What Mao Zedong said about liberalism

Conservatives like to suggest that communism, socialism and liberalism are the same thing. According to Wikipedia:

Communism is a sociopolitical structure that aims for a classless and stateless society with the communal ownership of property.

Socialism is an economic and political theory based on public or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources.

Liberalism (from the Latin liberalis, "of freedom" is the belief in the importance of liberty and equality. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but most liberals support such fundamental ideas as constitutions, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights, capitalism, free trade, and the separation of church and state.

Most social scientists consider communism to be a political system while socialism is an economic system. Capitalism is to fascism is what socialism is to communism. In the real world, most country's have mixed economic systems that have both elements of capitalism and socialism.

Of interest, liberal ideas actually developed before conservative ideas. 

Is liberalism like socialism and communism? The great Chinese leader, Mao Zedong, didn't think so. 

革命的集体组织中的自由主义是十分有害的。它是一种腐蚀剂，使团结涣散，关系松懈，工作消极，意见分歧。它使革命队伍失掉严密的组织和纪律，政策不能贯彻到底，党的组织和党所领导的群众发生隔离。这是一种严重的恶劣倾向。

Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension.

It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organizations from the masses which the Party leads. It is an extremely bad tendency.Combat Liberalism" (7 September 1937), later quoted in Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (The Little Red Book) (1964), Ch. 24.

. . . It (liberalism) robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organizations from the masses which the Party leads. It is an extremely bad tendency.

Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and this gives rise to ideological, political and organizational liberalism.

People who are liberals look upon the principles of Marxism as abstract dogma. They approve of Marxism, but are not prepared to practice it or to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their liberalism by Marxism. 

These people have their Marxism, but they have their liberalism as well--they talk Marxism but practice liberalism; they apply Marxism to others but liberalism to themselves. They keep both kinds of goods in stock and find a use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work. Combat Liberalism, 1937

Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/IGiu

Netcraft rank: 14896  

http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://rightardia.blogspot.com