Proponents of center-left politics in the United States have largely opted to associate their political standpoint more with the label "progressive," rather than "liberal," during the presidency of George W. Bush. This was partly a reaction to the thorough smear campaign the latter label has endured from right-wing propaganda efforts ever since the Reagan years -- as the term liberal polled less popular, progressive became the preferred identifier. However, this change in terminology also marks something greater, which those engaged in left-associated ideological stances other than liberalism, such as communism, would be keen to note.

The progressive movement is something more open to cooperation among proponents of multiple ideologies, as the term does not denote a single ideology with which to measure the collaborating parties' propositions. Mimicking the Democratic Party's position as a "Big Tent Party", a party that allows for cooperation among a wide range of opinions, the progressive mindset is open. Environmentalists, Feminists, Marxists, and others are included.

Regardless of the positions the Obama administration has taken since being elected to office, the people's coalition that was active in putting him there was broader and a great deal more left-wing than those who supported Al Gore just ten years earlier.

Undoubtedly, liberals make up a large proportion of the progressive movement, but the movement is not strictly defined by liberalism. Progressives are currently defined by an over-arching value more than a specific ideology. Progressives, including anti-racists, queer activists, feminists, socialists, and communists, are interested in the self-determination of the disenfranchised and oppressed, be them racial minorities, queer people, women, or the working class.

Within this progressive movement, Communists have the opportunity to play an important role.

Marxism gives Communists powerful analytical tools which they can use to contribute to the effectiveness of the progressive movement.

Many progressives recognize that class inequality and other power inequalities are related, as control over the instruments of producing our society rest primarily in the hands of straight, white men.

Marxism addresses the problems related to this in a number of ways.

First, it is important to acknowledge that the private ownership of the means of production and distribution is an incredibly powerful tool one can use to mold the rest of society to fit one's liking. In many of his works, especially "German Ideology", Marx describes how those with power over the economy influence not only the construction of our environment, but the very way in which we think.

The progressive movement widely accepts the idea that our mindsets are products of our environment -- that we are "socialized". Marxism explains that those who have the most power in socializing individuals are those in command of the economy, for it is they who have the final say in the construction of the majority of our work environments, the media we view, and the very products we use on a daily basis.

This is important to consider in light of the fact that the majority of those with economic power are inundated with the values of wealthy, heteronormative, white men.

Once this is recognized, the most important concept Marxism can bring to the progressive movement can be identified as the concept of alienation.

By introducing the notion of alienation, which describes the disconnect between both the workers desired method of production and the actual products they make (both determined by the socially privileged capitalist), Communists can illustrate the fact that social inequalities will persist until production is determined via a democratic method.

This is important to do because, while many other progressives recognize the correlation between social privilege and economic power, there still exists the notion that privilege can be done away with without addressing capitalism's splitting society into subservient workers and commanding capitalists.

The concept of alienation describes more than simply the feeling of disconnect between the workers and the work they are charged with performing. It also describes how the workers, in working under the command of an un-accountable executive board, are producing products which have properties reflecting the wishes of the executives. In a society where divisions still exist among gender, sexuality, and race, people of color, women, and queer individuals are predominantly engaged in work determined by straight white men, for straight white men.

Further, even if laws are designed that create a work environment that protects the disenfranchised from discrimination, those able to advance in such an environment (defined only by tolerance, rather than inclusion) will advance only with the permission of those already in power.

In less-than-philosophical terms, this process is known as "selling out". It is most often noticed when those who produce art engage in it, because people notice a change in the messages conveyed in their work when they rely on a specific company's resources.

Perhaps one of the most insidious results of this perversion of people's ideas is encountered in cultural commodification, where an entire group of people, disenfranchised under the current mode of production, has aspects of their culture mass-produced and sold, stripped of any deeper meaning that the cultural items once held.

As the economic base in our society produces the commodities and material that define our culture, anyone interested in the right of people to be self-determining should advocate for peoples' control of the economy.

Communism is too often confused with a battle limited to the empowerment of the working class, when Marxist theory truly aims to eliminate alienation, as Marx’s early work indicates (work like the "Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts"). Marx himself described the end of alienation as the emancipation of humankind. We cannot end alienation unless the means of producing our society are administered in a way representative of the diversity of those historically oppressed.

To combat alienation, its manifestation as a feeling and its root in class divisions, Communists should emphasize dedication to an active form of inclusion. It needs to be understood that capitalism is a system that, no matter what laws are passed, will continue to allow the dominance of the capitalists and their bourgeois, heteronormative, white male values above those of all working people. Further, tolerance, while preferable to bigotry, only allows the rule of the privileged over the disenfranchised to persist. Inclusion can be presented as the alternative to alienation, and Communists can promote such inclusion by insisting that private industry be replaced by a democratic economy that, through proportional representation and minority protections, makes inclusion real.

Communists need to explain that the class struggle, defined by Marxism's desire to end alienation, necessarily includes the empowerment of all oppressed groups, as all hold alienation in common. Any failure to reach equality maintains class.

Simply stated, Communists believe that all people ought to be included in the production of society.