What is the difference between a progressive and a liberal?

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

To me the terms are interchangeable, but what does Atlas say?

[Torie]

It's a marketing label change. Liberal seems to connote libertine. Can't have that. Government spending is now investment, abortion is pro choice, anti abortion is pro life, janitors are sanitation engineers, old people are senior citizens, and on and on it goes.

[Blue3]

Progressives sometimes use "liberal" as an insult. Usually more corporation-friendly. Not radical.

Basically, Sanders supporters think Hillary is merely "liberal" while Bernie is "progressive."


At least that's how people I know seem to use it. I don't agree with them, but whatever.

[Illiniwek]

I may be ignorant, but the way I consider it is that modern American liberals believe "left-wing" policies are better than "right-wing" policies, while progressives believe that certain policies need to be adopted for us to evolve into a better society. Obviously there is plenty of overlap, but progressives are concerned with moving forward as a society and not making the same mistakes we have made in the past.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Liberals at least pretend that there is some value in individual liberty in itself, and not merely a means for reducing all people to some "equal" fixed amount of resources.

Liberals oppose abortion regulations out of concern for the notion that an individual has autonomy over their own body, even when the state may disagree.

Progressives oppose abortion regulations because such regulations are an example of icky patriarky using the state to inflict control/harm over wimmin.
 
One values the notion of liberal thought, the other merely believes liberal thought can be valuable when serving some other class/group based goal.

Another example is the current criticism of progressive attempts to curtail free speech by liberals. Neither likely agrees with the speech in question, but only one side sees independent value in diverse speech. Liberals therefore tend to oppose government censorship, whereas progressives are fine with government censorship, provided it is for "the right reasons".

[Mr. Reactionary]

Obviously there is plenty of overlap, but progressives are concerned with moving forward as a society and not making the same mistakes we have made in the past.

I'm no philosophy expert, but one critique I might make here is the notion that progressivism is an attempt to not make the same mistakes as in the past. On a base level, conservative is backward-looking and progressivism is forward-looking. Conservatives tend to rely much more on history, and thus the actual mistakes of the past, which is why conservatives tend to be pessimists. (You want to do X? It won't work because in the past, X1 didn't work). Progressives believe that rather than look at what has worked in the past for answers, we should experiment and try new things, because there is some sort of objective future that we must progress towards. (X1 may have failed, but only because society was not ready). Thus, conservatives look at the mistakes in the past as a warning to avoid, whereas progressives view past mistakes merely as a temporary challenge to overcome on the inevitable path to an objective end point deemed "progress".

[Famous Mortimer]

Liberal is a vague term without an exact definition. The definition changes depending on the context and the person using it. Anyone who offers up a definitive definition doesn't know what they're talking about.

Progressive was originally a euphemism for centre left liberal, as such, it only described the most moderate centre left liberals who wanted to distance themselves from more left-wing ones. As the term was used more and more, it became more and more identified with left liberals in generals. Eventually there was something I like to call "definition creep" and it went from meaning "centre left liberal but probably a moderate" to just "any strain of centre left liberalism". In the 90s, Hillary would call herself a progressive and Nancy Pelosi would call herself a liberal. Today, both would call themselves progressives but for different reasons. Hillary to stake her claim to the left (while still avoiding the dreaded L word) and Pelsoi to own being a liberal, which she would probably still admit to as well.

In summary, neither has a concrete meaning, like most political terms. See also: socialist, libertarian, feminist.

[MM876]

To me, historically progressivism emerged as a counterculture movement to the Gilded Age. The Gilded Age was a period where corporations bought politicians, where corruption was at an all time high, where social darwinism's prevalence made the belief that the rich were literally and physically better than the common man.

Progressivism is fighting monopolies, fighting money in politics, fighting for the little guy.

William Jennings Bryan advocated for free silver because it would reduce interest rates for the common man, and that is progressivism. Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft broke up the trusts so there could be free competitition and they couldn't choke out small businesses, and that is progressive. FDR believed in securing a bedrock of inherent, fundamental rights for every person. and that isprogressive.

However, because of the original historical basis and the positions that progressives have taken--Bryan against the banks, Roosevelt and Taft against the trusts, and FDR against damn near anyone on Wall Street, the biggest progressive issue is regulating business, and as a result of the encroaching opposition being funded by their enemies, the progressive bedrock should be money in politics.

The other issues--women's rights, minority rights, all take a backseat as far as I am concerned. The one enemy of progressivism, the oldest enemy of progressivism, the deepest enemy of progressivism, is money in politics.

[RFayette]

Progressivism has historical been more concerned with economics than liberalism.

This is true.  Liberalism has always been about egalitarianism; however, prior to the advent of large corporations, the general consensus among liberals was that the best way to have an egalitarian society was a weak, limited government (classical liberalism).  Over time, after various movements like emancipation, women's suffrage, etc., along with the Great Depression and the Progressive Era, liberalism gradually changed to encompass a larger centralized government for the purpose of improving the lots of the poor and working-class, redistributing some of the profits accrued by capitalism.  Progressivism is a newer term and didn't really come into play until the Guilded Age and the associated progressive reforms thereafeter.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

There might be actual differences in definition, but they are functionally indistinguishalbe as politicians currently use them. I believe the stereotype during the mid-2000's was saying, basically put, "I'm not a liberal, I'm a progressive", as a way of avoiding the stigma of the word. In my own head, I'd mentally associate "liberal" with "standard center-left Democrat", and "progressive" with "activist in favor of moving the party to the left". That doesn't in any way mean I'm correct, however.

[This account no longer in use.]

Progressive is to the left of liberal; the type of people who are likely to vote for the Green Party.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Though everyone else (other than Mr. Reactionary) is correct in the various nuances and historical usages, Cathcon put it best in how it is currently used in 2016:

In my own head, I'd mentally associate "liberal" with "standard center-left Democrat", and "progressive" with "activist in favor of moving the party to the left".

Funny how things change.

[Famous Mortimer]

If you want to take it back a century, yes, "progressive" was decidedly unliberal on social issues. Gilded Age progressives usually favored prohibition and their desire for economic equality was usually at least partly inspired by Christianity.

[RFayette]

If you want to take it back a century, yes, "progressive" was decidedly unliberal on social issues. Gilded Age progressives usually favored prohibition and their desire for economic equality was usually at least partly inspired by Christianity.

Neither of which were considered socially conservative positions at the time.  Also, remember that Christianity of some form was quite universal in America back then.  The real split was between the modernists and social gospel advocates, versus the fundamentalists, though there was actually some overlap between the latter two (see William Jennings Bryan).  Atheists and secularists were barely on the radar in mainstream America pre-WW1.

[Bojack Horseman]

I liked to say that I was a pragmatic progressive, because I'd always known "progressive" as just another word for "liberal." Liberal Democrats fit well into the Democratic establishment, and progressives seem to be the Social Justice Warriors (who I want nothing to do with) and the uber-left Democratic base.

I think that as more and more views that were considered "progressive" even five years ago have come into the mainstream (most notably supporting same-sex marriage), many people like me who were considered far-left progressives back then are merely generic liberal Democrats today. So that begs the question as to whether the political ground has shifted or if the definition of the two words have changed, or both.

[tallguy23]

Progressives don't shave their armpit hair.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Progressive means to make progress, and be a pragmatic towards the other side. LIBERAL means more about taking on special interest. Thats why the extremes are lobbyists on both sides. BERNIE sanders is too a progressive should he get the WH

[Hnv1]

Progressive denotes to a more economic left wing orientation and Liberal more mellow on economics and more into latte liberals social liberal issues 

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Basically, Sanders supporters think Hillary is merely "liberal" while Bernie is "progressive."

Hillary is a neoliberal.