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Humane-Human t1_iwki49t wrote

Unless you are from Australia you will have no idea what this means, lol

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CareTricky4335 t1_iwkkzu8 wrote

Labor and Liberals are the two rival political parties in Australia there's technically more but those are the two major ones that people typically vote for.

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speederbrad95 t1_iwkp7ct wrote

And the liberals aren’t actually liberal policy wise…

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ISISstolemykidsname t1_iwkphbg wrote

The are, its just classical liberalism not the more popular current usage.

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Humane-Human t1_iwktamc wrote

no, they aren't classical liberals

they are conservatives in a coalition with far right nationalists

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Supermichael777 t1_iwl05ww wrote

Economic liberalism with conservative social tendencies. Liberals aren't your friends. It's the politics of wealth, trading power for wealth, and trading wealth for power.

Liberalism is the old guard of modern and post modern economics. It is a conservative position in practice, because closely aligning power and wealth is inherently opposition to changing the systems of wealth and power.

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Nimrond t1_iwnk91w wrote

But classical liberalism is more than just economic liberalism. It's individualism, equal rights, separation of state and church, religious tolerance and much more. It's certainly not about using your wealth to gain power over others, to infringe on their liberty. Not even the government can do that in classical liberalism - if it breaks the social contract, it becomes a tyranny to be overthrown. No monarchy with those guys. Economic protectionism or subsidizing your coal industry buddies are very much not economic liberalism either.

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Saleh1434 t1_iwl8pho wrote

Conservatives are liberals.

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Gh0stMan0nThird t1_iwl8y2d wrote

Honestly the term conservative and liberal are entirely subjective anyway.

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Apeswald_Mosley t1_iwmm5bu wrote

No they entirely are not, its just people have repeatedly used them without understanding what they entail until now they've taken on new connotations

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GoodMerlinpeen t1_iwl5jen wrote

>no, they aren't classical liberals

What are the characteristics of classical liberals in your view?

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gregorydgraham t1_iwl9o7w wrote

Classical liberal are the party of merchants, entrepreneurs, and the nouveau riche. They believe in free trade and freedom of labour (to move to their factory). They’re against workers rights, subsidies (right up until they need them), and entrenched aristocracy.

Classical conservatives are the party of landowners, established monopolies, and old money. They believe everything is just perfect and will enact miserly changes only when forced to.

Classical Labour/socialist are the party of the little guy. They believe in freedom of trade, freedom of labour, and freedom of movement. They’re against the other 2.

Believe it or not, none of these exist any more. All we have now is Neoliberals, Reactionaries, and closet neoliberals. And the Greens, I suppose

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vacri t1_iwn45x6 wrote

>Classical Labour/socialist are the party of the little guy. They believe in freedom of trade, freedom of labour, and freedom of movement

???

That wing of politics is much more for protectionism than freedom of trade. Socialism in particular is big on controlling trade.

Freedom of labour and movement is also a weird one, as they're not really up for freedom of labour and movement if it's the wrong kind of person. And certainly in practice, history's socialist countries have been quite strict on freedom of movement even for the favoured people

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gregorydgraham t1_iwn6a3j wrote

Traditional Marxism sees international borders as yet another way to oppress the little guy. Modern labour parties are covered in paragraph 4

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vacri t1_iwnlxz7 wrote

When you say "All we have now is", you're implying that in the real world we used to have significant political parties that followed your definitions.

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gregorydgraham t1_iwoeiw7 wrote

Fairly certain I explicitly said we used to have parties like that. My apologies if it was only implied.

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vacri t1_iwp425n wrote

Sorry, you're right, you did explicitly say that. I stand corrected.

Who were the real-world significant political parties that had abolition of the concept of nations as a core part of their platform?

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gregorydgraham t1_iwpb6p0 wrote

Well the Bolshevik’s for a starter.

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vacri t1_iwpq4wn wrote

... and what a borderless, free-trade nation they created once they took power!

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zipsam89 t1_iwn0zby wrote

That is absolutely not what classical Labour or socialists are.

Especially not freedom of trade.

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HouseHusband1 t1_iwljk7r wrote

Classical liberalism means low government oversight, as in "being liberated". Basically libertarian. This results in private citizens mistreating other private citizens with little legal recourse.

Colloquial liberalism means social inclusion, as in "accepting ideas other than your own." So welfare programs, corporate regulations, and inclusion of all demographics.

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socialcommentary2000 t1_iwlmgco wrote

Yeah it's basically "Pay no attention to the fash unless it's hurting my avarice and then, only pay attention to an extent that it doesn't inconvenience me (and not cost me any money.)"

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ISISstolemykidsname t1_iwl93dw wrote

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Humane-Human t1_iwm7dwr wrote

Of course I'm confident

I'm Australian, I've grown up seeing the liberals being a bunch of conservatives

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ISISstolemykidsname t1_iwo7k93 wrote

Oh well you must be right then, because there wasn't ever a time before you were born where the word meant something different...

Oh and I'm also Australian.

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imafraidofmuricans t1_iwmm8dj wrote

Reddit really doesn't know what "liberal" and "liberalism" is.

No they are. It's just that liberalism is shit. Just because the US is stuck between liberalism and actual facism doesn't mean liberalism is good

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Pro_Yankee t1_iwkjorh wrote

Bottle-o

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Humane-Human t1_iwkk10s wrote

I was trying to think of something dumb and Australian to say:

You made me blush red as the sands of the Simpson Desert

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ash_274 t1_iwl8vf0 wrote

The party names and their political directions I know, I don’t know who Daniel Andrews is.

Edit: he’s the equivalent of a US state governor and of the opposition party. At least he’s not a potato that thinks he’s a superhero (NSFW, but funny)

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Humane-Human t1_iwm7ooo wrote

He's not the opposition leader, he's Victoria's Labor leader (and in power as premiere), and Labor also is in federal government

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