Liberal Socialism

Not to be confused with Libertarian Socialism or Social Liberalism.

"Socialism must tend to become liberal, and liberalism to take on the substance of the proletarian struggle. It is not possible to be liberal without joining actively in the cause of the workers, and there is no way to serve the cause of labor efficiently without coming to grips with the philosophy of the modern world, a philosophy founded on the idea of development through oppositions eternally overcome; here lies the core of the liberal point of view."
Carlo Rosselli

Liberal Socialism is an economically centre-left to left-wing political theory and ideology which holds that Socialism is compatible with Liberalism.

Generally, Liberal Socialism believes in a form of reformist evolutionary socialism within the framework of liberal democracy through unions, cooperatives, targeted nationalization, and the expansion of welfare. This is reconciled with liberalism as an expansion of the democratic principle to the sphere of economics, and Liberal Socialism views socialism as an ideology fundamentally based in freedom. It rejects strict adherence to Marxism and instead bases its philosophy on humanism, pragmatism, and skepticism.

However, there is no one conception of what Liberal Socialism is, but rather, many different (sometimes contradictory) interpretations.

Conceptions

As Liberal Mixed Economy

Liberal Socialism can sometimes mean liberalism which operates through a robust mixed economy, without intentions of transferring to a fully socialist system. This often pans out as a slightly more left wing version of what is otherwise indistinguishable from Social Liberalism or Social Democracy.

As Socialist Liberal Democracy

Alternatively, Liberal Socialism can mean a Liberal Democracy that would have a Market Socialist economy, or a Democratic Socialist society that would have free markets, minimal regulations, and very few (if any) planning.

As Liberal/Socialist Reform

Another way of looking at liberal socialism is as an attempt to reform a liberal economy into a fully socialist one, or alternatively, as the liberalization of a centralized State Socialist government.

As Historiography

Liberal Socialism can be seen as a view of history as going from Feudalism to Liberalism, and then Finally to Socialism. This conception tends to view Socialism as the best way carry on the Classical Liberal principles of Equality and Liberty.

Liberalism as Socialism

Liberal socialism can also be seen as using the Liberal philosophy that the liberty of man should not be offended and that a person should not be treated as means but as ends, extended to the economy, combined to prove socialist standpoints.

History

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Influenced by

(gives a explanation by what ideologies the ideology was influenced by and how it was influenced by that ideology)

Foreign Influence

(gives a explanation of foreign influence the ideology has had)

Proto-

(shows of a version of the ideology before it fully came to being i.e. the societal priming for the creation of the ideology)

Creation/Origin

(the actual creation of the ideology)

General History 1

(here goes the general history of the ideology stuff that does not fit into the proto, origin, peak, downfall and modern section)

General History 2

(here goes the general history of the ideology stuff that does not fit into the proto, origin, peak, downfall and modern section)

General History etc

(goes on for as long as it needs to go on for)

Peak

(this section is about the ideology and the peak of its intellectual, ideological strength and the height of its popularity)

General History 3

(here goes the general history of the ideology stuff that does not fit into the proto, origin, peak, downfall and modern section)

General History 4

(here goes the general history of the ideology stuff that does not fit into the proto, origin, peak, downfall and modern section)

General History etc

(goes on for as long as it needs to go on for)

Downfall

(this section is about the eventual downfall of the ideology and what has caused this downfall)

Modern

(how the ideology is doing in the modern day and what its current standing as a movement is)

Influenced

(which ideologies this ideology has influenced and how it influenced them)

Examples

IRL Examples

Germany

Main article: Bernsteinism

In Germany, liberal socialist ideals can be said to originate with the development of revisionist Marxism of Eduard Bernstein who defined the term 'socialism' as 'Organized Liberalism'.

United Kingdom

In Great Britain, the development of Liberal Socialism can be traced back to a number of sources of liberal and socialist origin. Liberal Socialism of liberal origin can be found in the theories of the political economist John Stuart Mill, who greatly influenced the political ideology of Social Liberalism which is a type of liberalism that believes that economic freedom can be only achieved through an extensive social state. Although, Mill is noted as going a step further, favoring collectivized workplaces. He theorized that capitalist societies shall experience a gradual process of socialization with worker cooperatives slowly replacing private enterprises.

John Mill's liberal socialism did not completely abolish capitalism and replace it with socialism, but it supported a mixed economy based on market socialism, including social ownership of private property and capital. Liberal socialists generally do not support centralism or socialism in the form of the state, but support the realization of property collectivization through market socialism of individual workers' cooperatives. This form of workers' community cooperatives can be seen as a manifestation of Liberalism: everyone can join according to their own free will, but if it is not conducive to their own self-development, individuals can leave at any time. Liberal socialists believe that the introduction of collective property eliminates the dependence on workers and employers, thus bringing real freedom to workers. English liberal socialists believe that freedom and equality are mutually compatible and interdependent, and regard the material inequality produced by capitalism as one of the main reasons for the increasingly lack of freedom. Free socialists also generally support the free market, and believe that market monopoly is the inevitable result of capitalism, and only through market socialism can the real free market be achieved.

Liberal socialism of socialist origin in Britain can be found in the theories of the Christian Socialist historian and activist Richard Henry Tawney, who developed a theory of 'Ethical Socialism'. Ethical socialism as a movement saw to justify socialism on ethical and moral grounds, as opposed to material grounds.

Tawney later joined, influenced, and became an executive of the socialist think tank of the Fabian Society which was a group that wanted to achieve Socialism through reformist means in democracies ( Democratic Socialism.) The ideology of the Fabian Society (Fabianism) may, in turn, be characterized as a form of liberal socialism.

The term 'Liberal Socialism' was later used by the British economist John Maynard Keynes to describe his political ideology:^[50]

The question is whether we are prepared to move out of the nineteen-century laissez-faire state into an era of liberal socialism, by which I mean a system where we can act as an organized community for common purposes and to promote economic and social justice, whilst respecting and protecting the individual – his freedom of choice, his faith, his mind and its expression, his enterprise, and his property.
John Maynard Keynes, Collected Writings, volume 2, page 500

The British novelist George Orwell, known for works like Animal Farm and 1984, was a proponent of liberal socialism. According to Orwell, every work of literature of his after 1936 written "directly or indirectly against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" as he understood it. More radical socialists have criticized Orwell for his conservative leanings such as his homophobic and antisemitic views, as well as his collaboration for the British government in writing lists of authors who were notably sympathetic to the Soviet Union.

Italy

The term 'Liberal Socialism' was popularized by the Jewish-Italian political leader Carlo Rosselli who was influenced both by Eduard Bernstein and by the British Labor movement. Carlo Rosselli rejected the political theories of Marx and favored non-Marxist socialism. He believed that liberal democracy is not just important for socialist construction, but also for its realization. Additionally, Carlo Rosseli founded Justice and Liberty (Italian: Giustizia e Libertà) which was a resistance movement against the Fascist government of Italy.

Strangely enough, the founder of fascism Giovanni Gentile referred to himself as more liberal than Wilson and socialist than Lenin. Liberalism to him meant a liberty that universalized itself beyond one's personal bubble. And his socialism came from his study of Marxism and his admiration for the ideals of the Risorgimento.

United States

In the United States, the term 'Liberal Socialism' was used by the political theorist John Rawls to describe his political ideology.

In the United States a type of Liberal Socialism was espoused by the anarcho-syndicalist thinker Noam Chomsky. In his book On Anarchism claiming that libertarian socialism to be conclusion of classical liberal principles:^[51]

These ideas grow out of the Enlightenment Thought; their roots are in Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality, Humboldt’s Limits of State Action, Kant’s insistence, in his defense of the French Revolution, that freedom is the precondition for acquiring the maturity for freedom, not a gift to be granted when such maturity is achieved. With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order. In fact, on the very same assumptions that led classical liberalism to oppose the intervention of the state in social life, capitalist social relations are also intolerable. This is clear, for example, from the classic work of Humboldt, The Limits of State Action, which anticipated and perhaps inspired Mill and to which we return below. This classic of liberal thought, completed in 1792, is in its essence profoundly, though prematurely, anticapitalist. Its ideas must be attenuated beyond recognition to be transmuted into an ideology of industrial capitalism.
Humboldt’s vision of a society in which social fetters are replaced by social bonds and labor is freely undertaken suggests the early Marx, with his discussion of the “alienation of labor when work is external to the worker ... not part of his nature ... [so that] he does not fulfill himself in his work but denies himself ... [and is] physically exhausted and mentally debased,” alienated labor that “casts some of the workers back into a barbarous kind of work and turns others into machines,” thus depriving man of his “species character” of “free conscious activity” and “productive life.” Similarly, Marx conceives of “a new type of human being who needs his fellow-men.... [The workers’ association becomes] the real constructive effort to create the social texture of future human relations.” It is true that classical libertarian thought is opposed to state intervention in social life, as a consequence of deeper assumptions about the human need for liberty, diversity, and free association. On the same assumptions, capitalist relations of production, wage labor, competitiveness, the ideology of “possessive individualism”—all must be regarded as fundamentally antihuman. Libertarian socialism is properly to be regarded as the inheritor of the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.
Rudolf Rocker describes modern anarchism as “the confluence of the two great currents which during and since the French revolution have found such characteristic expression in the intellectual life of Europe: Socialism and Liberalism.” The classical liberal ideals, he argues, were wrecked on the realities of capitalist economic forms. Anarchism is necessarily anti-capitalist in that it “opposes the exploitation of man by man.” But anarchism also opposes “the dominion of man over man.” It insists that “socialism will be free or it will not be at all. In its recognition of this lies the genuine and profound justification for the existence of anarchism.” From this point of view, anarchism may be regarded as the libertarian wing of socialism. It is in this spirit that Daniel Guérin has approached the study of anarchism in Anarchism and other works.
Noam Chomsky, On Anarchism

A similar view has been espoused by the American BreadTuber VaushV.^[52] Leading to liberal socialism to be sarcastically called Vaushism within the Polcompball community.

When Marx and following theorists wrote on capitalism they weren't writing 'capitalism and liberalism are worst things to ever happen to humanity, they are the greatest oppression of workers'. No. Marxism is supposed to be an extension of liberalism not a rejection of it, a true promotion of unity, fraternity, and freedom, and liberty, and shit. That's what Marxism and that's what leftism is about, it's about bringing the messaging of the liberal movement forward, to make it better, to make it get stronger, to make it true to its principles.
Vaush

Brazil

WIP

Soviet Union/Russia

Mikhail Gorbachev was the last general secretary of the USSR who oversaw the demise of the Soviet Empire. Gorbachev was a compromised general secretary who rose to power when the USSR was on the brink of collapse, already suffering economic stagnation, supply shortages, sing the mounting costs of Brezhnev’s Afghan war. In his tenure, he implemented a series of reforms, including perestroika, glasnost, new political thinking, withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the abandonment of the Brezhnev Doctrine. Much of his political career was spent trying to balance the needs of various inner-factions between hardliners, moderate/reformist communists, and nationalists. Out of desperation, and from a sheer lack of efficiency from the state-planned model, he made an attempt to reform the country that drew from the experiences of market socialist economies such as the SFRY, Hungary, and China, despite his desperate attempt to re-form the soviet system, because of various complicated factors, his efforts to radically restructure the soviet system failed miserably to prevent a complete collapse of the Soviet Union.

The pullout of troops from Afghanistan and Eastern Europe was also mishandled. This led to the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Revolutions of 1989, along with the Islamist takeover of Afghanistan. In 1991, the Soviet hardliners who opposed his reforms saw his proposal to change the USSR into a confederation as undesirable and “treason.” They launched the infamous “August Coup,” which tried to restore the Soviet Empire, which effectively made Gorbachev powerless since then. This gave the rise of Boris Yeltsin, who subsequently declared the end of the USSR, along with other separatist nationalist leaders.

Fictional Examples

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Comparisons

parallels to insert ideology

(similar ideologies to the ideology and the parallels it has)

parallels to insert movement

(similar movements to the ideology and the parallels it has)

Intellectuals

Main Intellectual

(this section talks about the most important intellectual to the movement)

Intellectual etc.

(this section talks about less important but still critical people, it is numbered and goes on for however long it needs to go on for)

Foundations and Beliefs

Tenets

(main principles and assumptions the ideology holds)

Theory/Belief 1

(a belief or theory the ideology holds)

Theory/Belief 2

(a belief or theory the ideology holds)

Theory/Belief etc

(goes on for as long as it needs to)

Framework

(this section puts all the beliefs into a larger cohesive framework and makes them mix with each other)

Misc

(random stuff that doesn't fit in any of those categories)

Variants

Internal conflicts in ideology

(this section is for conflicts members of the ideology have often had with each other)

Factions in Ideology

(these are the general positions members in the ideology take i.e. some take a more conservative line)

Sub-Ideologies

Sub-Ideology 1

(this section is for explaining the component ideologies)

Sub-Ideology 2

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Sub-Ideology etc

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Schools of Thought

(this is for explaining different interpretations of the ideology)

Authoritarian Liberal Socialism

Authoritarian Liberal Socialism is the authoritarian version of liberal socialism. It often occurs when a state socialist government is forced to reform in order to preserve itself. These reforms usually occur in one of two forms. The first form is when the state socialist government undertakes a policy of economic liberalism, which allows the state’s power to remain unchallenged by outside forces. The second form is when a state socialist government introduces cooperatives into the economy and begins to allow greater freedoms to the people.

Alternatively, authoritarian liberal socialism can be read as a strong state that provides welfare in conjunction with liberal principles such as republicanism and some socialist principles like land reform in an attempt to forstall further radicalism.

BreadTube

WIP

Regional Tendencies

American Social Democracy

American Social Democracy refers to the American variant of social democracy. It is the left-wing version of social democracy which is left-populist.

Personality and Behaviour

(here goes the personality of the ideology)

How it acts

(how the ideology reacts to other ideologies generally)

Aesthetics

(the general aesthetics of the ideology)

Stylistic Notes

(generally small facts about the ideologies behaviour or looks)

How to draw

Symbols

(symbols the ideology has)

Flags

Liberal socialism's symbol is a crossed hammer and quill, the symbol of the Czech National Social Party and of the Radical Civic Union which were historically regarded as liberal socialist parties. The symbols of the hammer and quill represent solidarity between workers and clerks.

Props

(props the ideology often has)

Drawing

Draw a ball
Draw a red hammer and a feather crossed
Add the eyes and you're done!

Color Name		HEX	RGB
	Red	#D00505	rgb(208, 5, 5)
	White	#FFFFFF	rgb(255, 255, 255)

Alternate Designs

(guides of the alternate designs)

Variation Designs

(guides of the variant designs)

Relationships

Friends

Liberalism - Liberty, equality, and solidarity must be the eternal creed of mankind.
Socialism - What is governmental democracy without economic democracy?
Rossellism - The founder of our movement, and a martyr to the cause of liberty.
Bernsteinism - That which is generally called the end of socialism is nothing, but the movement is everything.
Democracy - Of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Civil Libertarianism - Hooray for human rights!
Progressivism - We shall make history march to the beat of progress!
Cosmopolitanism - The world is my country,
Multiculturalism - All mankind are my brethren,
Secularism - And to do good is my religion.
Radicalism - I am the modern form of you and the heir to your noble cause, dear friend.
Market Socialism - What good is socialism if the people starve?
Radical Centrism - Dogmatism is the bane of progress.
Reformism - Revolution is not radical, today it is really the idealistic mirage of future revolution which keeps the people from realizing the power they hold in the present. Real radical action is changing the world.
Social Democracy and Nordic Model - Your model is the farthest we’ve come, but we will push beyond it..
Social Liberalism - We are very similar, but you often focus far too much on defining yourself in support of the status quo. But Gobetti, Thomas Mann, Rawls, and Bobbio are based.
Democratic Socialism - You are often more against the status quo than me, but many of your followers agree with me on many issues. (Still, we are not the same).
Mandelaism - South Africa owes you a debt it could never repay.
Sun Yat-sen Thought - What China could have been... Rest in peace, comrade Sun Yat-sen.
Gorbachevism - Your sacrifice will not be forgotten. I know that right now it may seem that you failed, but history will vindicate you. Too bad Yeltsin destroyed your plans.
Kerenskyism - Never before has a man so noble had his legacy so defamed.
Machiavellianism - ~~“You call it selling out your principles, I call it fucking winning - and that's my principle.”~~

Frenemies

Centrist Marxism - We disagree, but many of my most prominent advocates started out in your ranks, from George Orwell and Clement Attlee to Willy Brandt.
Sewer Socialism - We could have been friends, but you just had to call me "Worse then Mitch McConnell", huh?
Classical Liberalism - You founded our movement in liberty, but answer me this, is a man thirsty in a desert truly free?
Utopian Socialism - We are fellow utopians, but your models were hopelessly naive.
Anarchism - You act like we do what we do out of weakness, but you have no understanding of the existing system or what you wish to replace it with. While you get to explore the fantasies of tomorrow, we must do the menial work which consists of today.
Capitalism - Markets aren't inherently capitalist, hope you can realize that.
Neoliberalism - I can uniquely appreciate the boons of the modern world, but you are so narcissistically incompetent and unwilling to bend to populism that often you almost seem to be actively inviting the rise of world Fascism.
Left-Wing Populism - The people must become politically conscious while avoiding faux radicalism.
Libertarian Socialism - Our ideals are aligned, but you would not even know what to do if power fell into your lap.
Chomskyism - Idk man, you said some pretty nice things about me, but your tendency to downplay the crimes of genocidal dictators just because they don't like the US is usually the kind of stuff I'd expect from tankies rather than a self-described left-libertarian, let alone an anarchist.
Fabian Socialism - I'm glad you like my ideas, but what's with the Eugenics?
Neoconservatism - You are often the arm of imperialism, but I would not deny in theory that international law and an arsenal of democracy would be beneficial.
Titoism - Your anti-fascist and anti-Stalinist action was commendable, and your attempts at Market Socialism are useful for study, but your regime was hopelessly corrupt and authoritarian.
Civic Nationalism - I am a staunch opponent of nationalism, but loving one’s republic is not necessarily wrong.
Left-Wing Nationalism - I suppose some nationalism is acceptable if used for the purpose of social reform and principled anti-colonial struggle.
Liberal Feminism - Look I get what you’re trying to do, but you’re so incompetent at messaging and hyper focused on inconsequential cultural issues that you end up hurting more than you help.
Third Way - I really don’t like you, but Tony Blair gets an unreasonably bad rap on the left, and some of your policy achievements are commendable.
Big Tent Liberalism - I like you even less, but I would march through hell to elect you over a fascist.
Marxism - Many of your ideas are compelling, but you are far too esoteric, determinist, and dogmatic to be a useful guide in the modern day.
~~Catherinianism - Absolutist, but we are both quite fond of horses.~~

Enemies

Leninism - Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.
Marxism–Leninism - An authoritarian perversion of socialism which exists only to justify totalitarian states.
Fascism - It is truly astounding how ideas that are in such contradiction with the interests of humanity find such purchase in the minds of the people. ~~What do you mean you're more liberal than Wilson and more socialist than Lenin?~~
Dengism - BACKSTABBER! REMEMBER THE STUDENTS! REMEMBER HU YAOBANG! REMEMBER ZHAO ZIYANG! ALSO STOP VIOLATING FILIPINO SEAS!^[53]
Capitalist Communism - No, Liberalism is not an inherently Capitalist ideology, I'm not you!
Nazism - “The American people will fight with a relentless fury which will drive the ancient Teutonic gods back cowering into their caves. The Götterdämmerung has come for Odin and his crew.”
Conservatism - Look forward, not back. The glory days of humanity are yet to come.
Conservative Feminism - If you want to stay in the kitchen so much then get out of my face.
Ethnocracy - Imagine caring about the color of people’s skin lmfao..
Thatcherism - It doesn't matter if you are a "liberal". You called Mandela's political party a "terrorist organization" and refused to impose sanctions on apartheid!
Reactionaryism, Paleoconservatism and Classical Conservatism - Reaction must die if man is to live.
Alt-Right - You all need to touch grass and feel the warm light on your skin.
Objectivism - You are objectively evil.
Economic Freedom Fighters - Literally the kill whitey party. Get booted from ANC!
Zumaism - You ruined my party, stole votes from me, and let me no choice but to ally with my (former) opposition. You get the boot as well.
Crowderism - I am not Adolf Hitler.
Jihadism - Fundamentalism must be purged from the Earth.
Italian Left Communism - You are quite literally a red fascist and emblematic of the rot of Leninism. How can you claim to be a socialist while rejecting democracy and freedom?
- And how THE FUCK can you call yourself a socialist when 95% of the time you don't even believe in getting rid of private property on so much as the bourgeois legal stage?

Duterteism - Your policies on LGBT and Drugs were horrible. At least you are gone now.
Bongbong Marcosism - NO YOUR EVEN WORSE THEN THE ABOVE HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?!?!?!?