# What is the difference between a liberal and a leftist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 19, 2004, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196 "2004-06-19T15:06:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/1 "2004-06-19T15:06:53Z")
In the concurrent GD thread, “Who’s meaner? The left or right?” – [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=262226](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=262226) – I made the following post: > [@](#): > > Also – we’re using the wrong terminology to begin with. Please bear in mind that we don’t really **have** much of a “Left” in this country, not any more. The Socialist Party and the Green Party are on the Left. Dennis Kucinich is on the Left. John Kerry is not. Even Howard Dean is not. This election is a contest between the Center-Right and the Far-Right. A bit later **Paladud** posted: > [@](#): > > 1. The farther from center, the meaner, on either side. To which I replied: > [@](#): > > Well, not entirely . . . look at the left side of the spectrum. Please bear in mind that Al Franken is a **liberal,** not a **leftist.** And he’s not mean. Michael Moore, who, I will admit, is a bit meaner in tone than Franken (but nothing close to Coulter!) is arguably a leftist, but it’s a close call. Ralph Nader is a genuine leftist, and he is not mean – righteously outraged at times, but not mean. Dennis Kucinich is a genuine leftist, and he is anything but mean – I’ve heard him speak several times. Jim Hightower is gentemanly and kindly in tone, even when he is methodically roasting the right wing and the corporations over a slow fire; the worst thing you can call him is sarcastic, and even that he manages to pull off with grace. The Greens are not mean – at least, I’ve never heard any of their spokespeople say a really mean thing. Even the Socialist Party is not mean. It is impossible to imagine any of these people talking even in jest about lining up their enemies and shooting them. Based on posts above, not only do the right-wing spokescreatures talk in that vein at times, but you can’t be entirely certain they don’t mean it. You have to look into some of the really revolutionary Marxist microparties to find a genuinely mean American leftist. To which **2sense** replied: > [@](#): > > What distinction are you trying to make here? In America liberals are leftists and though not all leftists are liberals there are so few socialists that the terms are nearly synonymous. To which I replied: > [@](#): > > I am defining a “leftist” as, not necessarily a socialist, but somebody who is genuinely concerned with reversing the drastic and increasing wealth inequality in this country (greater than that in any other industrialized nation) and with breaking the disproportionate political power of the rich, the major corporations and the big-business interests. That **is** a very important distinction. Nader and Kucinich meet that description (and I’ve never heard anybody call Kucinich a socialist). Kerry and Dean do not. At least that’s my opinion. I think defining the distinction between a “liberal” and a “leftist” is very important even at a time when the left is politically marginalized. (Socialism as such, of course, has been politically marginalized in this country since 1917 and was not that big a deal before then, but the left in general has had a lot more vitality than it has now.) Do any of you have a different definition to offer? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/2 "2004-06-19T19:02:40Z")
I should add – liberals, in my opinion, differ from leftists in that they are concerned with less fundamental, more meliorative things: Affirmative action, the death penalty, welfare, Medicaid, gay marriage, gun regulation, indoor smoking bans, equal pay for women, etc. Liberals could get their way all the way on every one of these issues, and the distribution of wealth and, more importantly, of power in our society would remain exactly as it is now. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/3 "2004-06-19T19:44:08Z")
Ask ten people, get ten different answers. In classic lefty terms, “liberals” are distinct from “radicals” in one essential regard: a radical holds that the entire system is founded on inequality and oppression. As such, it cannot be “fixed”, nor can it evolve into a more acceptable form. Some radicals differ slightly, saying that it _can_ evolve into a more equitable form, but only enough to ensure the temporary survival of a doomed system. I am closer to a radical than a liberal, being on the conservative wing of the extreme left. But I hold that history demonstrates that it is possible and worthwhile to negotiate progress, especially when progressives negotiate from strength, the Labor Movement in America being the prime example. Of course, some of our fellow citizens are convinced that money and power is _already_ in the hands of the wise and the just, and no such adjustments need be made. They are wrong. I have no interest in seeing Paris Hilton shipped off to a Proletariat Reeducation Camp to study Chairman Mao Thought. On the other hand, the notion that the CEO deserves 10,000 times the salary of a laborer is contemptible and fundamentally unjust, and the working man is justified in using whatever means necessary to seek a redress of grievances. But if we can obtain justice without sacrificing our humane ethics, we are morally bound to do so. Besides, liberals are wussies. ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/4 "2004-06-19T19:51:46Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > On the other hand, the notion that the CEO deserves 10,000 times the salary of a laborer is contemptible and fundamentally unjust That is a VERY conservative number for some CEOs O\_o ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/5 "2004-06-19T19:56:27Z")
As a wussie, I can only say I was made that way by watching my fellows when it came time to actually organize a union at a place where I worked. The truly revolting behavior of some of the leaders from inside the workplace involved, who sold themselves to management for very little indeed, made me take a strictly neutral stance ever since in labor/management disputes. This cynicism extends to everything. I always thought that my fellow citizens would, if stressed, be capable of the same evil as anyone else, and the torture of suspects after 9/11, from New York to Afghanistan to Iraq, bears that out. This Administration got only slightly fewer votes last time around, and this time around they stand a chance of getting slightly more votes. If they win the election, it would only bear out the above, once again, as this is a truly evil Administration. As a radical, you have to believe that people are worth fighting for that hard. I don’t. And the evidence, I think, pretty strongly weighs in my favor. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/6 "2004-06-19T20:04:09Z")
> [@pantom](#): > > As a radical, you have to believe that people are worth fighting for that hard. I don’t. And the evidence, I think, pretty strongly weighs in my favor. Then what’s the point of any political activity of any kind? ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/7 "2004-06-19T20:05:17Z")
[BobcatGoldthwaite]I’m pretty sure a Leftist has more dark meat.[/BobcatGoldthwaite] ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/8 "2004-06-19T20:15:33Z")
> [@Zagadka](#): > > That is a VERY conservative number for some CEOs O\_o Really? If we assume our labourer makes $20k (I don’t know about US salaries, I’m converting from a low UK wage), that puts our putative CEO on $200 million, a salary I don’t believe is commonplace, and certainly is not “very conservative” by anyone’s measure (even the CEOs’). In fact apparently that’s about the most [anyone has ever been paid](http://www.macnn.com/news/20608), and that takes into account the conversion of an awful lot of stock options. ---
**Author:** ![milroyj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@milroyj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/milroyj)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/9 "2004-06-19T20:23:34Z")
**What is the difference between a liberal and a leftist?** Liberals bathe at least occasionally? ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/10 "2004-06-19T20:33:02Z")
> [@Dead Badger](#): > > Really? If we assume our labourer makes $20k (I don’t know about US salaries, I’m converting from a low UK wage), that puts our putative CEO on $200 million, a salary I don’t believe is commonplace, and certainly is not “very conservative” by anyone’s measure (even the CEOs’). In fact apparently that’s about the most [anyone has ever been paid](http://www.macnn.com/news/20608), and that takes into account the conversion of an awful lot of stock options. Right, I was doing really stupid math, my bad. OK, 10,000 times the salary it is. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/11 "2004-06-19T20:51:09Z")
**Brain Glutton** : a radical would go out and demonstrate, organize boycotts, take the side of the workers in most labor/management disputes, etc. To do that you have to believe that most people are inherently good. Not speaking for all liberals, but we don’t engage in this to quite the extent of a radical. Nor do a lot of us, anyway, really believe the workers are always right. Sometimes they are, sometimes they’re not. Being cynical doesn’t mean you think exploitation and oppression are right, just that it’s not always exploitation and oppression. We do believe they have the right to organize, of course, something a lot of conservatives don’t. And conservatives of course will pretty much always take the side of management. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/12 "2004-06-19T22:18:41Z")
Thanks for opening this thread, **BrainGlutton**. It made me think things over and refine my terminology. “Leftist” comes from “leftwing” and conceptualizes ideology as a straight line. Such a simple construction can’t account for every variable so we have to recognize that whatever terms we use are generalizations. Also lets remember that these generalizations are constructed with America in mind. They don’t necessarily fit the politics of other nations. I consider the personal belief about human nature to be the fundamental division of ideology and cut the line in half by asking a simple question, “Do you believe that people in general are good and can be trusted?” Those who generally trust people are on the left and everyone else is on the right. ( See Note 1 ) By my standards I’m not sure **pantom** is left of center. He doesn’t seem to have faith in human nature. But there is more to “leftwing” than just being left of center. The word comes from the seating in the French Assembly but the terminology is military. On the traditional battlefield there were the left and right wings of an army as well as the center. Thus the division is not binary but tertiary into leftists, rightists, and centrists. A person with some faith in humanity but distrusts change might well consider themselves a conservative but I would call them a left-leaning centrist. A right-leaning centrist might be a believer in Original Sin who favors progressive taxation and gun control. ## So everyone on the left is a leftist but they can be further defined. I think **elucidator** is on the right track though I would replace “radicals” with “socialists”. The left has no monopoly on radicalism; there are radical conservatives. ( See Note 2 ) Liberals try to fix the system while socialists believe it is founded on inequality and oppression and can’t be reformed. Note that this conception is basically economic. I have met socialists who revere the Constitution and believe the economic system that grew up under it is the problem. Are they more radical than me who would replace the Constitution but only reform the market system? I don’t think so. Socialists think liberals are wussies; we liberals tend to think of socialists as unrealistic. _1_ Note that I am talking about trusting people in general and not every single person. I am uninterested in conservative interjections concerning what they think are inconsistancies of liberal ideology but really reflect a lack of trust in individuals. ## _2_ No, “radical conservative” is not a contradiction in terms. Conservatives want to conserve the past. That is, they resist change. Radical conservatives embrace change. They want to remake the country in the image of what they imagine the past must have been like. They seek to turn back the clock to a time that never existed. Americans are especially vulnerable to radical conservative dogma because, even here amongst the educated and politically aware SDMBers, we are mostly ignorant of our history. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/13 "2004-06-20T00:15:49Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > Are they more radical than me who would replace the Constitution but only reform the market system? Replace the Constitution with what? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/14 "2004-06-20T01:02:38Z")
BTW, I think it defines “leftist” too narrowly to assume every leftist wants to put an end to capitalism and the market system. I consider myself a leftist, a socialist in fact, but I don’t want to end the market system (which can’t be completely done, anyway – commerce will simply re-emerge in the form of a black market). The market system has the advantage of being **self-adjusting** – i.e., the actual consumers of good services can estimate what their own needs are better than a team of economic planners in the capital. Stalinist state planning **does** work, within limits – it works for the purposes of basic capital formation. It enabled Russia to grow from an agricultural power in 1917 to an industrial power that could meet Germany on equal terms on the eve of WWII. But it can’t fine-tune itself efficiently. As Lester Thurow put it in _Economics Explained_ (Touchstone 1994): > [@](#): > > Centralized planning, as the Russians tried it, differed from capitalism in two vital particulars. First, it outlawed the private ownership of the means of production – land, factories, etc. – although not of personal belongings or even personal savings accounts. Second, it organized the flow of production and distribution by the issuance of orders from a central planning bureau, not by the activities of individuals seeking to make a profit in the open market. Thus, the managers of the Soviet factories did not produce what they wanted, but what the plan wanted; could not shop around for materials; could not pick and choose customers; could not hire or fire labor without authorization; could not even go out to buy an unauthorized light bulb if one blew out. Everything was arranged from above: the kind and volume of production, the suppliers form whom each factory or store would receive shipments, the factories or warehouses to which output would be sent, the inventories that were expected to be kept on hand, from raw materials to light bulbs. > > Centralized socialism therefore resembled an immense jigsaw in which the location and size of each piece, and the designation of the other pieces into which it would fit, were first figured out at the planning headquarters, and thereafter sent to the managers of the collective farms and ministry-owned factories in which the pieces of the puzzle were produced. In retrospect, the final collapse of the system was not to be marveled at so much as the fact that it lasted as long as it did. No, what I envision for America is something more along the lines of the New Deal on steroids, or Swedish social democracy – corporations, labor unions and the state managing and directing the economy in close partnership. I’ve discussed this with our board’s token Marxist, **Olentzero** (where are you, **O?** ), in a couple of threads and he doesn’t believe that would qualify as “socialism” at all, but I beg to differ. And I think other models also deserve consideration. The most persuasive and plausible utopian novel I’ve ever read is _Pacific Edge_ by Kim Stanley Robinson (St. Martin’s Press, 1995), set in a future America where there has been some kind of political revolution led by the Greens – presumably a nonviolent revolution, but no details are given. Everyone is guaranteed an annual income of $10,000, even if they don’t or can’t work, and nobody is allowed to have more than $100,000. This prevents the existence of poverty while still allowing plenty of room for ambition and achievement – “everybody wants to be a Hundred.” Most economic activity is done by private companies; the state’s main role is to keep them small, to break up any corporation that grows beyond the size where every officer and employee can know every other personally. It’s not a final formula for utopia, but it’s a good starting point for thinking about it. I think what being a “socialist” really means is being committed to the **process** of finding a more just and egalitarian and efficient and sustainable way to run the economy, not being committed to any particular model of a socialist economic system. That process, once begun, would involve a lot of trial and error and experimenting, and if we ever arrive at something satisfactory, it might be something – something clearly distinguishable from free-market capitalism (assuming that’s what we’ve got now) – that does not resemble any form of socialism that has yet been tried. The important thing is that we socialists have to repudiate what has been called “the theology of the final goal,” of thinking of socialism of something that is to come **after** capitalism. Socialism might just mean a moderating, ameliorating political force within what remains essentially a market system – which is what they’ve got in Sweden. (At least, that’s how it was when I read _Socialism: Past and Future,_ by Michael Harrington (Little, Brown: 1989). My knowledge of Swedish social democracy might be out of date by now.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/15 "2004-06-20T01:16:04Z")
Furthermore – I think the Greens qualify as “leftists,” and “decentralization” is one of their Ten Key Values – which is about as non-Stalinist as you can get. (Which is why I haven’t joined the Greens – I’m a Hamiltonian, not a Jeffersonian; I think some problems can only be solved by action at a national level, or even higher.) ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/16 "2004-06-20T01:33:48Z")
> [@milroyj](#): > > **What is the difference between a liberal and a leftist?** > > Liberals bathe at least occasionally? Well said miljroy. It keeps us knowing how you think. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/17 "2004-06-20T03:18:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Replace the Constitution with what? ## That would be a whole 'nother thread, I’m afraid. Suffice to say that I think it would be something you could live with. In fact, if I had to choose another SDMBer to write us a new constitution I would pick you. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > BTW, I think it defines “leftist” too narrowly to assume every leftist wants to put an end to capitalism and the market system. I agree and that’s why I didn’t do so. I seperated everyone into three groups: rightists, centrists, and leftists and then broke the leftists down into liberals and socialists. Only the socialists oppose capitalism. > [@](#): > > - I consider myself a leftist, a socialist in fact, but I don’t want to end the market system (which can’t be completely done, anyway – commerce will simply re-emerge in the form of a black market). The market system has the advantage of being **self-adjusting** – i.e., the actual consumers of good services can estimate what their own needs are better than a team of economic planners in the capital. - I’m afraid I agree with **Olentzero**. I wouldn’t consider you a socialist; at least not here in America. In more civilized nations where the Reds weren’t denied freedom of speech and freedom of assembly the term has taken on other meanings as Socialist Parties of various countries proposed policy but here in America socialism is still in it’s pure form. It never had to be practical because socialists never faced the necessity of compromise that comes with holding political power. Here it still refers to someone who believes that ownership of the means of production belongs to the workers. You don’t fit the bill. ## In fact, your quote neatly encapsulates my own liberal economic philosophy. Socialism might have been a wonderful system if free markets hadn’t been invented but they were and command markets will never be as efficient and thus can’t compete. Wishing won’t change that. As I said, us liberals see the socialists as unrealistic. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Furthermore – I think the Greens qualify as “leftists,” and “decentralization” is one of their Ten Key Values – which is about as non-Stalinist as you can get. ## Of course us Greens are leftists. And while I’m Green I agree about decentralization. America has way too much of it now. That’s the one tenet of the Party I don’t follow. The nice thing about being in a party that won’t win is that you don’t have to sweat details like that. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/18 "2004-06-20T05:49:07Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > Of course us Greens are leftists. And while I’m Green I agree about decentralization. America has way too much of it now. That’s the one tenet of the Party I don’t follow. The nice thing about being in a party that won’t win is that you don’t have to sweat details like that. No doubt . . . but, as a politically concerned and aware person, wouldn’t you much rather be in a position where you **do** have to sweat details like that? Because you might be able to exert a real influence on public policy? Suppose we enacted political reforms that made it possible for third parties to play a meaningful role in American politics? For instance, instant-runoff voting and proportional representation. In an article in _The Atlantic Monthly,_ August 1992, “A Radical Plan to Change American Politics” ([http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/congress/lindf.htm](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/congress/lindf.htm)), Michael Lind discussed the practical effects of electing the U.S. House of Representatives by the multi-member-district, single-transferable-vote form of proportional representation: > [@](#): > > It is anyone’s guess what the parties in a House elected by PR would be. (The Senate would continue to be elected the way it is now, and such effect as there would be on it would be indirect.) Although voters might continue to identify with the two major parties for a time, dissidents would soon learn that third-party votes were not wasted. > > The largest party in the House might well be the Republicans. As it is, their party, with its homogeneous and stable group of core voters and centralized, disciplined organization, is far more like a European party than the Democratic Party is. If PR were adopted, the Republicans might lose their right wing to a new conservative party or parties, but the number of right-wing Republican voters is fairly small (as the Patrick Buchanan campaign unintentionally demonstrated, by adding only single-digit figures to large protest votes). The Republicans might compensate for their loss by becoming a more consistently classical-liberal party–pro-business, pro-choice–and attracting fiscally conservative social liberals who now identify with a Democrat like Paul Tsongas. Such a neoliberal Republican Party might hold steady at 35 to 40 percent of the House. > > The Democratic Party, an incoherent coalition of smaller proto-parties, lobbies, interest groups, and machines, which are brought together only by the winner-take-all logic of our electoral system, would, however, probably disintegrate. The breakup of the Democratic Party as the result of PR would not mean that the power of today’s Democratic voters would decline. On the contrary, the kind of moderate Democrats represented by the Democratic Leadership Council, freed from the electoral necessity of appeasing ethnic and liberal lobbies, might well prosper. Together with “Reagan Democrats” wooed back from the Republican presidential coalition, moderate Democrats in Congress might form a Populist Party equivalent to Christian Democratic parties in Europe. Slightly right of center on social issues and foreign policy, slightly left of center on middle-class benefits, such a party could be expected to draw substantial support from Northeastern ethnics, middle-and lower-middle-class whites and Hispanics in the South and West, and perhaps socially conservative blacks. It would be heavily Catholic. A Populist Party might be the nearest rival to the Republicans for the status of largest party in the House. > > The United States, unlike Europe, probably would not have a strong Social Democratic Party, given the low level of unionization and the lack of a mainstream socialist intellectual tradition here. There might nevertheless be something that called itself the Social Democratic Party, representing unions, farmers, public-sector employees. Heavily black and Hispanic, such a party would favor protectionism and government subsidies to industry. > > A small American Green Party would almost certainly arise from the decomposition of the Democrats. Appealing to New Age environmentalists, pacifists, feminists, and gay-rights activists, such a party might have trouble winning five percent of the vote in successive elections. So might other fringe parties that are easy to imagine: the Conservatives, a far right-fundamentalist alliance; the Multicultural Coalition, a coalition of ethnic-separatist parties; and anti-tax Libertarians. > > Carrying this speculative exercise one step further, we might assign percentages of House membership to these hypothetical parties. Based on European experience and American political subcultures, the pattern might be as follows: Republicans (40 percent), Populists (30 percent), Social Democrats (15 percent), Greens (5 percent), Conservatives (5 percent), Multiculturalists and Libertarians (5 percent between them). Now, if that were to happen, don’t you think you could find a congenial home in the Social Democratic Party? And wouldn’t you like that better than belonging to the Green Party or the Democratic Party? At this point in American history, electoral-system reform is **more important than anything else.** It should be the number-one item on the agenda of all left-wing, right-wing, radical centrist, and libertarian parties. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/19 "2004-06-20T06:51:59Z")
I am a Socialist and identify very much with Brain Glutton’s description of his position. And I haven’t given up on reforming our government through our Constitution at all. I want most of the things that Liberals want, but with even more economic reform. By coincidence, Brain Glutton mentioned Sweden. I was thinking of what I saw in Denmark – only without the monarchy. I think it is a common misconception that Socialists want to completely revamp the government. Speaking for myself, I want to see affordable health care, functioning educational systems and an end to poverty. What’s not to love? We have some parts of our government that are socialistic already and no one seems anxious to give them up – fire departments, police, libraries. Schools can do with a complete overhaul. I support welfare reform. (If nothing else, give as many welfare recepients as possible jobs overseeing welfare reform.) Turn copies of next year’s national budget over to the G.I. generation who want a little extra money. Let those who survived the Great Depression and WWII go over it with their expertise. They will have the Pentagon washing out and reusing coffee filters, but our troops will have the protective gear that is needed. But, I digress… Really, I’m a farily optimistic person. I believe that people _can_ be motivated to take pride in their work by something other than just greed. ---
**Author:** ![Paladud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Paladud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paladud)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2004, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/20 "2004-06-20T07:00:48Z")
Meanness is not universal at the extremes; I can think of several members of the current administration on the far right and of LaRouche on the far left as far as vehemence goes; I’m sure the majority is pretty civil on either side. If media blowhards are included, of course Moore and Franken cannot measure up to the sheer rage of Coulter and Limbaugh: the former two are not terribly far from center. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196.md?page=2)