# 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:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/41 "2004-06-21T15:48:36Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > IMO, the basic defining characteristic of liberalism vs. leftism/radicalism is the individual attitude towards capitalist society. There is basic agreement that capitalism produces injustice (which differentiates us from the conservative side) and that something needs to happen in order to address those injustices. Great post, **O!** But I think this conception defines “liberalism” too narrowly. Remember, self-identified American liberals have a lot of concerns that have nothing whatsoever to do with redressing the unjust social and economic consequences of capitalism: abortion rights, gun control, gay marriage, indoor smoking bans, etc., etc. . . . Even affirmative action is only tangentially related to criticism or reform of capitalism. As I said above, liberals could get their way all the way on all of these issues, and the distribution of wealth and power in our society would remain exactly as it is now. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/42 "2004-06-21T15:53:37Z")
That’s why I contend Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader are “leftists” even though they are not socialists: Unlike mainstream liberals, they **are** primarily concerned with reversing social inequality and breaking the power of the rich. They just don’t accept the utility of socialist (nor anarchist) methods for achieving these ends. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/43 "2004-06-21T16:08:12Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Great post, **O!** But I think this conception defines “liberalism” too narrowly. You’re right; liberals and radicals are also concerned with matters of social justice like the ones you named. Although I would argue that a lot of those injustices ultimately stem from the economic basis of society. And fixing them, even within the limits of liberalism, would entail greater financial and political obligations from the state than it is willing to take on. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/44 "2004-06-21T18:08:36Z")
To define exactly what “liberalism” is, it might help if we can first define what “conservatism” is. (Which is important to do anyway – you can’t win any war without knowing the enemy.) The following is from a new book, _The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America,_ by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004). This book provides the most comprehensive and impartial account I have yet read of the American conservative movement, and its gradual rise to power over the past four decades. The authors are British, and have the advantage of looking at the whole thing with an outsider’s detachment. Their thesis is that the late conservative ascendancy results partly from America’s uniquely conservative political culture, and partly from a process of conservative organizing, and alliances and synergies between different conservative factions (economic libertarians, traditionalists, religious conservatives, big-business interests, and foreign-policy neoconservatives), which has been going on steadily since Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign. They argue that modern American conservatism is fundamentally different from the older Burkean Tory conception: > [@](#): > > The exceptionalism of the American Right is partly a matter of its beliefs. The first two definitions of “conservative” offered by the ]i]Concise Oxford Dictionary\* are “adverse to rapid change” and “moderate, avoiding extremes.” Neither of these seems a particularly good description of what is going on in America at the moment. “Conservatism” – no less than its foes “liberalism” or “communitarianism” – has become one of those words that are now as imprecise as they are emotionally charged. Open a newspaper and you can find the word used to describe Jacques Chirac, Trent Lott, the Mullah Omar and Vladimir Putin. Since time immemorial, conservatives have insisted that their deeply pragmatic creed cannot be ideologically pigeonholed. > > But, in philosophical terms at least, classical conservatism does mean something. The creed of Edmund Burke, its most eloquent proponent, might be crudely reduced to six principles: **a deep suspicion of the power of the state; a preference for liberty over equality; patriotism; a belief in established institutions and hierarchies; skepticism about the idea of progress; and elitism.** Winston Churchill happily accepted these principles: he was devoted to nation and empire, disinclined to trust the lower orders with anything, hostile to the welfare state, worried about the diminution of liberty and, as he once remarked ruefully, “preferred the past to the present and the present to the future.” > > To simplify a little, **the exceptionalism of modern American conservatism lies in its exaggeration of the first three of Burke’s principles and contradiction of the last three.** The American Right exhibits a far deeper hostility towards the state than any other modern conservative party. . . . The American right is also more obsessed with personal liberty than any other conservative party, and prepared to tolerate an infinitely higher level of inequality. (One reason why Burke warmed to the American revolutionaries was that, unlike their dangerous French equivalents, the gentlemen rebels concentrated on freedom, not equality.) On patriotism, nobody can deny that conservatives everywhere tend to be a fairly nationalistic bunch. . . . Yet many European conservatives have accepted the idea that their nationality should be diluted in “schemes and speculations” like the European Union, and they are increasingly reconciled to dealing with national security on a multilateral basis. American conservatives clearly are not. > > If the American Right was merely a more vigorous form of conservatism, then it would be a lot more predictable. In fact, the American Right takes a resolutely liberal approach to Burke’s last three principles: hierarchy, pessimism and elitism. The heroes of modern American conservatism are not paternalist squires but rugged individualists who don’t know their place: entrepeneurs who build mighty businesses out of nothing, settlers who move out West, and, of course, the cowboy. There is a frontier spirit to the Right – unsurprisingly, since so much of its heartland is made up of new towns of one sort of another. > > The geography of conservatism also helps to explain its optimism rather than pessimism. In the war between the Dynamo and the Virgin, as Henry Adams characterized the battle between progress and tradition, most American conservatives are on the side of the Dynamo. They think that the world offers all sorts of wonderful possibilities. And they feel that the only thing that is preventing people from attaining these possibilities is the dead liberal hand of the past. By contrast, Burke has been described flatteringly by European conservatives as a “prophet of the past.” Spend any time with a group of Republicans, and their enthusiasm for the future can be positively exhausting. > > As for elitism, rather than dreaming about creating an educated “clerisy” of clever rulers (as Coleridge and T.S. Eliot did), the Republicans ever since the 1960s have played the populist card. Richard Nixon saw himself as the champion of the “silent majority.” In 1988 the aristocratic George H.W. Bush presented himself as a defender of all-American values against the Harvard Yard liberalism of Michael Dukakis. In 2000, George W. Bush, a president’s son who was educated at Andover, Yale and Harvard Business School, played up his role as a down-to-earth Texan taking on the might of Washington. As a result, modern American conservatism has flourished not just in country clubs and boardrooms, but at the grass roots – on talk radio and at precinct meetings, and in revolts against high taxes, the regulation of firearms and other invidious attempts by liberal do-gooders to force honest Americans into some predetermined mold. Now, this passage is a pretty good summation of the main stream of current Republican thought, and the Bush Administration, which is dominated at the moment by big-business conservatism and foreign-policy neoconservatism. But it leaves out, or glosses over, several other forms of modern conservatism: 1. Radical libertarianism: Libertarians are “distrustful of the state,” but their “patriotism” is limited by their distrust of the state in **all** its aspects, including the defense establishment and the military-industrial complex. I don’t think the Libertarian Party ([http://www.lp.org/](http://www.lp.org/)) supports America’s current interventions in the Middle East. This way of thinking is arguable “conservative” but definitely marginal with respect to the modern conservative movement. Libertarians would agree with Republicans at leat with respect to favoring free trade, open borders, and globalization. 2. Religious-social conservatism: Best represented, at the moment, by the Constitution Party ([http://www.constitution-party.net/](http://www.constitution-party.net/)) (formerly the U.S. Taxpayers Party), and the Christian Coalition. The Religious Right is “distrustful of the state” when it does not serve their moral and social agenda, but they would welcome state action to, say, ban abortion, or re-criminalize sodomy. They also generally favor military intervention in the Middle East because they regard it as something like a crusade. And the more extreme members of this movement actually believe we are living in the End Times, and thus America must defend Israel, so Israel can play its appointed role in the working out of Biblical prophecy. (I’m not making this up, I can provide cites if you want.) This group **does** have a lot of influence in the Republican Party, but not as much as they think they deserve – not one Republican president has actually pushed hard to ban abortion, ban teaching of evolution, or revive school prayer. They also differ from the Republican core in that most of their supporters are middle-class or working-class Christians who do not necessarily agree that whatever is good for the corporations is good for the country. 3. Paleoconservatism, or nativist-isolationist-populist conservatism: This kind of “conservatism” is **definitely** marginal from mainstream Republican conservatism, and openly and fiercely hostile to it. Best represented, at the moment, by Pat Buchanan and his new America First Party ([http://www.americafirstparty.org/](http://www.americafirstparty.org/)); and his educational organization, The American Cause ([The American Cause: About The Cause](http://www.theamericancause.org/about.htm)); and his new weekly magazine, _The American Conservative_ ([http://www.amconmag.com/](http://www.amconmag.com/)) – which you’ll now find on the stands in every Borders and every Barnes & Noble. These populists are anti-corporate and anti-elitist – they’re not socialists by any means, but they are as hostile to Wall Street as they are to Washington. They are opposed to “free trade,” NAFTA and the WTO, for economic reasons – globalization means working-class Americans’ jobs getting outsourced abroad. They even want the U.S. to pull out of the United Nations. They agree with the Religious Right on many points, but definitely not on militiary policy. The paleoconservatives are not exactly pacifists but they are definitely isolationists. Buchanan has even written a book, _A Republic, Not an Empire,_ arguing that the U.S. should have stayed out of the European theater in WWII and let Hitler do his thing. This does not endear him to Jews; neither does his hostility to our policy of backing up Israel. Another difference is that the Religious Right’s core is essentially Southern Evangelical Protestant, while Buchanan’s movement has more appeal to working-class Roman Catholics like himself. The paleocons are also hostile to immigration – ostensibly for economic and cultural reasons, but there do appear to be some racist elements in their thinking. In fact, there is some overlap between this kind of right-populism and Aryan-Nation-style white-supremacist racism; but the defining characteristics of the movements are rather different, and Buchanan’s movement probably would be open to blacks (so long as they were born in this country) and to Jews (so long as they are not Zionists). I have gone on at some length about these marginal-conservative groupings for two reasons: They help us to understand “conservatism,” and to understand it is not a monolithic thing. And some of them offer the possiblity of occasional, issue-specific, strategic alliances with leftists! Stange bedfellows, you know? In fact, the June 21, 2004 issue of _The American Conservative_ carries an interview of Ralph Nader by Pat Buchanan. Now, when you put America’s leading left-progressive maverick in the same room with America’s leading right-wing nativist-isolationist-populist, you might expect to see blood on the floor. But in fact the two of them seem to have hit it off – more or less – and the interview was published to float the idea that real conservatives might want to consider voting for Nader instead of Bush this year. That would be a switch! Nader siphoning off votes from the **Republican!** 😃 Here’s a link to the interview: [http://www.amconmag.com/2004\_06\_21/cover.html](http://www.amconmag.com/2004_06_21/cover.html) We learn that RN and PB feel much the same way about NAFTA, WTO, the Iraq War, American support for Israel, the big bad establishments in Washington and on Wall Street, and several other things. There is, of course, one more marginal stream of American conservatism: Outright white-supremacists racism – the Klan, the American Nazis, the Aryan Nation, the militias, etc. But I don’t think this movement, as such, is politically significant enough any more to merit much discussion. Those white Southerners who in an earlier generation might have supported the Klan are in this day and age more likely to support the Constitution Party or the America First Party (or even the Republican Party), parties which might be indifferent to racial injustice, but whose core values and goals have nothing to do with reviving segregation. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2004, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/45 "2004-06-21T18:47:30Z")
And there is one more American political tradition that merits discussion here, although whether it can even be classified as “conservative” is debatable: The tradition that used to be called “progressivism.” (I guess it needs a new name now, because the label “progressive” has been appropriated by left-liberals and nobody seems to dispute their claim to it. But for purposes of this post I will use the term “progressive” in its original sense.) This the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party and the old Progressive Party and “Fighting Bob” LaFollette of Wisconsin. It was originally an upper-class and middle-class movement for “good government,” defined in professionalized, technocratic terms that purported to transcend ideology and class interests – a Progressive motto was, “There is no Democratic or Republican way to pave a street.” Nonpartisan municipal elections and the city-manager form of government are Progressive legacies. One thing Progressives have in common with mainstream conservatives is a concern with fiscal responsibility and a fear of budget deficits; Progressives aren’t hostile to vigorous government but they want it to be clean, honest, transparent, efficient, and no profligate. The best representative of the Progressive tradition in American politics is probably John Anderson, who mounted an independent presidential campaign in 1980 and was one of the founding leaders of the Reform Party. One reason the Reform Party did not last, I think (apart from Ross Perot’s control-freak megalomania and his refusal to let the party evolve into anything more than a vehicle for his candidacies), is that its ideology always was incoherent – because the party was essentially a coalition of Progressives with Buchanan-style paleoconservative Populists, and there was only so long they could go on working together. When it broke up, the Populist wing went off with Buchanan to form the America First Party, and the Progressive wing, including John Anderson, formed Jesse Ventura’s Independence Party ([http://www.mnip.org/](http://www.mnip.org/)) (which has become prominent in Minnesota politics but has had little organizing success in other states). Meanwhile, the remnant of the original Reform Party organization ([http://www.reformparty.org/cgi-bin/hcgmain.cgi](http://www.reformparty.org/cgi-bin/hcgmain.cgi)) is now running **Ralph Nader,** of all people, for president! Strange bedfellows, you know? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/46 "2004-06-23T14:52:49Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > You’re right; liberals and radicals are also concerned with matters of social justice like the ones you named. Although I would argue that a lot of those injustices ultimately stem from the economic basis of society. And fixing them, even within the limits of liberalism, would entail greater financial and political obligations from the state than it is willing to take on. Do they? Would it? Take equal pay for women. Feminists claim women earn, on the average, 70 cents for every dollar earned by a man doing the same or equivalent work. Now, I don’t know if that’s true, haven’t done any research – it’s possible they’re playing fast-and-loose with the notion of “equivalent work” and discounting the fact that there are still some predominantly female occupations and they tend to get less money than male-dominated occupations. (For instance, I’m a male but I’m now studying to be a librarian – in which field I don’t expect to earn a lot of money, and I’m sure that the fact that librarianship traditionally has been a female profession has a lot to do with that. But the fact that libraries generate no revenue of their own, but must be supported by governments, schools, corporations or foundations, also has a lot to do with it.) But, assuming the feminists are completely right, then redressing the problem would require nothing more than some equal-pay legislation, and enforcing it would not require significantly more enforcement mechanisms than the Department of Labor already has got in place. And – the fact that women earn less than men does not obviously depend on the “economic basis of society.” It depends on history and tradition and the fact that the notion of social and economic equality for women only began to be taken seriously in the past 100 years. And we could guarantee equal pay for women, and society could still rest on the same economic basis. Couldn’t it? That’s why I would regard equal pay for women as a “liberal” issue, not a “leftist” one. ---
**Author:** ![KarenAnne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/35a633/32.png) [@KarenAnne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarenAnne)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/47 "2004-06-23T15:43:18Z")
Quote: 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. I disagree about Dean. He is a fiscal conservative in the sense that he wants balanced budgets. But he speaks out constantly against the Bush tax cuts that benefit the rich far more than the poor/middle classes, against the tax money giveaway to the pharmaceutical companies in the Bush Medicare revisions, against Halliburton, in favor of decentralizing media control (arguably why he got trashed by the media during the campaign), etc. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/48 "2004-07-21T23:49:41Z")
I just started another GD thread – “What are the chances for a broad party of American leftists and progressives?” – [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=267521](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=267521) – so I thought I’d link to it in this thread, as the discussions there related to the question of this one, which we never really resolved. Here’s a post I made: > [@](#): > > The way I define it, a “leftist” is, 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. Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich and Jim Hightower meet that description, and I’ve never heard anybody call any of them a socialist. (I’ve heard Michael Moore called a socialist, but that was on Fox News, which is neither here nor there.) Kerry and Dean do not meet that description. > > The word “progressive” is generally used, nowadays, as a broader term that implicitly includes “leftists” as defined above, but also labor supporters, environmentalists, feminists, etc. Basically, everybody I listed in the OP, plus the Deaniac wing of the Democratic Party and everybody to its left. Anybody whose views are a bit too lefty to be described as merely “liberal.” > > So, in my view (envision a Venn diagram here): Kerry is a liberal but not a progressive or a leftist. Dean is a liberal and a progressive but not a leftist. Kucinich, Nader, and Hightower are progressives and leftists. None of them are socialists; all socialists are leftists, all are progressives, and most (not all) are liberals. That’s how I understand and use these terms, anyway; I’m open to hearing about other views. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/49 "2004-07-22T01:02:27Z")
**BG** : Thanks for the reminder, although a link to that thread would probably have suficed, given the rule against bumping threads. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/50 "2004-07-22T02:27:36Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > **BG** : Thanks for the reminder, although a link to that thread would probably have suficed, given the rule against bumping threads. 😕 Sorry, I thought I knew all the rules by know. What is “bumping threads”? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/51 "2004-07-22T15:40:49Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 😕 Sorry, I thought I knew all the rules by know. What is “bumping threads”? Resurrecting an old thread. It’s discussed in the main rules sticky in the “about this message board” forum. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196/52 "2004-07-23T20:41:25Z")
Okay, I found it – but it wasn’t easy – I had to look through four or five stickies in the ATMB forum, after looking through all the GD stickies and the “Rules” tab at the top of every page. So I hope you can pardon my ignorance of this policy. Here’s the rule in question: > [@](#): > > Arnold Winkelried > Administrator Join Date: Oct 1999 > Posts: 9,144 > Location: Costa Mesa California USA > > “Bumping” a thread > > * * * > > If you start a thread, and after a while think you would like more comments on it, you may be tempted to “bump” the thread by adding a post to make the thread reappear back at the top of the forum list. We strongly discourage this practice, but since the boards are so busy sometimes a single “bump” will bring about good results. Our guidelines: > Wait until a suitable time has elapsed (at least until your thread is no longer visible on the first page of the forum) > Bump your thread only once > Do not make a habit of always bumping each of your threads. > > When you bump your thread, it is preferrable to include additional information relevant to the original post, which may help encourage posters to respond. > > What if I want to continue / add to the discussion on a topic that was mentioned in an old thread? > > Start a new thread with a link to the old thread. A general guideline for “old” would be a thread older than three months. > > * * * > > Last edited by Arnold Winkelried : 11-30-2002 at 12:08 AM. And I think my “bumping” of this particular thread was technically allowed by the rule, since I did have more substantial info to add (to wit, the existence of a new thread containing discussions relevant to the topic of this one). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-a-liberal-and-a-leftist/251196.md?page=2)