Marxist Definition of Liberalism

[Ilyich]

I am in the middle of a debate with someone (an American center-right conservative) who happens to believe that Marxism is associated closely with liberalism. I would like to correct him but my problem in doing so is that I do not fully understand what liberalism is (I have always assumed that a liberal was anyone who supports liberal democracy, but then I would have the problem of defining that).

Does anyone here have a definition of liberalism other than the typical dictionary one (something along the lines of "a liberal is one who supports liberty and equality")? If you can, please include the source for your definition. Thank you.

I apologize. I know there are many other threads on this topic

[RedZezz]

Liberalism is an ideology that emerged from the Enlightenment as a bourgeois philosophy which supported the "natural" rights of life, liberty, and property. It was a movement towards representational democracy and capitalism.

Commonly, it is associated with political rights (freedom of speech, religion, ect.) and capitalist economy. Classical liberalism puts more emphasis on free-markets, however, during the begining of the 20th century, many advocates proposed to reform the thinking during capitalism's decline to support programs that would salvage it. "Give them reform or they will give us revolution".

It is inherently a capitalist ideology. This conservative probably thinks Marxism is all about welfare and progressive taxation, and such. However, although many socialists may support these programs as minimum relief for the working class, they still rest on have a basis of a capitalist system and it is this system that we seek to change.

[deLarge]

It's an ideology that pays lip-service to free market principles and personal autonomy, but in practice uses the state to assist multinational corporations in usurping public power and only allots personal autonomy insofar as it is used in the capacity of a loyal consumer.

[S.Artesian]

I am in the middle of a debate with someone (an American center-right conservative) who happens to believe that Marxism is associated closely with liberalism. I would like to correct him but my problem in doing so is that I do not fully understand what liberalism is (I have always assumed that a liberal was anyone who supports liberal democracy, but then I would have the problem of defining that).

Does anyone here have a definition of liberalism other than the typical dictionary one (something along the lines of "a liberal is one who supports liberty and equality")? If you can, please include the source for your definition. Thank you.

I apologize. I know there are many other threads on this topic

You should remind your opponent that in political economy the term "liberalism" was applied by [and to] the Austrian circle of economists, von Mises and Hayek, to identify and distinguish their hyper-abstract "free market" economics.

Personally, I think you might want to use Hegel's definition of the philosophy of liberalism: "a philosophy of the abstract that capitulates before the world of the concrete."

Your opponent obviously wants to conflate, identify the "state" as inherently socialist simply by opposing it to the "free market." In reality, in the history of the development of capitalism, there is no such opposition. At every step in its journey, the market and the state are partners.