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>It's surprising because economic liberalism doesn't have any deep roots in Greece. There is no liberal party. The Greeks traditionally think in terms of left a

>It's surprising because economic liberalism doesn't have any deep roots in Greece. There is no liberal party. The Greeks traditionally think in terms of left and right. A) There is a liberal party in Greece (just as much as there is a liberal party in Germany or France), the people just don't vote for it. B) Liberalism and "laissez-faire thinking" are right wing, I can't see another way of thinking about that. I am a recent (after-crisis) Greek immigrant and the assumptions made by the article are not true for me. It is not the wages (I am a professional in an area where there are a lot of good paying jobs, even in Greece) or the bad public sector (you learn to deal with that) that is keeping me away from Greece. It is the beyond-imagination terrible working conditions. Why would I leave my union-protected job in Germany to work twice as many hours (paid overtime is not a thing in Greece) with 0 job stability?

shard972 8y ago
Liberalism itself isn't right wing at all. Consider that in the USA at the moment liberalism is most concentrated within the democratic party as most neo-liberals have left the party post Trump. Steve Schmidt and Joe Scarborough are two obvious examples of this shift.
- jgh 8y ago
  Just because the US Democratic party is associated with economic liberalism doesnt mean it isnt right-wing.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    The US democratic party wants free welfare, free education for everyone: none of this has been historically supported by "right-wing" movements. So it's a difficult to support your statement.
    - jgh 8y ago
      What? Economic liberalism is about the free market, private property, reduced regulation, etc. etc. Which are traditionally the pro-business republican positions that one of the above commentators mentioned as leaving the republican party because of Trump. I don't know where these people have gone, maybe they went to the Democratic party, but collectivist ideas like welfare, free education, and single-payer healthcare aren't really "economic liberal" positions.
    - leereeves 8y ago
      Bernie Sanders wanted free college, but he doesn't represent the party.
      - ekianjo 8y ago
        Wasn't he hugely popular among democrats?
  - ben_w 8y ago
    I second this. Both Democrat and Republican parties are much too right wing to get elected in the UK. I am aware that it may seem surprising that Obamacare is too right-wing, but compare it to the NHS. Likewise, one of the things which makes no sense to me about American politics are sentences like “liberals want to take away our guns” (sarcastic use of the name?) in response to limited control; in comparison, the UK is so anti-gun even the police don’t usually have any. One of the other left-right splits we see in American news is on the topic of gay marriage (left-wing pro, right-wing anti). In the UK, gay marriage was legalised by the most right-wing of the major parties.
    - shard972 8y ago
      I said this somewhere else but it's a fools errand to take left/right understandings from one country and just apply it to another country. Most people refer to left/right in terms of it being a snapshot between two competing power centers which occur in democracies. You could try going down the path of common narritives or meta-narritives of the left/right but you usually end up conceptually a lot higher than some like Socialized healthcare. Hitler's germany had forms of socialized healthcare, does that make his government left-wing? He was a vegan who promoted environmentalism and animal rights, is hitler left wing? It's kind of silly espicially when you look at a country like america's political history and how the democrats of 200 years ago seem more like the republicans of today. > Likewise, one of the things which makes no sense to me about American politics are sentences like “liberals want to take away our guns” (sarcastic use of the name?) in response to limited control; in comparison, the UK is so anti-gun even the police don’t usually have any. They don't want to end up like the UK where you need a license to watch tv, own a knife, stack rocks on the beach or put rubbish in your own van. They look at a city like london where crime has skyrocketed and pensioners are being arrested for defending themselves in their own homes and wonder what on earth is wrong with the brits. Because despite what a lot of gun control people bang on about, getting rid of guns doesn't get rid of crimes. So who cares if less people are scared by a gunshots, if more people end up being violently attacked with knives? Makes absolutely no sense why anyone would be proud of reducing gun crime while ignoring the overall rise in violent crime. > One of the other left-right splits we see in American news is on the topic of gay marriage (left-wing pro, right-wing anti). In the UK, gay marriage was legalised by the most right-wing of the major parties. Gay marriage is another example of being a liberal policy and this kind of proves it. The modern western left will usually be ahead of the curve on this because they appeal heavily to minorities and gays are kind of setup to be the minority compared to hetrosexuals. In the end though it's a violation of "human rights" and the freedom of the individual under liberalism and the only way you can counter that is to introduce non-liberal arguments such as traditionalism which could then argue that it's important to maintain the monogamous man/female relationship structure. Maybe via liberalism you could claim that the rights of the child are harmed by the lack of a biological father/mother to raise them but i think that's a bit of a stretch in most cases.
- Scarblac 8y ago
  Both major parties in the US are right wing though.
  - shard972 8y ago
    Well to say the DNC is right wing is a bit rich i think. If your taking your localized view of right wing from a country which is not the USA then i would say your abusing the terms right/left which aren't ideologies in themselves. At best they are meta-narratives about the potential of man (EG: The left focusing the moldability of humanity, and the right mostly focused the immutability of humanity) and at worst serve as a snapshot of a particular countries two competing power centers. To apply left/right understanding from one country to another in anything but a meta-narrative level will usually be a fools errand.
- andromedavision 8y ago
  Liberalism and the word liberty in and of itself no longer means anything concrete. Every side claims to defend it but in the midst of it all I'm reminded of the quote that those who give up a lottle liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. All who profess it end up being tyrannical. I've disabused myself of the schpiel that is the concept of liberty. It means nothing today because is has been abused as a concept. I like to think of it now as simply more state intervention vs less state intervention.
  - shard972 8y ago
    > Liberalism and the word liberty in and of itself no longer means anything concrete It means a lot to those who can understand the liberalism is the underpinning ideology of the west post enlightenment. All you have to do is understand russia and china's rejections of liberalism to understand that liberalism isn't just some buzz word that pops up randomly on left/right politics. > I've disabused myself of the schpiel that is the concept of liberty. It means nothing today because is has been abused as a concept. I mean I can help you understand liberty. Consider before the enlightenment we operated under a system of formal monarchism, where everything within the borders of the state were owned by the king who got his authority from the divine. A liberal government does the complete opposite, it's authority in leadership comes from the people which are assumed to be independent sovereign agents. The contrast between these two systems and the role of liberty should be obvious to most. While a formalized system of monarchy doesn't really exist today, countries like China don't fit into the liberal government category either. > I like to think of it now as simply more state intervention vs less state intervention. As a reformed Anarcho-Capitalist, I find such a view to be incredibly limiting. What about if the government classified social media companies as utilities? It would be a large increase in government intervention, but those like Alex Jones and his supporters would see that as a huge gain in liberty while some on the other side would say their liberty is being violated by the existence of people like him on these websites. What you could say contrasts the two takes is that one is valuing freedom from, and the other freedom to.
    - andromedavision 8y ago
- nostalgeek 8y ago
  > Liberalism itself isn't right wing at all. Classical liberalism is considered right wing in Europe because most of the the classical liberals are also culturally conservative (against gay marriage ect...) and globalist. Although plenty of socialists are not that open either. It's just a weird mix and really depend on the situation of each countries. The "far right" is also most of the time anti-liberal, and sometimes even adopt socialist stances on matters such as public administrations, anti-privatization, universal healthcare... while making immigration policies their first concern. The politics of Europe and USA are very different at the national level. In Europe people change sides more often and there is room for a 3rd, 4th main party unlike the 2 party system in US.
  - shard972 8y ago
    I can agree with all this, which goes to my point that liberalism is the foundation of our western political ideology. Anything from the center out to mainstream is pretty much going to adopt some core tenets of liberalism. If you don't, then you are pretty much by virtue of being illiberal or as you say anti-liberal then you will be considered either far-right or far-left.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  I think this would depend on what you consider liberalism. For instance, I think two of the most important components of liberalism are the autonomy of the individual and the consent of the governed. If we wanted to create a truly liberal government we might have institutions where you were given the option of paying an education tax. And if you paid this tax, then you would be able to opt in to public education benefits which would be equitably distributed and could approach "free" depending on how many people paid in and the cost of the education institute any given student was pursuing. However, if you chose to opt out of this tax, you would be obligated to pay the costs and fees all on your own. Instead proponents of "free" things tend to take the view that we should forcefully demand one segment of society pay for this "free" thing for the rest of society, and threaten them with violence or imprisonment if they refuse. There might be completely reasonable justifications for this, but I think it is a stretch to call this a liberal view once we consider what we actually mean by "free".
  - pjc50 8y ago
    > opt in to public education benefits which would be equitably distributed and could approach "free" depending on how many people paid in and the cost of the education institute any given student was pursuing. However, if you chose to opt out of this tax, you would be obligated to pay the costs and fees all on your own And if you opt out of the public education tax, every time you want to see a doctor or cross a bridge or use a computer program, you have to pay a contribution to the student loans of the people who wrote it? (The history of public education in the west goes back to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system and wasn't originally "redistributive" in the modern sense at all, more the tail end of feudalism)
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      Can you state your implications more directly? I'm pretty sure I see what you're suggesting, but I'd like to make sure I'm not straw manning you.
  - shard972 8y ago
    > I think this would depend on what you consider liberalism. For instance, I think two of the most important components of liberalism are the autonomy of the individual and the consent of the governed. I would say these two aspects definitially are hallmarks of liberalism. Your next steps go down a libertarian or "right" path but if we were to add to our bucket of values some form of egalitarianism, which is quite common amongst those on the "left" or "progressive/socialist" you would end up going down a completely different path of conclusions. In the end you would still both be operating under the pretense of liberalism, but i'm sure there would be disagreements about who is truly being liberal :P
pjc50 8y ago
I'm not sure liberalism has to be right-wing, but it's undeniable that blind application of economic liberalism somehow turns into removing worker protections and rising inequality. (Again we have the problem of political labels)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

shard972 8y ago

Liberalism itself isn't right wing at all. Consider that in the USA at the moment liberalism is most concentrated within the democratic party as most neo-liberals have left the party post Trump. Steve Schmidt and Joe Scarborough are two obvious examples of this shift.

jgh 8y ago
Just because the US Democratic party is associated with economic liberalism doesnt mean it isnt right-wing.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  The US democratic party wants free welfare, free education for everyone: none of this has been historically supported by "right-wing" movements. So it's a difficult to support your statement.
  - jgh 8y ago
    What? Economic liberalism is about the free market, private property, reduced regulation, etc. etc. Which are traditionally the pro-business republican positions that one of the above commentators mentioned as leaving the republican party because of Trump. I don't know where these people have gone, maybe they went to the Democratic party, but collectivist ideas like welfare, free education, and single-payer healthcare aren't really "economic liberal" positions.
  - leereeves 8y ago
    Bernie Sanders wanted free college, but he doesn't represent the party.
    - ekianjo 8y ago
      Wasn't he hugely popular among democrats?
- ben_w 8y ago
  I second this. Both Democrat and Republican parties are much too right wing to get elected in the UK. I am aware that it may seem surprising that Obamacare is too right-wing, but compare it to the NHS. Likewise, one of the things which makes no sense to me about American politics are sentences like “liberals want to take away our guns” (sarcastic use of the name?) in response to limited control; in comparison, the UK is so anti-gun even the police don’t usually have any. One of the other left-right splits we see in American news is on the topic of gay marriage (left-wing pro, right-wing anti). In the UK, gay marriage was legalised by the most right-wing of the major parties.
  - shard972 8y ago
    I said this somewhere else but it's a fools errand to take left/right understandings from one country and just apply it to another country. Most people refer to left/right in terms of it being a snapshot between two competing power centers which occur in democracies. You could try going down the path of common narritives or meta-narritives of the left/right but you usually end up conceptually a lot higher than some like Socialized healthcare. Hitler's germany had forms of socialized healthcare, does that make his government left-wing? He was a vegan who promoted environmentalism and animal rights, is hitler left wing? It's kind of silly espicially when you look at a country like america's political history and how the democrats of 200 years ago seem more like the republicans of today. > Likewise, one of the things which makes no sense to me about American politics are sentences like “liberals want to take away our guns” (sarcastic use of the name?) in response to limited control; in comparison, the UK is so anti-gun even the police don’t usually have any. They don't want to end up like the UK where you need a license to watch tv, own a knife, stack rocks on the beach or put rubbish in your own van. They look at a city like london where crime has skyrocketed and pensioners are being arrested for defending themselves in their own homes and wonder what on earth is wrong with the brits. Because despite what a lot of gun control people bang on about, getting rid of guns doesn't get rid of crimes. So who cares if less people are scared by a gunshots, if more people end up being violently attacked with knives? Makes absolutely no sense why anyone would be proud of reducing gun crime while ignoring the overall rise in violent crime. > One of the other left-right splits we see in American news is on the topic of gay marriage (left-wing pro, right-wing anti). In the UK, gay marriage was legalised by the most right-wing of the major parties. Gay marriage is another example of being a liberal policy and this kind of proves it. The modern western left will usually be ahead of the curve on this because they appeal heavily to minorities and gays are kind of setup to be the minority compared to hetrosexuals. In the end though it's a violation of "human rights" and the freedom of the individual under liberalism and the only way you can counter that is to introduce non-liberal arguments such as traditionalism which could then argue that it's important to maintain the monogamous man/female relationship structure. Maybe via liberalism you could claim that the rights of the child are harmed by the lack of a biological father/mother to raise them but i think that's a bit of a stretch in most cases.
Scarblac 8y ago
Both major parties in the US are right wing though.
- shard972 8y ago
  Well to say the DNC is right wing is a bit rich i think. If your taking your localized view of right wing from a country which is not the USA then i would say your abusing the terms right/left which aren't ideologies in themselves. At best they are meta-narratives about the potential of man (EG: The left focusing the moldability of humanity, and the right mostly focused the immutability of humanity) and at worst serve as a snapshot of a particular countries two competing power centers. To apply left/right understanding from one country to another in anything but a meta-narrative level will usually be a fools errand.
andromedavision 8y ago
Liberalism and the word liberty in and of itself no longer means anything concrete. Every side claims to defend it but in the midst of it all I'm reminded of the quote that those who give up a lottle liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. All who profess it end up being tyrannical. I've disabused myself of the schpiel that is the concept of liberty. It means nothing today because is has been abused as a concept. I like to think of it now as simply more state intervention vs less state intervention.
- shard972 8y ago
  > Liberalism and the word liberty in and of itself no longer means anything concrete It means a lot to those who can understand the liberalism is the underpinning ideology of the west post enlightenment. All you have to do is understand russia and china's rejections of liberalism to understand that liberalism isn't just some buzz word that pops up randomly on left/right politics. > I've disabused myself of the schpiel that is the concept of liberty. It means nothing today because is has been abused as a concept. I mean I can help you understand liberty. Consider before the enlightenment we operated under a system of formal monarchism, where everything within the borders of the state were owned by the king who got his authority from the divine. A liberal government does the complete opposite, it's authority in leadership comes from the people which are assumed to be independent sovereign agents. The contrast between these two systems and the role of liberty should be obvious to most. While a formalized system of monarchy doesn't really exist today, countries like China don't fit into the liberal government category either. > I like to think of it now as simply more state intervention vs less state intervention. As a reformed Anarcho-Capitalist, I find such a view to be incredibly limiting. What about if the government classified social media companies as utilities? It would be a large increase in government intervention, but those like Alex Jones and his supporters would see that as a huge gain in liberty while some on the other side would say their liberty is being violated by the existence of people like him on these websites. What you could say contrasts the two takes is that one is valuing freedom from, and the other freedom to.
  - andromedavision 8y ago
nostalgeek 8y ago
> Liberalism itself isn't right wing at all. Classical liberalism is considered right wing in Europe because most of the the classical liberals are also culturally conservative (against gay marriage ect...) and globalist. Although plenty of socialists are not that open either. It's just a weird mix and really depend on the situation of each countries. The "far right" is also most of the time anti-liberal, and sometimes even adopt socialist stances on matters such as public administrations, anti-privatization, universal healthcare... while making immigration policies their first concern. The politics of Europe and USA are very different at the national level. In Europe people change sides more often and there is room for a 3rd, 4th main party unlike the 2 party system in US.
- shard972 8y ago
  I can agree with all this, which goes to my point that liberalism is the foundation of our western political ideology. Anything from the center out to mainstream is pretty much going to adopt some core tenets of liberalism. If you don't, then you are pretty much by virtue of being illiberal or as you say anti-liberal then you will be considered either far-right or far-left.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I think this would depend on what you consider liberalism. For instance, I think two of the most important components of liberalism are the autonomy of the individual and the consent of the governed. If we wanted to create a truly liberal government we might have institutions where you were given the option of paying an education tax. And if you paid this tax, then you would be able to opt in to public education benefits which would be equitably distributed and could approach "free" depending on how many people paid in and the cost of the education institute any given student was pursuing. However, if you chose to opt out of this tax, you would be obligated to pay the costs and fees all on your own. Instead proponents of "free" things tend to take the view that we should forcefully demand one segment of society pay for this "free" thing for the rest of society, and threaten them with violence or imprisonment if they refuse. There might be completely reasonable justifications for this, but I think it is a stretch to call this a liberal view once we consider what we actually mean by "free".
- pjc50 8y ago
  > opt in to public education benefits which would be equitably distributed and could approach "free" depending on how many people paid in and the cost of the education institute any given student was pursuing. However, if you chose to opt out of this tax, you would be obligated to pay the costs and fees all on your own And if you opt out of the public education tax, every time you want to see a doctor or cross a bridge or use a computer program, you have to pay a contribution to the student loans of the people who wrote it? (The history of public education in the west goes back to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system and wasn't originally "redistributive" in the modern sense at all, more the tail end of feudalism)
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    Can you state your implications more directly? I'm pretty sure I see what you're suggesting, but I'd like to make sure I'm not straw manning you.
- shard972 8y ago
  > I think this would depend on what you consider liberalism. For instance, I think two of the most important components of liberalism are the autonomy of the individual and the consent of the governed. I would say these two aspects definitially are hallmarks of liberalism. Your next steps go down a libertarian or "right" path but if we were to add to our bucket of values some form of egalitarianism, which is quite common amongst those on the "left" or "progressive/socialist" you would end up going down a completely different path of conclusions. In the end you would still both be operating under the pretense of liberalism, but i'm sure there would be disagreements about who is truly being liberal :P

pjc50 8y ago

I'm not sure liberalism has to be right-wing, but it's undeniable that blind application of economic liberalism somehow turns into removing worker protections and rising inequality. (Again we have the problem of political labels)

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]