Hey man, ran into you in the 40k subreddit and you seemed a bit confused by liberalism vs leftism. I know when I first heard about this it threw me off and I figured I'd explain a bit.

Feel 100% free to never respond or engage, done Rando going and explaining leftist theory is kinda weird and I come by that honest. But as someone who went from "classical liberal" to avowed leftist I feel like I might be able to provide some insight.

Liberalism, in it's purest sense, is "classical liberalism" or the belief that little to no social or economic regulations maximizes an individual's ability to be happy and prosperous. Modern conservative thought tends to stray from this socially but is extremely rigid about the economic side. Modern liberals (sometimes called neo-liberals) who form the Democratic Party establishment (e.g. Pelosi, Biden, Clinton) tend to more closely resemble the term. Hence why it's stuck for them. They tend to believe that the economy is a vast monolithic thing that can't be changed by government and so they try to help constituents by providing incentives to the markets to behave the way that want them to. This is sometimes criticized on the left as making offerings to appease an angry God.

Leftism has its original roots in Marx, which is often a bit scary to people who first approach it, but there really isn't too much radical stuff in there. Leftism, and I'm being insanely broad here, is the belief that we need the make the economy in whatever form it takes serve the people rather than having us serve it. It's struggling against the economy that drives is to desperation and alienation under capitalism. The fear of missing hours because you caught a cold and you're out of sick days. The anxiety of realizing your wife is pregnant and during the months and years you need extra money the most, your household income will likely be halved (this one stresses me out a lot). The knowledge that when it comes down to it, whatever flavor of politician you pick, they're never going to make it easier to pay off your loans or avoid going into debt from breaking your arm at work or get your child the medicine they need because that would entail disrupting the economy somewhat and that would disrupt the donors and that would make them lose their next election.

Add to that the knowledge that the resources to alleviate all these problems is with us right now. The knowledge that if you had $1 billion, you could burn $250 every day from the beginning of civilization until now and still have some left over. Imagine if you could spend $250 a day every day with tens of millions left over. That's $91,250 annually. What could you do with $250 a day for your household? Now imagine being Jeff Bezos with his $157 billion. Just his wealth split among everyone in the world right now is over $7000 a day from now until 10,000 years from now. (156b/7b/365/10000). Nobody ever needs that much money. Not when worldwide 36 million die of hunger annually. Every three years under capitalism the world loses more to hunger than a century under communism.

The world's resources are not divided well. They're not being used efficiently. And we're dying while the world boils and the rich laugh themselves to a late grave with enough money to prolong their lives as long as they can.

As leftists we aim to reorganize the economy to suit everyone's needs. To prevent suffering by using the resources we already have and allow everyone the chance at four walls and a healthy family. Because that is what people deserve more than anything. A humane life.