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Liberals Can't Address the Climate Crisis Because It Means Confronting Capitalism
(www.currentaffairs.org)
this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2026
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I find the kind of absolutism found in the headline, extremely unhelpful, not to mention total horse shit.
“Liberals” (and I’m not even getting into what people here defined as “liberals”) absolutely can confront capitalism in order to address environmental concerns, they just don’t like to and find it very difficult. But it is absolutely possible, and, with enough cajoling, absolutely will do so.
This “us versus them” attitude, and this level of absolute defeatism only makes the job much more difficult for everyone. Instead, I suggest we all focus on how to get the job done rather than focusing on all of the barriers in our way.
You don't want to get into definitions because it makes your entire point moot. Liberals are capitalism. Its the driving force of liberalism. They go hand in hand. The liberal revolutions were capitalist revolutions. This is an inescapable fact. The most core component of liberalism is private property, which is what capitalism is built on.
Liberals will never abandon capitalism because they are capitalism.
Y'all realize that the fossil fuel industry already isn't a capitalistic entity, right?
Oh, so “liberal” means whatever you want it to mean
Gotcha
If by what i want it to mean you mean what it has literally always meant for 300 years yeah sure.
There's a lot of daylight between "the exact thing a word means" and "the messy group of people who can currently be vaguely be defined that way". Most 'capitalists' are just working class people who've been tricked or don't do a lot of thinking. It's wrong to conflate them with the rigorous meaning of a word that predates any living person.
Tricked or not its what they support and what they vote for.
A couple things. The Americans who call themselves liberals didn't vote for this, and the American liberals who did vote for it were aided and abetted by the most radicalised and financially empowered conservative oligarchs in literal human history. So if your only goal is to put as many people as possible into a toilet and flush it, great job. If not, you might have lost your way.
Yet, you still can’t seem to define it in any meaningful way. Just vague references to other subjective vagaries.
Case in point
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Pretty sure my definition was extremely meaningful. Which is why you have gotten so huffy about it.
Says the person who has to project their feelings onto others because they couldn’t defend their position. Or even explain it.
And while I’m very happy for you that you take a great deal of meaning in those vague and subjective references in your previous comment, if you can’t even define them, how can you expect anyone else to take any meaning from it?
I understood it perfectly well. What part were you confused by?
where did I say I was confused?
seems you misunderstood after all...
The part where you skipped over a clearly defined term and calling it vauge to wave it off as an insult.
except that's not what happened. "Liberals are capitalism." is not only an absurd statement, it's a belief, not a definition of liberalism, nor was anything that followed-- and I called it out as such. And, instead of reacting like an adult to criticism, you attack me for having the temerity to dare ask.
oh, the hypocrisy, lol
edit: and since my whole point here was that this sort of childish in-fighting is aa waste of time, I'm just going to block you and move on with my day.
bye!
Okay, let's look at wiki shall we?
I'm new to this thread so let's add some sources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
Go look at those sources. Those aren't socialist values are they?
That specific enough? Private/corporation private ownership isnt really a leftists thing. Its a liberal thing. Its a capatlism thing.
Its not infighting. We aren't in with each other. Capitalists and anticapitalist aren't on the same side. Hope that helps.
You would definitely call me a liberal and yet I am not in favor of capitalism, particularly in the disgusting form of it we have now. But none of that matters. You have a word to use as a weapon, don't you?
Edit: blocking you, I know how this goes. You will be condescending, judgy, and insulting without knowing the first thing other than I'm against this excuse for discourse.
Ah yes because a term has a definition that removes all controversy forever more.
People are saying they don't know how a term is being used, which is fair, as it has many definitions (certainly true wiki article or not). Your response is to say there is only one definition and then pretend anyone who disputes that is exactly the definition but is lying about it to save face. What a beautiful leftist thought process. So accepting and caring for your fellow human. I wish I could be a real leftist like you.
Edit: blocking you, I know how this goes. You will be condescending, judgy, and insulting without knowing the first thing other than I'm against this excuse for discourse.
For those wondering, I provided a definition a few posts down.
Thank you for a sane take. You are correct in every way.
It also doesn't help that it seems to conveniently forget that the fossil fuel industry is an international cartel. It breaks capitalism by virtue that it can control its entire market and a great many markets (and governments) to which it's connected.
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
I think we are all well aware capitalism is working exactly as intended.
You do not understand capitalism very well if you think cartels are abberant.
They do not break capitalism.
They are capitalism.
Either oligopolies or monopolies are the theoretical end point of basically any possible unregulated capitalist market structure given enough time, or enough corruption ('subsidies').
If you think thats not correct, please do tell me how global financial markets work.
I'm sure its just very close to that theoretical idea of perfect competition and a near infinite number of nearly equillvalent actors, right?
And money itself, currency, definitely not like a cartel, I'm sure.
Greatest trick the devil pulled on you was just telling you a childish fantasy was reality, and then you just kept on liking that idea, because it made for simple heroes and simple villains.