Ah, very good question.

The term ‘leftist’ is not a good term to describe the left because it’s very vague and could
potentially encompass many types of liberals too (though anyone who
promotes liberalism will traditionally be considered closer to the centre).

Simply saying ‘the left’ is too broad, we need be more specific. In this case, socialists would
be a better term because that is a distinctive ideology that encompasses the vast of majority
of left-wing politics though even then it is too broad.

Socialism can encompass left-wing thought from the authoritarian to the extreme libertarian
side, so it’s hard to even speak about socialism without diverging into the different branches
of thought involved. Let’s not forget anarchists too, which are usually a group of their own,
as well as Greens which I find tend to be an interesting wish-mash of ideologies...

Liberalism is also a little sketchy to pinpoint because Liberalism promotes free market
capitalism to a degree, though we know from modern politics that social democrats are
often called ‘Liberals’ (mostly by Americans). So even then we to differentiate from the
proper usage of the term ‘Liberal’ and the improper usage. Most people use the term
‘Modern Liberals’, or even ‘Third Way’ to refer to modern American Liberals or ‘New labour’.

So let’s dissect the differences clearly starting with traditional Liberalism (some would also
say Classical Liberalism). In traditional or Classical Liberalism the main points that you need
to know about this ideology are these:

1. They support free-market capitalism with some regulation.

2. Their philosophies are usually derived heavily from the works of Adam Smith, John
Locke, David Hume, as well as political figures such as the founding fathers.
3. They consider private property (as in, means of production) as one of the basic
essences of personal liberty.
4. They promote secularism, freedom of expression, speech, and the press.
5. They favour a smaller state.
But let’s move onto the so-called ‘Modern Liberalism’ that is practised in America. Modern
liberalism is a departure from the previous era of liberal thought and one might pinpoint
this change from about World War Two after The New Deal. Modern Liberalism is based on
similar principles to before with a few exceptions:

1. They support free-market capitalism with more regulations to stop income

inequality.
 2. They believe individual liberty must also require social justice and equality - with
the government being the main tool to address these problems.
3. For the reason mentioned above, they generally promote a bigger state.
4. They promote certain welfare programs that act as safety nets for the poor.
5. They also promote secularism, freedom of expression, speech, and the press; one
should note that this is called into question on occasions as many people accuse
Modern Liberals of wrongly ‘policing’ expressions (I won’t offer my own opinion on
this for impartiality).

So now that’s over, let’s discuss ‘the left’ as some call it. It’s a diverse set of ideas that’s really
too broad to list individually in one post but for argument’s sake, let’s use five very well-
known and commonly preached left-wing philosophies; Socialism, Social Democracy,
Anarchism, Libertarian Socialism, Marxism-Leninism.

We’ll start with explaining socialism. I highly recommend reading many, many philosophy
and textbooks on socialism since it’s a very broad and extensive ideology with many
different thoughts involved. It’s very interesting to get down to the nitty-gritty but I’ll refrain
from doing so here.

Socialism generally preaches these main ideals:

1. Socialism generally believes in a theory of class-conflict and prioritises the

‘working-class’ or the ‘working people’ as the main beneficiaries of socialism. For
this reason they usually support unions and unionisation.
2. They believe in public ownership of industries which may include nationalised
industries or cooperatively owned industries.
3. Market socialists will believe in a heavy progressive tax though orthodox socialists
will promote a money-less society.
4. Oppose war, class, inequality. Socialist thought is strictly very egalitarian and
believes that people are uniting more by class than race or ethnicity.
5. Traditional socialist thought advocates for a democracy though only through a
complete reshaping of the current order, which is generally seen as a bourgeois-
order for bourgeois interests. They also promote universal suffrage - Liberals also
generally promote universal suffrage.
Next up is Social Democracy which in it’s self is more complex because it’s ideals have
changed over time but I won’t bore you with more history or complexities. All you need to
know is that traditionally they believed in achieving socialism through democratic means
but in more modern times it refers to:
 1. Mixed-economy based systems. Basically a nation with a large public sector as well
as a private sector.
2. A strong welfare state, universal healthcare, with many modern social democrats
also advocating Universal Basic Income.
3. Heavy progressive taxation.
4. All this usually entails a large state to control these industries and it usually
supports unions and worker’s rights.
5. Promote social justice and the government acts in the ‘general interest of the
public’.
Moving on quickly, Anarchism. Again, this is another complex ideology that actually springs
up from a different line of thinking from traditional socialism, though it generally diverges at
many points. The main anarchist philosopher to note is Proudhon.

1. There’s generally many thoughts on anarchism but Proudhon’s anarchism

promotes mutualism.
2. Anarchism generally seeks to either abolish ‘private property’ or at least change
our collective ideas of what ‘private property’ is and who owns it.
3. Holds the state to be undesirable and unnecessary and believes human societies
should be operated democratically without a state. With this, it also generally
holds force or authority and hierarchy to be a bad thing. For this reason, the
generally advocate a complete reshaping of society and are considered radicals.
4. Generally works but he principles of LTV economics (Labour Theory of Value),
which is a Marxist concept.
5. Generally believes in free association too.
We still here? Good. Let’s move on to Libertarian Socialism. I feel like I’m repeating myself
again but this is another broad area topic which one really needs to research for themselves
to understand.

Libertarian Socialism generally holds the state to be undesirable yet necessary and favour
localised control over state control. The worldwide Green movement somewhat comes into
this table though I consider a lot of their values to also be somewhat authoritarian and
overbearing (they promote strong individual liberties as long as those liberties don’t infringe
on other people’s safety, social justice, or environmental concerns). As I said though, the
Greens tend to be a mish-mash of ideologies such as Liberalism, Socialism, Anarchism,
Communism, Social Democracy, etc; all united by a common devotion to protecting the
planet and creating a sustainable government.

Other libertarian socialists don’t quite have the same level of environmental concerns
because they believe that policing actions of any kind is wrong and infringes on people’s
personal liberties.

Libertarian Socialists (or LibSocs) generally follow many of the original philosophies of
socialism with some notable divergences:
 1. Libertarian Socialists desire a highly democratic and transparent state.
2. Mixed-economy or socialist economies.
3. They favour a small state with services and/or means of prhduciotn being owned
by the people or local authorities.
4. Are usually highly opposed to authoritarian socialism such as was practices in the
early twentieth century.
5. Despises government interference on personal liberties as well as government
surveillance. As such, they generally don’t desire to police actions so much.
Finally, without further ado. The one you’ve all been waiting for (or not), Marxism-
Leninism. This ideology was heavily inspired from Marxist philosophy. The common
misconception here is that Marxism was communism, though those whom have read Marx
will actually understand that Marx was merely a philosopher and 9to a degree) an
economist.

The majority of his work is actually a critique and analysis of capitalism and the current
economic systems. People don’t realise that Marx wrote a lot more critique and analysis
rather than writing about socialism/communism or how it would operate - these things
came later after others interpreted his main ideas embodied in his work and expanded on
these ideas.

Marxism-Leninism, as the name suggests, is Lenin’s interpretation of communist.socialist

ideals whereby he actually provides us with ideas of how such a society might work or come
to fruition. Lenin was the first to differentiate socialism (stage 1 communism) from
communism (final stage).

Philosophically, commnuism is quite dense with many ideas bouncing around and many
philosophers adding their own ideas and inputs. The main ideas you need to worry about
though are these:

1. Leninism proposed a violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie and in it’s place the
worker’s should create a classless, moneyless, stateless society.
2. To do this, he proposed that there must be a vanguard to lead the working class
forward and to create a democratic state which would implement all the
infrastructure needed for communism (known as socialism, ‘dictatorship of the
proletariat’, or stage one). Next, the state would slowly wither away and
democracy would become more direct and open (final stage/communism).
3. Is a strictly egalitarian ideology that promotes equality among all genders, races,
and types of people).
4. Believes in a completely publicly-owned system though in general this never came
to fruition and what actually happened was a state-controlled system. instead of
the state ‘withering away’ it became less democratic and more rigid.
5. Economics is based on Marx’s LTV.
There’s a lot more to all these ideologies that I’m missing out but you should be getting the
picture now. If you are someone who is interested in political philosophy, then I highly
recommend pulling out many, many books on left-wing politics and philosophy. The subject
really is very broad…

So I hope this gives you somewhat of an idea as to what differentiates the two systems. As
one can gather, socialism has strong roots in the ideals of economic and social equality with
an emphasis on worker’s rights, as well as having a dense philosophical background.

Liberalism, whilst still very philosophical, is very easy to understand. It promotes individual
liberty, private property, capitalism a fair economy.