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It is absolutely a Capitalist ideology, because Liberalism centers around Private Property Rights. The idea is "the freer the markets, the freer the people." No, I do not mean Libertarianism.
We should be pushing for better lives for everyone, yes. Capitalism, the system by which competing Capital Owners exploit workers via taking the surplus value of their labor, is not working. Exploitation is rising, wages are stagnating with respect to productivity, and the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall is causing this exploitation to be exported to the Global South. This endless M-C-M' circuit by which commodity production services accumulation into fewer and fewer hands results in obscene wealth and power in the hands of the few.
That's Capitalism, and that's what I oppose, and presumably you as well. I know very well what Capitalism is, why it's bad, why it cannot last forever, and why Socialism is better.
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It is centered on Private Property, because it's focused on Capitalism. Property Rights are largely what separates liberals from Socialists.
Exploitation is rising in the long term. Pinkertons stopped murdering because American Unions crumbled and manufacturing was largely moved overseas, where we super-exploit for super-profits.
Liberals have been dragged kicking and screaming by radicals for their entire existance forward.
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I am referring to Liberalism the ideology, and those who follow it. Of course I am speaking of the average, do you expect me to make a poll?
Most liberals like to think that they are pro-union, but Capitalism has crushed most American Unions. Most liberals think they are anti-exploitation, but support Capitalism, which is necessarily exploitative. Most liberals are indeed pro Social Programs, but not Socialism, and so they generally fall short of enacting actual change.
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I am not mixing up thatcher-esque Neoliberalism with the enitrety of Liberalism. The Unions in America weren't crushed because a random powerful figure took office, but because over a long period of weakening them and conflict that also led to the conditions for Reagan to take president.
Capitalism is not trade, I already explained what Capitalism is to you earlier. Exploitation isn't when someone is unhappy, it's the way Capitalists make profit, by paying workers less than the Value they create.
Socialism is Worker Ownership of the Means of Production.
All in all, you should probably read Wage Labor and Capital.