This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “What political ideology is socially progressive but still capitalist?”

People are socially progressive or regressive, not ideologies.

Ideologies are wrappers around the contents of similarly aligned people who share a common set of values, beliefs, and ideas for how political processes occur and how commonly beneficial goals are achieved by working together.

Ideologies are not static entities like moulds that immediately shape a person’s thoughts once inducted into an ideological grouping.

Ideologies are dynamic and ever-changing as people change. Here is an example of how much an ideology can change:

(For the “fake news people,” here is a link to the Snopes article giving this platform a rating of “mixture” — 1956 Republican Platform )

Regardless of the accuracy of the above platform, it’s pretty clear by the Project 2025 platform that it has significantly evolved.

People define and shape ideologies, not the other way around.

Today’s Republicans are not Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation championing Republicans.
Today’s Democrats are not the Dixie Democrats of less than one hundred years ago.

Liberalism has undergone many varied manifestations as if it were Christianity, endlessly spawning new denominations.

This question, however, flips that script around and becomes something pretending to be an ideology but is, in fact, something much uglier and evil. This question presents an ideology as if it were a costume to wear in a performance following a script dictated to members like a cult.

Ideologies are also not capitalist. People are participants in an economic system referred to as “Capitalism. Each person views aspects of Capitalism that align with or run contrary to their politics. Since economics comprises a core component of political systems, varying interpretations of Capitalism’s’ role in society also form a core component of alignment with an ideological identity.

In short, almost all political ideologies incorporate interpretations of Capitalism within their ideological construct. Hence, you have answers extolling varying ideologies that all claim to be capitalist.

Like religions, however, each pretends to represent the “one true God (of Capitalism).”

If one were willing to stretch the definition of Capitalism beyond its commonly accepted uses, then even Communism could be considered a “capitalist ideology” because capital is essentially a store of value directed toward creating infrastructure for facilitating trade. Communist systems conduct trade within their systems.

After having said that and freaking out some hard-core capitalists, let’s track backwards and identify the typical distinction between Capitalism and “not capitalism.” That definition hinges on ownership of the means of production. In Capitalism, ownership of factories is held by private entities. In a communist economy, factories (production environments) are owned “by the people.”

Ironically, however, an argument often used to extol the benefits of Capitalism is the ability of the people to buy into a capitalist venture through a process called “share ownership.” Functionally, this renders the distinction between Capitalism as we perceive it and Communism as it was conceived as moot.

Communism failed because centralized authority was unable to meet the needs of the people. Capitalism is undergoing a late stage that is rapidly descending into failure for the same reason of consolidated power and centralized authorities.

The only salient differences between the two systems are how power is distributed and who is conferred power by what process that conferring of power occurs.

In summary, we would be far better off focusing on power instead of worrying about ideologies and which one wishes to identify with as their favourite team. We should be far more concerned with who has power in society and how much power they have.

If we genuinely want to live in a free society that we typically call a “democracy,” then we desperately need to adopt an ideology which “worships the flattening of power.” We must adhere to principles in which power is spread like peanut butter to all people.

The only power that truly matters in life is the power to choose how to live it.

Freedom is living one’s life in a state of maximum opportunity and diversity of choice within a shared environment. A critical factor in the success of an ideology is the acknowledgement of how we are all in this together. Only together can we survive into a future that lasts even half as long as the dinosaurs did.