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#politics

Progressivism:

You want the world to change in a direction you view as positive. The opposite is conservatism – wanting things to stay as they are. You can be progressive on some issues, conservative on others

Liberalism:

a political view based on individual freedom. Very broad term, but it usually refers to freedom within capitalism – concepts like the free market. This places it on the economically right side of the political compass

Libertarian left square of the political compass:

“Libertarian” refers to a limited government. The further down you are, the more limited you want the government to be. At the bottom of the political compass are people who oppose the whole concept of a government or state. “Left” refers to common ownership over the means of production (socialism)

The biggest difference between the two systems is economics. Here's a (strongly simplified) example of how an economy works in liberalism vs how it works in left/social libertarianism:

Liberalism: Somebody owns sewing machines and fabric. They hire people to sew shirts, sell them, buy new fabric, advertise the shirts etc. After removing cost, each shirt still generates $30. They keep $25 and distribute $5 to the workers. The company can sell shirts wherever and however they want – the government can't tell them things like how many shirts to produce, or what to print on them.

Left libertarianism: A commune owns sewing machines and fabric. They need shirts, so they make them. Some people don't enjoy sewing, so they do something else instead (e.g. farming, teaching, building etc). They still get the clothing they need, and share what they produce and don't need.

A left libertarian society may or may not have a currency and a market. If they do, that scenario above might look different, like this:

A commune owns sewing machines. Someone makes shirts and sells them. When someone wants clothing, they have a choice between buying it or using the commune's (commonly owned) sewing machines and making their own.

Liberals tend to see left libertarianism as utopian and unrealistic. Left libertarians tend to see liberalism as exploitative.

The biggest similarity between liberalism and left libertarianism is social issues. Normally, they're both progressive on these. Both are for democracy and equality, but they tend to interpret these things very differently:

For a liberal, equality may be defined by having more minorities (women, LGBTQ+ people, people of color etc) in positions of power, like as politicians or CEOs. Democracy in liberalism is more associated with electoral politics and majority rule

For a left libertarian, “positions of power” and “equality” are inherently contradictory. They don't think minorities can be liberated while those hierarchies still exist. Democracy in left libertarianism is more associated with direct democracy and consensus decision-making

Quick clarification of terms

Capitalism: private corporations own the means of production (–>liberalism)

Socialism: workers own the means of production (–> left libertarianism)

Electoral politics: You vote for a politician or a party. The politicians then vote on important decisions (–> liberalism)

Direct democracy: Everyone (that is affected by the decision) votes directly on important decisions (–> left libertarianism)

Majority rule: You vote on an issue. You go with the choice with the most votes (–> liberalism)

Consensus decision-making: You discuss an issue. You go with the choice that everyone approves of (–> left libertarianism)

Both liberalism and left-libertarianism are incredibly broad terms, and not all examples will perfectly fit into what I described.