By the end of the 1980s, Reagan Republicans successfully turned ‘liberal’ into a dirty word. In their vision of America, liberals stand for the opposite of wholesome American values. In response, liberals ran away from the word. Those who won public office even dreaded having a photo taken next to the likes of Ted Kennedy.

Those days are long gone. Liberals, at least those who don’t live deep in GOP territory, embrace the term. If anything, more people attack the word ‘liberal’ from the left than from the right.

So, happy ending, right? We can call it a day?

Not exactly.

For some reason, socialists approach the fight over the ‘progressive’ label from the opposite end. As socialists, we keep calling ourselves progressives. We do so though the progressive label doesn’t fit and we’d be better off rejecting it.

Why?

Progressive Ideology and Socialism

Since its founding in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, progressivism has always been an anti-socialist political ideology. Its proponents often advocate for social and/or economic views that socialists can endorse. But they do so for decidedly non-socialist reasons.

In short, progressives want to enact structural reforms to shore up the capitalist system. They want to strain corruption out of the system and provide targeted programs to help poor people – programs that range from means-tested cash assistance on the liberal end all the way to things like Medicare for All or public housing on the social democratic end.

Socialists can endorse some of these ideas, but we do so for different reasons.

We ultimately want to replace the capitalist system, not shore it up. Progressives, by contrast, are often fully invested in the capitalist system. They focus their base on highly educated, relatively wealthy people who don’t want to replace capitalism.

So, what’s the deal?

Some socialists seem to completely miss all this. Others (kinda, sorta) recognize it. But even those who recognize it still want to build connections with progressives. They think they can push progressives further to the left and into the socialist camp.

Maybe they can win over a few of them. But I suspect it won’t be very many. At its heart, progressivism appeals to people who center their politics on fairness, morality, and guilt. They’re people who ‘made it’ in the system and want to extend those opportunities to others. They’re people who want to ‘help’ poor people out of a sense of moral obligation rather than class politics.

I think it’s fine for socialists to engage with progressives. But ultimately we’re looking to build a different base. We want a base of working class people and people marginalized along other dimensions. Why? Because these are the people who create value in the capitalist system and are positioned to seize and replace capitalism.

Progressives aren’t that core base. Furthermore, the ‘progressive’ label isn’t especially popular with our target base.

And so, why do we keep chasing the ‘progressive’ label? Progressives, for the most part, want to keep capitalism. And the label doesn’t really appeal to the people who can overthrow capitalism.

Let the progressives have their label. We’re socialists.

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