Liberalism and socialism

It was a while ago now, but at some point I watched a panel-talk arranged by the Swedish union-affiliated think-tank Katalys. Titled “Class from the Right,” three liberal thinkers and debaters discussed class from their liberal perspective (in contrast to the left-wing angle of Katalys), and it was quite interesting. Surprisingly I found myself agreeing with a lot of what they said. “Surprisingly,” because many socialists and many liberals will tell you that the two don’t mix, that socialism and liberalism are diametrically opposed to one another. Indeed, there are stark differences, with many socialists railing against neoliberalism and the free-market capitalism our liberal adversaries espouse.

It’s strange then that I found myself nodding along with the three speakers throughout. Of course, one of the speakers said that a classless society is undesirable, and in regards to the political strategy of the labour-movement another suggested that the Left-Party and Social-Democrats merge,^[1]I don’t particularly like the idea of the Left-Party and the Social-Democrats merging into a single “Labour Party,” because I suspect that it would basically doom any prospects of socialism. … Continue reading but overall I thought they were talking some sense. Better put is that while I don’t agree with everything they said, and we have very different ideas about what kind of society we should strive for, there are also significant similarities, particularly in the social area.

From a purely Swedish perspective, I think it ought not to be forgotten that liberals helped establish our modern-day democracy that we’ve had for around a century now. The broader, European perspective is also that it was liberalism and the Age of Enlightenment that brought forward ideas such as equality, democracy, and republicanism – incidentally principles that most socialists (should, dare I say?) stand by.

This is not to say that liberals aren’t part of our opposition – they are, but there’s a current of thought which says that liberalism and socialism aren’t necessarily enemies, but that the one will pave the road for the other. I believe in such liberal values as equality, democracy, and solidarity, and that’s why I’m a socialist. Our task should be to build upon these values. Liberals have given us political and, to some extent, social democracy (not to be confused with the ideology “social-democracy”), and us socialists should extend that democracy to the economic area and complete the social democracy. This current of thought is socialism not as an enemy of liberalism, but as its successor.