.
The ideals of modernity (such as the freedom of ownership) also produce phenomena such as income and wealth inequality, poverty, unemployment, precarious living and working conditions, crime and so on. The establishment of trust, socio-economic differences and corporate interests are three qualities of modernity that necessitate surveillance. Therefore, on the one hand modernity advances the ideal of a right to privacy, but on the other hand it must continuously advance surveillance that threatens to undermine privacy rights. An antagonism between privacy ideals and surveillance is therefore constitutive of capitalism.
#fediverse #mastodon #SocialMedia #capitalism #liberalism #privacy #RightToPrivacy #security #anonymity #encryption #e2ee #surveillance -
On the Fediverse, it is common to come across discourse on the critical importance of “privacy” for “democracy” and for “human rights”. How the liberal notion of privacy arose is rarely, if ever, interrogated. The liberal advocates of privacy do not even register the dialectic of privacy and surveillance in a capitalist system.
Given this context, I think the following passages from the second edition of Christian Fuchs’s book, “Social Media: A Critical Introduction”, are worth sharing.
From page 187:
The problem of secret bank accounts/transactions and the intransparency of richness and company profits is not only that financial privacy can support tax evasion, black money and money laundering, but also that it hides wealth gaps. Financial privacy reflects the classical liberal account of privacy. So, for example, John Stuart Mill formulated a right of the propertied class to economic privacy as “the owner’s privacy against invasion” (Mill 1965, 232). Economic privacy (the right to keep information about income, profits or bank transactions secret) protects the rich, companies and the wealthy. The anonymity of wealth, high incomes and profits makes income and wealth gaps between the rich and the poor invisible and thereby ideologically helps legitimizing and upholding these gaps. It can therefore be considered an ideological mechanism that helps to reproduce and deepen inequality.
From page 189:
Capitalism is grounded in the idea that the private sphere should be separated from the public sphere and should not be accessible by the public, and that therefore autonomy and anonymity of the individual are needed in the private sphere. The rise of the idea of privacy in modern society is connected to the rise of the central ideal of the freedom of private ownership. Private ownership is the idea that humans have the right to as much wealth as they want, as long as it is inherited or acquired through individual achievements. There is an antagonism between private ownership and social equity in modern society. Many contemporary societies treat how much and what exactly a person owns as an aspect of privacy. Keeping ownership structures secret is a precautionary measure against the public questioning of or the political and individual attack against private ownership.
Capitalism requires anonymity and privacy in order to function. But full privacy is also not possible in modern society because strangers enter social relations that require trust or enable exchange. Building trust requires knowing certain data about other persons, especially in capitalist market relations. It is therefore checked with the help of surveillance procedures whether or not a stranger can be trusted. This means that companies try to find out as much as possible about job applicants, workers, consumers and competitors and that various forms of monitoring and espionage are common means for doing so. Corporations have the aim of accumulating ever more capital. That is why they have an interest in knowing as much as possible about their workers (in order to control them) and the interests, tastes and behaviours of their customers. This results in the surveillance of workers/employees and consumers.
The ideals of modernity (such as the freedom of ownership) also produce phenomena such as income and wealth inequality, poverty, unemployment, precarious living and working conditions, crime and so on. The establishment of trust, socio-economic differences and corporate interests are three qualities of modernity that necessitate surveillance. Therefore, on the one hand modernity advances the ideal of a right to privacy, but on the other hand it must continuously advance surveillance that threatens to undermine privacy rights. An antagonism between privacy ideals and surveillance is therefore constitutive of capitalism.
#fediverse #mastodon #SocialMedia #capitalism #liberalism #privacy #RightToPrivacy #security #anonymity #encryption #e2ee #surveillance -
Por fin una #noticia refrescante. Si te vas a trabajar a la mina al culo del mundo, ganas más dinero que con el SMI... #cryptobros news. #junknews #liberalism
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Por fin una #noticia refrescante. Si te vas a trabajar a la mina al culo del mundo, ganas más dinero que con el SMI... #cryptobros news. #junknews #liberalism
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#libertarianism #liberalism #facts
"The government was set to protect man from criminals, and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government."
Ayn Rand
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#libertarianism #liberalism #facts
"When words lose their meaning, people lose their liberty."
Confucius
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"sovereign wealth funds globally manage a record high of approximately $15 trillion in assets, up from less than $1 trillion in 2000. "
#capitalism #democracy #liberalism #neoliberalism #inequality #elections -
phenomenalworld.org/analysis/tru... 1/ "As of early 2026, state-owned enterprises control even more: $54 trillion in assets, the equivalent of almost half of global GDP, which is up from about $13 trillion in 2000." #capitalism #democracy #liberalism #neoliberalism #inequality #elections
Trumpian State Capitalism | Il... -
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"sovereign wealth funds globally manage a record high of approximately $15 trillion in assets, up from less than $1 trillion in 2000. "
#capitalism #democracy #liberalism #neoliberalism #inequality #elections -
phenomenalworld.org/analysis/tru... 1/ "As of early 2026, state-owned enterprises control even more: $54 trillion in assets, the equivalent of almost half of global GDP, which is up from about $13 trillion in 2000." #capitalism #democracy #liberalism #neoliberalism #inequality #elections
Trumpian State Capitalism | Il... -
https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/trumpian-state-capitalism/
"As of early 2026, sovereign wealth funds globally manage a record high of approximately $15 trillion in assets, up from less than $1 trillion in 2000. State-owned enterprises control even more: $54 trillion in assets, the equivalent of almost half of global GDP, which is up from about $13 trillion in 2000."
#capitalism #democracy #liberalism #neoliberalism #inequality #elections
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https://phenomenalworld.org/analysis/trumpian-state-capitalism/
"As of early 2026, sovereign wealth funds globally manage a record high of approximately $15 trillion in assets, up from less than $1 trillion in 2000. State-owned enterprises control even more: $54 trillion in assets, the equivalent of almost half of global GDP, which is up from about $13 trillion in 2000."
#capitalism #democracy #liberalism #neoliberalism #inequality #elections
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This was clearly written by a liberal or it would not display such naiveness regarding the discretionary power of a State governed by the rule of law. Even though the article seems superficially very erudite, it exhibits a clear lack of knowledge of not only economic history but also of economic sociology. First of all, because it's written from the assumption that everything that preceded the Modern Era is useless from the point of view of human knowledge, which is very typical of bourgeois thinking.
"An economic historian might say that a political takeover by Big AI is unlikely, citing successful worker-led political movements in the US and Europe. If the US reaches 30% AI-induced unemployment, the thinking goes, workers will rise up and demand change through political mechanisms of our liberal democracy. There’s reason to doubt these parallels. These events occurred earlier in the technological era, when industry and workers were adversarial yet remained interdependent. Citizens retained irreducible leverage with both industry (as laborers) and government (as voters). In the decades after the US Gilded Age, this combination of economic and electoral power was critical to the rising status of workers. But in a future post-AI economy, workers could lose their jobs because of Big AI while remaining dependent on Big AI for basic needs.
(...)
Legally, shifting the social safety net from government to Big AI also means that citizen entitlement to these goodies will shift from public statutory and constitutional law to private-contract law. Private companies can withhold goodies for many reasons the government cannot. For instance: if you talk shit about the government, you will still get your unemployment check, because the First Amendment says so. But no such restriction on Big AI: if you talk shit about them, they will be free to revoke your goodies."https://matthewbutterick.com/extinction-level-capitalism.html
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Neoliberalism is the re-entrenchment of feudalism wearing the coat of democracy.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=oJ0G4hAUsVE
#neoliberalism #liberalism #history #colonialism #imperialism #gaming #thatcherism #reaganomics #friedrichhayek #miltonfriedman #jpmorgan #citybank #billclinton #tonyblair
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NOW ON VERDANT SQUARE RADIO ==
NOW PLAYING == The Eclectic Radical with Chris Richards 6/7/26: Classical Roots of #Liberalismhttps://www.youtube.com/live/NUplLXSObmQ?si=x7e82NnsPJS7TPBt#news #uspol #geopolitics #commentary #progressive #housing #rent #actiphilovism #left #ChrisRichards #anticapitalist #leftist #revolutionary #vsn #radio #DiverseSpectrumOfTheLeft #SupportIndependentMedia #Resist
https://mastodon.social/@VerdantSquareRadio/116709405860409436
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#AntiAI #technology people's whole stance is reminiscent of the problem with #Liberals and #Liberalism.
They are usually like, "Don't ever do anything with #AI".
The stance is to entirely abdicate any and all responsibility for the #tech to #billionaires #oligarchs and #techbros.
It is the reason why #evil is allowed to take foothold. It is the reason why #fascism rises. The people who are compassionate, ethical, and righteous are weak and feckless.
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