It is absolutely a Capitalist ideology, because Liberalism centers around Private Property Rights. The idea is “the freer the markets, the freer the people.” No, I do not mean Libertarianism.
We should be pushing for better lives for everyone, yes. Capitalism, the system by which competing Capital Owners exploit workers via taking the surplus value of their labor, is not working. Exploitation is rising, wages are stagnating with respect to productivity, and the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall is causing this exploitation to be exported to the Global South. This endless M-C-M’ circuit by which commodity production services accumulation into fewer and fewer hands results in obscene wealth and power in the hands of the few.
That’s Capitalism, and that’s what I oppose, and presumably you as well. I know very well what Capitalism is, why it’s bad, why it cannot last forever, and why Socialism is better.
It is centered on Private Property, because it’s focused on Capitalism. Property Rights are largely what separates liberals from Socialists.
Exploitation is rising in the long term. Pinkertons stopped murdering because American Unions crumbled and manufacturing was largely moved overseas, where we super-exploit for super-profits.
Liberals have been dragged kicking and screaming by radicals for their entire existance forward.