Bhaskar Sunkara: Socialism and Communism | Lex Fridman Podcast #349

- The following is a conversation with Bhaskar Sunkara. He's a democratic socialist, a political writer, founding editor of "Jacobin", president of "The Nation", former vice chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the author of the "Socialist Manifesto: "The Case for Radical Politics in an Era. "of Extreme Inequality.". As a side note, let me say that this conversation. with Bhaskar Sunkara, who's a brilliant socialist writer. and philosopher represents what I hope to do. with this podcast.

I hope to talk to the left and the right, to the far left and the far right, always with goal of presenting and understanding. both the strongest interpretation of their ideas. and valuable thought-provoking arguments. against those ideas. Also, I hope to understand the human being behind the ideas. I trust in your intelligence as the listener. to use the ideas you hear to help you learn, to think, to empathize, and to make up your own mind. I will often fall short in pushing back too hard,

or not pushing back enough, of not bringing up topics I should have, of talking too much, of interrupting too much, or maybe sometimes in the rare cases, not enough. Of being too silly on a serious topic, or being too serious on a silly topic. I'm trying to do my best, and I will keep working my ass off to improve. In this way, I hope to talk to prominent figures. in the political space, even controversial ones.

on both the left and the right. For example, I hope to talk to Donald Trump. and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, to Ron DeSantis and Barack Obama, and of course many others across the political spectrum. I sometimes hear accusations about me being controlled. in some way by a government or an intelligence agency, like CIA, FSB, Mossad, or perhaps that I'm controlled in some way. by the very human desire for money, fame, power, access.

All I have is my silly little words. But let me give them to you. I'm not and will never be controlled by anyone. There's nothing in this world that can break me. and force me to sacrifice my integrity. People call me naive. I'm not naive, I'm optimistic. And optimism isn't a passive state of being. It's a constant battle against the world. that wants to pull you into a downward spiral of cynicism. To me, optimism is freedom.

Freedom to think, to act, to build, to help, at times in the face of impossible odds. As I often do, please allow me to read a few lines. from the poem, "If", by Rudyard Kipling. "If you can keep your head. "when all about you are losing theirs. "and blaming it on you, "if you can trust yourself. "when all men doubt you, "but make allowance for their doubting too. "If you can wait and not be tired by waiting.

"or being lied about, don't deal in lies, "or being hated, don't give way to hating, "and yet don't look too good, don't talk too wise.". Even this very poem is mocking. my over romantic ridiculousness as I read it. The meta irony is not lost on me, my friends, I'm a silly little kid trying to do a bit of good. in this world. Thank you for having my back through all of it, all of my mistakes. Thank you for the love. This is "The Lex Fridman Podcast".

To support it, please check out our sponsors. in the description. And now to dear friends, here's Bhaskar Sunkara. Let's start with a big broad question. What is socialism? How do you like to define it? How do you like to think about it? - Well, there's so many socialists out there. and we can't seem to agree about anything. So my definition, I'm sure is, you know, really just my definition. But I think at the minimum, socialism is about making sure that the core necessities.

of life, food, housing, education, and so on are guaranteed to everyone just by virtue. being born so that those people can reach their potential. And I think that's a minimum requirement of socialism. Beyond that, I think socialism, especially democratic socialism, the type of socialism that I believe in, is about taking democracy from just. the political democratic realm and extending it. into economic and social spheres as well.

So if we think the democracy is a good thing, why do we allow our workplaces to be run in autocratic ways? - So economic, political, social, in all those realms, the ideas, the philosophical ideas apply. Like what are, if you can put words to it, what are some philosophical ideas about human beings. that are at the core of this? - I think at the core,

it's the idea that we have intrinsic value. We are individuals that have unequal talents, of course, we're individuals that want different things, but this unique individualness can only truly come to light. in a society in which there are certain collective. or social guarantees. So we could think just like Stephen J. Gould, the scientists and socialists used to say about.

how many thousands of potential Einsteins. or Leonardo da Vinci's that died, you know, in sweatshops and on plantations and never got the chance. to cultivate what was unique and human about themselves, and also never got a chance to have families and impart. what was special and important to them. to future generations and to posterity. My own grandmother was born in Trinidad and Tobago. She was illiterate till her dying days.

She lived in East Orange, New Jersey. She never had the chance to write down her memories. of her life in Trinidad as a young woman and what it meant. She of course had lots of children and she was able. to impart some stories to her children and grandchildren. But I often think about what someone with her wit. and intelligence could have done. with a little bit more support. - But if all human beings have intrinsic value, you don't have to be an Einstein for the application.

of some of the ideas that you're talking about. Is there a tension or a trade off between. our human civilization, our society helping the unlucky. versus rewarding the skillful and the hardworking? - I think you could do both. There's always a balance between the two. I think you could reward people who make innovations. and would improve lives for everyone. through their innovations by giving them, let's say, even more consumption,

even that level of in inequality, while still making sure that there's not people. in poverty and suffering and while making sure that, hey, we're gonna give these people who want to work. that extra 10 hours or 20 hours or want to apply. their hard work some extra benefits, but that these benefits would be not the extreme disparities. that you have today. - So at the core of socialism and maybe democratic socialism.

is maybe a reallocation of wealth, reallocation of resources. - I think it's wealth and resources, yes, but it's also power. And I guess one way to think about this is some thinkers. on the right, like Hayek, they would say in their most generous moments. talking about socialists and socialism, they would say, socialists want to trade some of your freedom for equality. And that's them trying to just accurately describe.

what socialism is trying to do. The way that I would put it is a little bit different. Socialists are proposing a trade off, but it's really a trade off between freedom and freedom. And by that I mean let's say you set up. a successful business and you set up a business. right here in Austin, Texas, some sort of firm, it's producing some widget or or whatever, and it's producing a good that people really want.

and demand but you have some competition. You decide to hire 20, 30 people to help you. You entered into a free contract with these people who, under capitalism, of course, we're not living in feudalism, have the option to join any other firm. But they like you and they like this firm. and they like your offer and you're paying them, let's say, $20 an hour for 40 hours of work per week. Now, if the government comes along and says, okay,

there's now a new minimum wage. Minimum wage is $22 an hour, and also there's a maximum work week, 35 hour work week. And if you work someone over 35 hours, even if they agree, you have to pay them time and a half. Now that of course is now an abridgment of your freedom. as an entrepreneur, your freedom to set certain terms. of employment and to engage in a contract with free people. But now your workers and other workers in this sector,

'cause if you did it unilaterally, you just get undercut by your competition. Now these people now have a few extra hours a week. they can do whatever they want with. You know, they could watch more NFL with it. They could, you know, spend more time with their friends. or family or whatever else. and they're still getting paid the same, if not better, 'cause because the wages also went up. So it's really a question often of trade-offs between. who's freedom and autonomy are you going to prioritize, the freedom and autonomy of the entrepreneur.

or the capitalist in this case, or the freedom and autonomy of ordinary workers. Now you could create a society that swings so far. in the direction of prioritizing the freedom. of one group or one class or whatever else. compared to another, then you end up in some sort of tyranny. Now if the state said, you know, you're a capitalist, so you don't get the right to vote, or we're gonna take away your private home. or your ability to do things we think.

are intrinsic human rights, now this would be tyranny. This be an abridgment of your rights. but shaping your ability in the economic sphere. to be an economic actor is I think within the realm. and scope of democratic politics. - Yeah, so those are the extremes you're referring to, and one perspective I like to take on socialism. versus capitalism is under each system, the extremes of each systems and the moderate versions.

of each system, how can people take advantage of it? So it seems like no matter what, part of human nature is, whatever the rules, whatever the framework, whatever the system, somebody's gonna take advantage of it. And that's the kind of pragmatic look at it, in practice, what actually happens. Also, the incentives and the human behavior, what actually happens in practice under these systems? So if you have a higher and higher minimum wage.

and people watch more and more NFL, how does that change their actual behavior. as a productive member of society, and actually at the individual level, as somebody who could be in Einstein. and chooses not to because NFL is so awesome to watch? So like is both, how do people, malicious people that wanna take advantage, maybe not malicious, but people that like me.

are lazy and wanna take advantage and people that also, I think like me, I tend to believe about myself. that I have potential and if I let my laziness. naturally take over, which it often does, I won't materialize the potential. So if you make life too easy for me, I feel like I will never get anything done. Me personally. Of course there's a giant set of circumstances. of the unlucky and the overburdened and so on.

So how can people take advantage of each system, socialism, capitalism? - So for one thing, people are going. to take advantage of systems. They're gonna find loopholes, they're gonna find ways around. They're gonna find ways to at times dominate. and coerce others, even in systems meant. to get rid of domination and coercion. That's why we need to design our systems. in such a way that it eliminates. as many of these things as possible, and also that's why we need democracy, we need freedom.

So in a Soviet system for instance, you had the rise of this authoritarian bureaucracy. that dominated and coerced others and the name of socialism. Now, that system desperately could have used. some political democracy and some checks on what people. were doing and some ability to reverse the power, right? And as soon as of course little elements of democracy. was brought to that system, the system, you know, collapsed because there there starting to be outlets.

for dissent and for dissatisfaction. So I think we can't design a perfect system. We need to be committed to certain principles. that allow systems to be perfected, and for me that's the importance of democracy. So even a few years ago, not to go on a tangent, but people are allowing Chinese authoritarianism. and they're saying, China's building this efficient system, this state runs so well, there's technocratic excellence, plus there's just productivity and they're just.

working harder than Americans and whatever else. But look at in practice what really happened with COVID, both the initial suppressing of information. about what was happening in Wuhan and the outbreak, where many ordinary Chinese workers. and doctors and others were trying to get the word out. and they were suppressed by communist party officials. locally in Wuhan probably with the collusion nationally. And now with Zero COVID policies and whatever else.

So I think that often we find that even though. it seems like these are are weak systems. and democracy makes us less competent, technocratically and otherwise, I think it's kind of a necessity for systems to grow. and evolve to have that freedom in civil society. But as for individuals now, the first part of it is, yeah, I think people should be free to make their own choices. You might have tremendous potential, but you might choose to spend it in leisure.

And leisure doesn't only mean doing, you know, sitting around at home, drinking a bunch of beers, kind of wasting your life away that way. Leisure might mean spending more time. with their friends and family, building these sort of relationships. that are gonna maybe not change the world. in some medicines, but will change the lives. of the people around you and will change. your community for the better. - I'm taking notes here 'cause, for me leisure just meant playing a lot of Skyrim. This whole family relationship, I'm gonna have to work on that.

I didn't realize that's also including leisure. 'Cause I'm gonna have to reconsider my whole life here. - No, leisure should mean civic activity too, right? I mean there's that famous book, the Robert Putnam one, "Bowling Alone", or whatever, which described it for now, I was born 1989. I like, you know, video and computer games, you know. So I definitely do that type of leisure too. But I found a lot more richness in my life when in the last, you know, decade a lot of my leisure has returned. to like going to the local bar for like the couple drinks.

I have a week instead of doing it at home alone. watching TV or something, you know, 'cause you get that random conversation, that sense of a place and belonging. But I guess what's the undercurrent maybe of your question. was now if you have a system with lots of carrots but not. the whip of hey, you might be destitute, you might be unemployed, you might not be able to support yourself. unless you're working a certain amount,

would we still be as productive? Would we still be able to generate enough value for society? And I think that's a question. that is quite interesting. I think that we're living in a society now. with enough abundance that we could afford. more people deciding to opt out of the system, opt out of production, and that the carrots of staying in, you know,

more money for consumption, more ability to do cool things, more just social rewards comes from being successful. or from providing would be enough. But that's another thing that would have to be balanced. in a system. So if we're seeing mass unemployment. by choice in a democratic socialist system, then you might need to reconfigure the incentives. You might need to encourage people. to go back into production.

But that's something that again, you could do through democracy and through good governance. You don't have to set the perfect blueprint in motion, you know, write up a treatise now, and 50 years from now, you know, try to follow it like it's scripture. - So by the way, I do like how you said whip. instead of stick in carrot and stick. That's putting a weight on the scale of which is better. But yes. But I would actually argue to push back that the wealthier.

we get as a society, as a world, that the more comfortable the social nets become, so the less of a whip or a stick they become. Because one of the negative consequences, even if you're on welfare, is like, well life is not gonna be that great, but the wealthier we become, the better the social programs become, the easier life becomes at the bottom. And so you might not have this motivation financially.

to get out from the bottom. That said, the pushback on the pushback, is that there's something about human nature in general, money aside, that strives for greatness, that strives to provide a great life, a great middle class life for your family. And so that's the motivator to get off from the bottom. - Well I think a lot of people who are stuck. at the bottom of the labor market today,

one, these are people who are kind of, are true philanthropists, 'cause a lot of them are the ones who are working two jobs. and are working 60 plus hours and are providing. In this country, it's such a bargain for their labor. 'cause they're so underpaid. So many of the things that the rest of us use. to enjoy life and consumption or whatever else. Like I got here from downtown Austin in I think my Lyft, you know, I did tip, but I think my Lyft.

was like eight bucks base or whatever else. You know, I think that we are all indebted. to people who are working and we don't see it. at various stages of the production process from, you know, the workers in China and Taiwan producing, you know, technological things that we're recording this on to, you know, growers and workers and agriculture in the US. So I think that, one,

working class people are already working, but as far as, you know, getting out from under poverty and desperation, we're in a society that doesn't give people a lot of tools. So if you don't have access to good public schools from, you know, age five until, you know, 12, 13, it's gonna be really hard to move from generations. of your family being involved in manual labor. to doing other forms of labor.

You're gonna be stuck at a certain part. of our labor market as as a result. If you don't have access to decent healthcare, you know, throughout your life you might be already pre-ordained. to an early grave by the time you that something kicks in, you really want, to change something in your life. in your mid twenties. Obviously it's a combination of agency. and all these other factors. There's still something I think innately human, innately striving, that a lot of people have.

But we don't really give people in our current society. the tools to really be full participants in our society. We just take for granted, for example, and I'm from the northeast, so I give like excessively northeast example, we take for granted that someone from, you know, Hartford, Connecticut is gonna have, your average working class person from Hartford's. gonna have a very different life outcome than someone born. on the same day, the same hour in Greenwich, Connecticut. You know, we take for granted that accidents.

of birth are gonna dictate outcomes. - So you mean like depending on the conditions. of where you grew up, there's going to be fundamentally different experience. in terms of education, in terms of the resources available to you. to allow yourself to flourish? - Yes, a poor city and a rich city, and Connecticut is great, it's highly, highly underrated. Both New Yorkers and people from Boston kind of have. a colonial feeling about Connecticut where we make fun of it.

and we try to carve it up, you know, the west belongs to New York, the east of Boston. But you know, I'm here for Connecticut nationalism. I think it's a great place. - Okay. Can we actually step back a little bit on definitions? 'Cause you said that some of the ideas practically. that you're playing with is democratic socialism. We talked about the higher level, the higher kind of vision of socialism, the ideas, the philosophical ideas. But how does it all fit into the big picture historically.

of ideas of Marxism, communism and socialism. as it was defined and experienced. and implemented in the 20th century? So what's your key differences, maybe even just like socialism, communism? - Yeah, well I hate the no-true-Scotsman sort. of response to this, which is, oh that socialism is bad, so it wasn't really socialism, and my socialism is good, so it is socialism. But I think that socialism and communism share.

a common ancestor, which is they both emerged out. of the turmoil and development. of late 19th century capitalism, and the fact that there was all these workers parties. that were organizing across the capitalist world. So in Europe for instance, you had this mass party called. the German Social Democratic Party in the, that became probably the most important,

the most vibrant party in Germany in the 1880s and 1890s, but they were locked out of power because Germany. at the time was still mostly autarchic, you know, it had a parliamentary democracy, but it was a very undemocratic democracy. The Kaiser still ruled. These movements took root across the capitalist world, but including in Russia, and in conditions of illegality. So it was assumed for many, many years in the workers' movement across Europe.

and among socialists of Europe, they called themselves social democrats then, that the revolution would first probably happen. in Germany in this developed growing hub. of industrial capitalism and not in semi-feudal Russia. But then World War I came. The workers' movement was split between parties that decided. to either keep their head down or to implicitly support. the war and then, you know, support the war for now or keep your heads down,

don't get banned, don't get arrested, then we'll just take power after the war is over, and those like Russia and also in the United States. for that matter that chose the path. of resistance to the war. And it was the Bolshevik faction of the Russian movement, Lenin's Bolshevik party that took power in Russia after. a period of turmoil where it didn't seem, well, was it gonna go to the fascist right.

or was it gonna go to the far left. There was a period of flux in turmoil in Russia, but definitely the old regime was not able to to stand. And these Russian social Democrats, these Bolshevik said, social democracy has so betrayed the idea. of internationalism and brotherhood and progress. it was supposed to stand for that. we can't call ourselves social democrats anymore. We're gonna go back to this old term that Marx used. We're gonna call ourselves communists. And that's where official kind of communism out.

of Russia emerged. In other parts of Europe, parties were actually able to take power, some in the interwar period, but most in the post-war period, and they also came out. of this old social democratic movement, and these parties mostly just call themselves socialists. And a lot of them still on paper wanted. to go beyond capitalism, but in practice they just managed capitalism better. in the interest of workers.

But they all had the same common ancestor. And in practice, to me, social democracy means trying to insert doses. of socialism within capitalism, but maintaining capitalism. Communism meant this attempt to build a socialism outside. of capitalism in often authoritarian ways in part. because of the ideology of these communists, but in part because of the conditions. in which they inherited.

You know, they were inheriting a democracy. They were inheriting a country that had been ruled. by the czars for, you know, for centuries, and with very little condition, like a very weak working class, you know, very poor and devastated by war and so on. where authoritarianism kind of lended itself. to those conditions. And then there's me, you know, then there's democratic socialists. and the way I would define it is we like a lot. of what the social Democrats accomplished, but we still believe in going beyond capitalism.

and not just building socialism within capitalism, but we believe in this ultimate vision. of a world after capitalism. - What does that world look like. and how's it different from communism? Actually, maybe we can linger before we talk. about your vision of democratic socialism, what was wrong with communism, Stalinism implementation of communism in the Soviet Union? Why did it go wrong, and in what ways did it not go wrong? In what ways did it succeed?

Let me start with the second part of that question, and that's a very difficult one to answer in part. because I morally and ethically am opposed. to any form of authoritarianism or dictatorship. And often when you talk about the successes. of a government or what it did developmentally. that might have been positive, we have to abstract ourselves from what we morally believe. and just kind of look at the record, right? I would say that the Soviet experiment started off by,

in Lenin's time as the attempt to kind of just hold, a holding action. Hey, we don't really have the conditions. to rule this country. We have the support of the working class or most of it, but the working class is only, you know, 3% of the population. You know, the peasantry is really against us. A lot of this 3% of the population has died in war. and half of them supported the Mensheviks. and the more moderate socialists anyway. But the alternative in their minds.

was going to be a far right reaction. You know, some sort of general taking power. in a coup or whatever else, or just them ending up back in prison, 'cause a lot of them were in prison under the czar, or just killed. So they figured, alright, we're gonna have a holding action where we maintain. as much of this territory. of their old Russian empire as possible. We'll try to slowly implement changes,

restabilize the economy through something called. a new economic program, which was kind of a form. of social democracy, if you will, 'cause it allowed market exchange for the peasants, combined with state ownership of industries in the cities. And for a while it, seemed to be working. The revolution never came that they were expecting. in Western Europe, but in Russia itself, they were able to restabilize things by the middle. or end of the 1920s, and they were able to build more of a popular base for some.

of their policies because people who had seen the chaos. of World War I and Revolution and then civil war. kind of just wanted stability. And after a decade plus of war, if you had a government that was able to give you enough. to eat and a job, you know, that was good enough for them. Then Stalin came into power and he wanted. to rapidly industrialize. And his logic was, the revolution's not gonna come. in the west. We need to build socialism in one country.

and we need to catch up with the west. We need to turn ourselves into an industrial powerhouse. as quickly as possible. And that's where you got forced collectivization. to try to increase the productivity of Russian agriculture. through state ownership. of previously fragmented agricultural holdings, and through the implementation of mechanization. So bring in more machines to make agricultural. more productive, all understate ownership, plus more ambitious attempts to build heavy industry.

through five year plans. Now I say this kind of coolly, but we know in practice what that meant. You know, forced collectivization was a disaster. I mean, first of all, I think it was built. on the faulty premise that scale always equals. more productivity when in fact, especially in agriculture, but in any field it's a little bit. more complicated than that, and it led to millions of deaths. You know, it led to a famine, it led to a host of other problems.

Industrialization in the way that it happened under Stalin. also kind of unbalanced the Soviet economy to lean too heavy. towards heavy industry, not enough or medium or light industry. But this did mean especially. the five year plan industrialization did manage. to put Russia on a different developmental trajectory. So by the time the post-war period came,

one, it might have gave them the ability to survive. the Nazi invasion to begin with. That's a complicated question. And then by the time the post-war period came, Russia had kind of jumped ahead. of its developmental trajectory in a way that a lot. of other countries didn't do. There are a few examples, like Japan is one to manage to. If you kind of ran a scenario where Japan would be. in the 1870s, 1880s and ran in a hundred times, the Japan of the post-war period is kind of one. of the best outcomes, right?

And I think that you could say that. about Russian economic development, its ability to catch up at a certain level to the west. And then after that, of course later on, as economies got more complex, as the kind of moved beyond regular heavy industry. and as the mainstay of the economy, the Russian economy and its command system. was unable to adapt and cope and ended up falling back. behind the west again by the 1970s.

So all this is a very long story to say. that a lot went wrong in Russia. The economic picture is actually. a little bit more complicated. Politically, I think it's just a small party. without much popular support, but with real popular support in a couple cities. without a lot of popular support, empire wide, took power and they felt they couldn't give back power, and they kept holding on to power, and eventually among their ranks in these conditions,

one of history's great tyrants took power and was able. to justify what he was doing in the context. of the Russian nation and development, but also all the threats that came from abroad through, you know, the civil war wasn't just a civil war, it was really an invasion by many imperial powers. all around the world as well. So I think a lot of it was conditions and circumstance. And I guess the question really.

is to what role ideology played? Was there something within the socialist tradition. that might have lend itself to authoritarianism, and that's something we should, you know, talk about. - And that's a really complicated human question. It does seem that the rhetoric, the populism of workers unite, we've been fucked over for way too long, let's stand together, somehow that message allows flawed or evil people.

to take power. It seems like the rhetoric, the idea is so good, maybe the utopian nature of the idea is so good. that it allows a great speaker to take power. It's almost like if the mission like, come with me, friends. Beyond the horizon, a great land is waiting for us, that encourages sort of, yeah, dictators,

authoritarians to take power. Is there something within the ideology that allows for that, for the sort of, for lying to people essentially? - Well, I might surprise you with my answer. 'cause I would say yes, maybe. But I think that it's not just socialism. Any sort of ideology that appeals to the collective. and appeals to our long-term destiny,

either as a species or as a nation, or as a class or whatever else, can lend itself to authoritarianism. So you can see this in many of the nationalisms. of the 20th century. Now, some of these nationalisms. used incredibly lofty collective rhetoric. Like in Sweden, the rhetoric of we're gonna create. the people's home. We're gonna make this a country with dignity for all Swedes. We're gonna make this a country that's more developed, more free and so on. And they managed to build a pretty excellent society.

in my estimation from that. You know, in countries like fascist Germany and Italy, they managed to do horrendous things, in Japan, and horrendous things with that. In the US with national popular appeals, FDR was able to unite a nation to elevate ordinary. working class people and to position where they felt. like they had a real stake in the country, and I think did great things with the New Deal. In Russia, of course this language was used.

to trample upon individual rights. and to justify hardship and abuses. of ordinary individual people in the name. of a collective destiny. A destiny, of course, was just decided by the party. in power and during the thirties and forties. by just Stalin himself really. Now I think that's really the case.

for making sure that we have a bedrock. of civil rights and democracy. And then on top of that we can debate. We can debate different national destinies, we could debate different appeals, different visions of the world. But as long as people have a say in what sacrifices. they're being asked to do, and as long as those sacrifices don't take away. what's fundamentally ours, which is our life, you know, which is our, you know, our basic rights.

- And voice, our voice. So this complicated picture, because, help me understand, you mentioned that social democracy is trying. to have social policies within a capitalist system, in part, but your vision, your hope for a social democracy. is one that goes beyond that.

How do you give everybody a voice while not becoming. the Soviet Union, while not becoming where basically people are silenced. either directly through violence or through. the implied threat of violence and therefore fear? - So I think you need to limit the scope. of where the state is and what the state can do. and how the state functions, first of all. Now for me, social democracy was like the equivalent of,

I'll give a football analogy, it was the equivalent of, you know, getting to the red zone and then kicking a field goal. You know, you'll take the three points, but you would've rather got a touchdown. And for me, socialism would be the touchdown. It's not a separate different playing field. - Some people would say socialism would be an interception. - Sure, sure. No, and hey would have the right to, again, to say that and to say, we shouldn't go further. - And most coaches would take the safe route, right?

So you're going against the, anyway that she takes too far. Yeah, yeah, but I understand, I understand. So for you, the goal is full socialism. - But I'll take the three points. You know, it's part of, I just wanna march down the field. I want to get within scoring position. The reason why, we should really move from this analogy, but the reason why I call myself a socialist is looking. through history and these examples of social democracy,

you saw that they were able to give working class people. lots of rights and income and power in their society, but at the end of the day, capitalists still had the ultimate power, which is the ability to withhold investment. So they could say in the late 1960s and the early seventies, listen, I was fine with this arrangement 10 years ago, but now I feel like I'm gonna, you know, take my money and I'm gonna go move to a different country,

or I'm just gonna not invest 'cause my workers. are paid too much. I'm still making money, but I feel like I could be making more, I need more of an upper hand, right? So their economic power is then challenging. the democratic mandate of Swedish workers that we're voting. for the social democratic party. and were behind this advance. So to me, what socialism is in part is taking the means. of production, right, where this capitalist power. is coming from and making it socially owned.

so that ordinary workers can control their workplaces, can make investment decisions and so on. Now, does that mean total state ownership of everything. or a planned economy? I don't think that makes any sense. You know, I think that we should live in a society. in which markets are harnessed and regulated and so on. My main problem is capitalist ownership, in part on normative grounds,

just because I think that it doesn't make sense. that we celebrate democracy and all these other spheres, but we have workplaces that are just treated like tyrannies, and in part because I think that ordinary workers. would much prefer a system in which over time they, you know, accrued shares in ownership, where they got, in addition to a base, kind of ways they got dividends from their firm. being successful, and that they figure it out how to,

you know, large firms, they're not gonna be. making day-to-day decisions by democratic vote, right? But maybe you would elect representatives, elected managements once every year or two depending. on your operating agreement and so on. That's kind of my vision of a socialist society. And this sounds, I hope, like, agree or disagree, like it would not be a crazy leap into year zero, right, that this could be maybe a way in which we could take. a lot of what's existing in society, but then just add this on top.

But what it would mean is a society. without a capitalist class. This class hasn't been, you know, individually these people, you know, haven't been taken to reeducation camps. or whatever else, but they're just no longer in this position, and they're now part of the economy in other ways. Like they'll probably be the first set. of highly competent technocrats and managers and so on. They'll probably be very well compensated.

for their time and expertise and whatever else. But to me, both the practical end of things. like taking away this ability to withhold investment. and increasing our ability to democratically. shape investment priorities and to continue. down the road of social democracy and on normative grounds, my kind of egalitarian belief that ordinary people. should have more stake in their, in their lives in the workplace leads me.

beyond social democracy to socialism. - So there's a tricky thing here. So in Ukraine especially, but in the Soviet Union, there's the gulags. The possible trajectory of fighting. for the beautiful message of respecting workers' rights. has this dynamic of making an enemy of the capitalist class, too easily making an enemy of the capitalist class,

with a central leader, populist leader that says the rich and the powerful, they're taking advantage of you. We need to remove them, we need to put them in camps. Perhaps not said explicitly until it happens, it can happen overnight. But just putting a giant pressure on that capitalist class, and again, the Stalin type figure takes hold. So I'm trying to understand how the mechanism. can prevent that.

And perhaps I'll sort of reveal my bias here, is I've been reading a, I was gonna say too much, maybe not enough, but a lot about, you know, books like Stalin's war in Ukraine. and I've been reading a lot about the thirties. and the forties for personal reasons related. to my travels in Ukraine and all that kind of stuff. So I have a little bit of focus. on the historical implementations of communism currently. without kind of an updated view of all.

the possible future implementations. So I just wanna lay that out there. But I worry about the slippery slope. into the authoritarian figure that takes this sexy message, destroys everyone who's powerful in the name. of the working class and then fucks. the working class afterwards. - So first of all, I think it's worth remembering. that the socialist movement had different outcomes. across western Europe and eastern Europe.

And in some of these countries in western Europe, there wasn't actually democracy before the workers movement. before the socialist movement. So the battle in Sweden, for instance, was about establishing political democracy, establishing true representation for workers, and that's how the parties became popular. Same thing in Germany too. Then it was the social Democrats who were able. to build political democracy. Then on top of that, add layers of economic democracy, social democracy.

The Swedish social Democrats ruled basically uninterrupted. from the early 1930s until 1976. It's kind of crazy to think about, but they were just in government, they were the leading member of government. They had a few different coalition partners would shift. Sometimes they were with the agrarian, sometimes they were with the communists briefly, but they ruled uninterrupted and they lost an election. in 1976 and they just left power and then they got back. into power in the eighties. So in other words, like they created a democratic system,

of course with mass support of working class people, then they truly honored the system because. when they lost power, they lost power. They left power. There's plenty of cases like that across Europe. and the world and in other countries like Korea. and elsewhere where the workers movements, the most militant, the most class-centric workers, South Africa's the same way, created democratic systems. Now Russia, I think a lot of what happened.

had to do with the fact that it was never. a democratic country. It was ruled by a party and the party itself was very easy. to shift from a somewhat democratic party in Lenin's day. to an authoritarian one in Russia, and there was no distinction then between the party. and the state. So your authoritarian party then became authoritarian. total control over the entirety of the state. Now the fact that the Soviet system involved total state. ownership of production meant that the authoritarianism.

of the party state could go even deeper into the lives. of ordinary people compared to other horrific dictatorships. like Pinochet's Chile, and so on, when maybe you could find some solace like just at home. or whatever else. You didn't have the same sort of totalitarian, you know, like control of people's lives. But I would say that socialism itself. has yielded different outcomes.

Now on the question of polarization, I guess that implies that this polarization, this distinction is a distinction that isn't real. in society and that is kind of being manufactured. or generated. - You mean the capitalist class and the working class? - [Bhaskar] Yes. - Just to clarify, yeah okay. - So in certain populist distinctions, the division is basically arbitrary or made up, the us versus them polarization, depending who the us and who them are.

You know, it's truly something that's manufactured. But capitalism itself as a system, as a system based on class division, whether you're you support it or oppose it, I think you should we should acknowledge. it's based on class division, that is the thing, creating that polarization. Now I think what a lot of what socialists try to do. is we try to take bits of working class opposition. to capitalism, to their lives,

to the way they're treated at work and so on, and yes, we do try to organize on those bases, to help workers take collective action. to help them organize and political parties. and so on to represent their interests, economic and otherwise. But the contradiction exists to begin with, and if anything, this system, which I'm proposing democratic socialism, would be kind of a resolution of this conflict,

this dilemma, this thing that has always existed since, you know, chieftain and follower and so on. We've had class division since the neolithic revolution. You know, I think this is a democratic road out. of that tension and that division of humanity. to people who own and people who have nothing to give. but their ability to work. - So that idea is grounded in, going all the way back to Marx, that all of human history can be told through. the lens of class struggle. Is there some sense, can you steel man the case that this class difference.

is over-exaggerated, that there's a difference, but it's not the difference of the abuser and the abused. It's more of a difference of people that were successful. and people that were less successful. - So I'll play devil's advocate, which is a, that maybe one could argue that in its purest earliest stage. capitalism was based on a stark difference.

But then since then two things have happened. One, a bunch of socialists and workers have organized. to guarantee certain rights for working class people, certain protections. So then our system now, there are certain safety nets, less in the US than in other countries, but in a lot of countries are pretty extensive safety nets. - Even like 40 hour work week, minimum wage, safety regulations, all that kind of stuff. - And all those things are in my mind,

those are the socialism within capitalism, 'cause what you're doing is you are taking the autonomy. of capitalists to do whatever they want with the people. contracted to them, and the only thing stopping them is, you know, them potentially being able to go to another employer, but even then it's kind of a, potentially, a race to the bottom. If you can't get more than $2 an hour from any employer. in your market, you're gonna have to, you know, live with it. So one factor is, we have built in those protections.

So we've taken enough socialism into capitalism. that you could say that at a certain point, maybe it makes a qualitative difference. and not just a quantitative difference in people's lives. The other thing is, over time we've gotten wealthier. and more productive as a society. So maybe at some point the quantitative difference. of just more and more wealth means that even if, in the abstract, the division between a worker.

and a capitalist is real, if that worker is earning, you know, a quarter million dollars a year. and has a good life and only has to clock. in 35 hours a week, 30 hours a week and has, you know, four weeks of vacation, then like, isn't it just like an abstract or philosophical difference? So I think you could level those two arguments. What I would say is that one, a lot of these rights that we have fought for are constantly. being eroded and they're under attack in part because.

the economic power that capitalists have bleeds. into our political democracy as well. There's constant lobbying for all sorts. of labor market deregulation and so on. I fundamentally believe that if tomorrow. all those regulations went away, capitalists would fight to pay people as little as possible. and we'd be back in 19th century capitalism, and not because they're bad people.

Because if I'm running a firm and all of a sudden. my competition is paying is able to find a labor pool. and is paying people less than me, I'm gonna be undercut 'cause they'll be able to take some. of that extra savings and invest into new technology. or whatever else and they'll gobble up. my market share before long. And then also beyond that, I do think there's a normative question here, which is, do we believe that ordinary people. have a capacity to be able to make certain decisions.

about their work? Do we believe they know more about their work. than their bosses? Now I don't think that's not true at every level, but I think there's no doubt that in workplaces, workers know how to productively do their task in ways. that their manager might not know. I think we've all been in workplaces where we've. had managers who kind of don't know what you do. or whatever else, and I think that collectively,

if incentivized, we could have them, one, instead of hoarding or that information, since they're getting a steak in production and so on, they'd be able to more freely share it and be able. to reshape how their day-to-day work happens. And also with elective managers, you kind of take that up the chain. I think you would have perfectly efficient. market based firms that could exist without capitalists.

- So there's a, I mean there's a lot of things to say. Maybe within just a very low level question of, if the workers are running the show, there's a brutal truth to the fact that some people. are better and the workers know this. It's the Steve Jobs, A players, you want to have all the A players in the room, 'cause one B player can poison the pool, 'cause then everybody gets demotivated by like, by the nature of that lack of excellence.

and competence. This is just to take sort. of a crude devil's advocate perspective. Are the workers going to be able to remove. the incompetent from the pool in the name, in the goal of towards the mission of succeeding. as a collective? - So I think that any successful model of socialism. that involves the market, you need two things.

One is at the micro level you need the ability. to fire people and for them to exit firms, which might be a slower process in cooperative based firms. than it is in a capitalist firm without a union, but it would probably akin to the process that would happen. in a capitalist firm, of which there are many with unions. So you need that. And then at the macro level, you need firm failure. You need to avoid a dilemma that happened. in Soviet style economies, which was soft budget,

you know, constraints and firms basically not. being allowed to fail because the government. was committed to full employment, the firms employed people. So even inefficient firms were at the end of the day, knew they were gonna be propped up by the government. and they would be given all the resources they would need. no matter how inefficiently they were. using those resources to maintain employment. So I think you need both. - Do you worry about this idea of firing people?

Man, I'm uncomfortable with the idea. I hate it, but I also know it's extremely necessary. So is there something about a collective, a socialist system that makes firing, you said it might be slower, might it become extremely slow, too much friction? Isn't there a tension between respecting the rights. of a human being and saying like you need to step up, maybe sort of the paws on the carrot. Like you, you really like to really encourage,

fellow workers know when there's a person. that's not pulling their side of the, doing as great of a job as they could be. Like they, but isn't the person that's not doing. a great of a job going to start to manipulate. the system that slows the firing in their self-interest? - Well, I think there would be certain, so maybe another way to put it is, think about about, like if you're a partner. at a law firm, right? I don't really know how law firms work, so I probably shouldn't use this analogy, but correct me if if I'm wrong,

but let's say you're a partner, you kind of have equity in your law firm or something beyond. your billable hours and let's say, you're going to be fired from your law firm. or they're laying off people or whatever else. They could just get rid of you, but they would also have to figure out how to kind. of buy you out too after a certain point. So I think that like in a cooperative firm, you'd probably have a system where you, after a certain point of working productively, you'd probably have a period where you could.

get fired really quickly no matter what. But once your job security kicks in, you would be able to, you know, it would be a process. It would probably be like, you know, a day or two process to figure it out, or maybe they would've a progressive discipline process, which is first you have to get a verbal feedback. and then maybe a written performance review, then you could be fired. I mean that's how it works in a lot of workplaces. with either unions or with just basic job security. In most countries, that's how it works 'cause there's not.

at will employment in most countries. So I think that the real tension is if you fire someone, if you're condemning them to destitution, then morally, you'd really feel something there as you should, as a human being concerned about other people. But in a social system. or even basic social democratic system, there'd be mechanisms to take care of that person. So one, if a firm is failing for any reason,

they're getting outcompeted or whatever else, those workers would then land in the hands, just for a little bit of the state, right, and there could be active labor market policies. to retrain people to go into expanding sectors, or your sector is now obsolete, but you have these skills, you're gonna be trained. and here's some resources to kind of help you. along your training. And then there's a bunch of firms hiring, so go on your way. And then also just with an expanded welfare state, being destitute in certain countries,

being unemployed in certain countries is easier. than in other countries or situations. So, you know, you still can fall back on that mechanism. And also my vision of market socialism, of democratic socialism, there would be an expanded state sector, not anything you can imagine, but the way in which there's more of a state sector. in countries like Norway or Denmark than there is in the US. So there would be, you know,

various forms of state employment and whatever else. So I mean, I think that the real question is, should being bad at your job or getting fired. for any reason or getting laid off, should that be a cause to have you, you know, totally lose your shirt, or maybe should you just have to rebound, maybe you have less money for consumption or whatever else, and you'll be on your way onto bigger and better things, you know, in a few months. - So a strong social net in many ways make it more efficient.

to fire people who are not good at their job. because then they won't be, that won't actually significantly damage. their quality of life and they have a chance. to find a job I wish they can flourish. - Sure. - Right. To step out into the macro, there's a tension here as well. So you said that there's an equality between the classes, the capitalist class and the working class, and sort of, there's a lot of ways,

you can maybe correct me on the numbers, but you could say that the top 1% of Americans. have more wealth in the bottom 50%. That's not talking about perhaps capitalist class. and the working class, but it's a good sort. of estimate, right? The flip side of that, if you just look at countries that. have more economic freedom versus less economic freedom, more capitalism versus less capitalism, their GDP seems to be significantly higher.

And so at the local level you might say that the, there's an inequality, but if you look historically over decades, it seems like the more capitalism there is, the higher the GDP grows, and therefore the level of the quality of life. and the basic income, the basic wealth, the average even including the working class. goes up over time. Can you see like both sides of this? - So I could definitely accept some of that premise, one, within capitalism, right,

you want a bigger pie. Then if you divide up that pie, you know, even if the bottom 10% of the working class share, let's say is less, is a percentage, it's still more in raw term. so it's better for everyone. The part that I would dispute. is more economic freedom versus less economic freedom. So there's obviously some countries in which capitalism.

doesn't work and maybe economic freedom plays a role. Like if you're in a country like Egypt or India. with a highly or previously highly bureaucratic system, so you need to get licenses to do anything. and you need to run things through the state, or you need to bribe someone to get an incorporation done. or whatever else, like that's in case in which I would accept the premise of, okay, economic freedom to take an entrepreneurial risk. to start something new is limited. There's all sorts of factors in which it's too, you know,

too difficult to start a firm, and it benefits no one really, except for whatever bureaucracy might be, you know, taking their 15% cut. But in general, I think in advanced economies, it doesn't really work that way. So think about it this way, if you're, pretend like we're back, I'm sorry to go. to Scandinavia again, but this is, you know,

a good example. Let's say you're back in the 1970s and Scandinavia. or whatever else. You're in a country with extremely powerful unions. So the unions have a lot of labor rights. The state has certain high taxation, certain guarantees on you too. But you're a capitalist there. Now what would you do if you're a capitalist competitors. in the US were able to pay workers $10 an hour.

and you have to pay them 20. You would probably, and assuming you can't just flee. or shut down or whatever else, you'd probably find ways to use labor saving technology. That power of the high wages might encourage you. to invest more in technology and to utilize. people's times better so they're more productive at work,

so they're not just like sitting around or whatever else. So this really happened in practice. in the Scandinavian countries, in part 'cause it was combined with a certain type. of pattern wage bargaining. So I'll explain this really simply, but let's pretend that you're in. a sector with three different companies, I'll say on automotive sector, and I'll just say one is GM,

one is Ford, one is Chrysler. Now all these workers in your sector are all unionized. They're all, you know, Swedish, UAW, whatever the equivalent is, members, and they're all paid the same, and the union is setting, through bargaining, the union is setting the wages across the sector. But the unions, and let's say GM is the most productive. of these companies, Ford is number two, Chrysler is number three,

the unions would intentionally set the wages, set their benchmark to Ford in the middle. So what that would do is say to Ford, okay, Ford will stay in business 'cause they'll be able. to meet the wage demands. Chrysler might go out of business. because you know, they won't be able to meet the demands, or they'll have to adapt really quickly. They might have to lay off people, they might have to restructure. So the union knows this in advance. and all the auto workers know this. But the most efficient manufacturer, GM,

now has excess profits because if they were work, negotiating with just the. GM workers, the GM workers might even have been able to demand more. But instead these workers are, are pegging their wage demands to Ford's level. And GM is in theory able to expand employ more people. and adopt new production techniques with their surplus. Then those Chrysler workers would be absorbed by the state, by active labor market policies,

then put back to work for GM or for these expanding, you know, sectors. So in other words, you're now in a situation where the state has a pretty big. role in your economy taking a lot of your money and taxes. The unions are really shaping your, your life as a capitalist far more than would happen. in a country like the United States. And yet still despite your more limited economic freedom, you're still creating a more productive economy.

So it could work, it just has, the system has to be designed right. And I think social democracies were designed the right way. I think any future democratic socialism. after social democracy would have to be designed. the right way. - Could you just linger on that a little more, the pattern wage bargaining. So GM is the most efficient and Ford is the second most. Can you explain to me how, can you explain to me again the wages, setting the wages to the Ford level, how that is good for GM?

How that encourages more of GM--. - Yeah, this is just sectoral, or actually in this case, centralized wage bargaining. So setting the wages at a level that Ford can afford, but a level that would probably be too expensive to Chrysler. in the automotive sector would benefit GM. because their drawing, what we could call excess profits. Because GM, if GM itself could potentially.

have to deal with just the enterprise of GM workers. bargaining for wages, and if they saw. their profitability was high, they would know their leverage and they would say, pay us even more or else we're gonna go on strike. But instead they're accepting slightly lower wages. than they would've otherwise had in return for the company. having excess profits, that they're through both the state, their union and sometimes like there's worker councils.

or whatever else, they're playing a role in saying, okay, we're gonna make sure this excess profit is actually. invested productively in order to expand employment, and you know, just output. - Okay, can we talk about unions. In general then, what are the pros and cons of unions? So the interest of the union, maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong.

I have a lot to learn both about the economics. and the human experience of a union. The union's interest is to, what, to protect worker rights and to maximize worker happiness, not the success and the productivity and the efficiency. of a company. - No, I would disagree. So I think a union's interest is in, well, it's collectively bargaining on behalf of workers.

Because in certain cases, you know, I am right now a manager at "The Nation" magazine, right? If I have a problem with my working conditions. or I need a raise or whatever else, I could, with my skillset, my background, my role in the company, I could go to my boss, the owner of "The Nation" and say, okay, I need to renegotiate my contract on these terms. I could bargain, right. Now if I was a ordinary worker at like a CVS or something,

if I didn't like my conditions and I went to my boss, and said, Hey, I need a $2 raise, and you know, I need to like be home by 8:30 'cause, you know, I have obligations at home, the boss would probably say, I'm sorry, that's not possible. Maybe try the Rite Aid down the street. or the Walgreens down the street or whatever. Now if I went to the boss at a place like CVS,

or even better, if all the pharmaceutical workers. at Rite Aid, CVS, Walgreens went to our bosses and said, listen, you know, we collectively need $2 more, and you know, better hours, shorter shifts or whatever else, then they would probably have no choice but to concede. You have to bargain collectively at at any level. if you're an a ordinary worker,

and there are some exceptions, but that's for certain highly skilled workers. But even in those cases, of course, all workers are skilled. I mean, just the technical definition. Even in those cases, a lot of those workers. have to bargain collectively as well in order. to get more wealth. But they cannot make their demands so excessive. that their firm gets out of business. So the workers only are workers as long.

as they're gainfully employed. So often unions will try to select their wage demands. at such a level that it ensures that their firm. will stay in business. - Yeah, but the problem is the way firms go out. of business isn't by an explosion like. the way popcorn starts getting cooked like you, at a certain moment, it just is over. You can, it seems like the union can, through collective bargaining, keep increasing the wage,

keep increasing the interest of the worker. until it suffocates the company. that it doesn't die immediately, but it dies in like five years. So that might still serve the interest of the worker, but it doesn't serve the interest of society as a whole. that's creating cool stuff and increasing. So a market that's operating and increasing cool stuff. and constantly innovating and so on, and creating more and more cool stuff and increasing.

the quality of life in general. - I disagree with the premise, 'cause I think in your, even taking your example, that would be better for society. If a firm cannot pay its workers a living wage, but its competitors can, then that firm should, will either figure out a way to innovate, develop new techniques, new markets, new ways to be productive, or it should go out of business and it would be better. for it to go out of business than to stay in business. or to be artificially kept in business in any sort of way.

And yeah--. (overlapping discussion). So that's the Chrysler of my old centralized bargaining. - Right, but then there is, you know, innovation cost money too. So the flip side of that, I think to play devil's advocate is that it incentivizes, the automotive industry is a probably. a good example of that, it incentivizes cutting costs everywhere. and sort of whatever's been making you money currently, figuring out how to do that really well.

without investing into the long-term future. of the company for like all the different ways. it can pivot, all the different interesting things. it could do in terms of investing into R&D. Whenever there's more and more and more pressure. on paying a living wage for the workers, it might not, again, it might suffocate and die over the next five, 10, 20 years, which might be a good destructive force. from a capitalist perspective,

but it might rob us of the Einstein of a company, right, of the flourishing that the company and the workers within. can do over a period of five, 10, 20 years. - Well, this is just a problem with a lot of capitalism, which is about short-termism, right? Because the same thing could be said from, you're starting a company, you have a plan for it. to make a lot of money, but your investors. want dividends right away. So you have to take away from your long-term R&D.

or other plans and deliver short-term dividends. That's often why a lot of, I think R&D is often rooted in state institutions. and research and whatever else is being drawn on. And also I think that's a reason why, you know, the state has some sort of role in fostering firms. in either a, my version of a socialist economy or capitalist economy. or whatever else to help with these time horizon problems. So I won't dispute that workers could play a role.

or wage demands could play a role in time horizon problems. But more often than that it's coming from investors, it's coming from just a host of other market pressures. that people might have. And I would say that in the real world, a lot of investment funds don't come. from just retained earnings. It comes from a lot of, you know, sources. So I think this is a problem that could be solved. through public policy, but definitely exists today as well.

- So you mentioned living wage. Is there a tension between a living wage and maybe you could. speak to what a living wage means, and the workers owning all of the profit of the company, sort of this kind of spectrum? No, I guess the spectrum was from like, no minimum wage, the lowest possible thing you could pay to the worker, then somewhere in that spectrum is a living wage, and then at the top is like all of the profit.

from the company is owned by the workers. So split to the workers. - I mean I think that any society is going to have. to make distributional choices. You could have imagined a variety of capitalism. in which workers are paid quite little, but there's extremely high taxation. and there's redistribution after the fact. You could imagine a system in which there's less taxation. after the fact, but there's more guarantees and regulations.

of how much people are paid before the fact. In my vision of a socialist society, there would be similar way that unions work in, in my example, the centralized bargaining unions. would work that bargain at the sectorial level. and not just at the enterprise level. like our unions do do today. There could be benchmarks set. for different occupations or wages. And the reason why you would want a benchmark.

at a worker controlled firm is that you don't. want workers self-exploiting themselves in order. to gobble up market share, or because you don't want them collectively deciding, okay, we're gonna invest in this longer term time horizon. and outcompete other people that way. So you might say, okay, if you do this sort. of clerical work, you have to be paid the equivalent. of $15 an hour and that's a minimum. But on top of that you get, you know, dividends from excess profits.

And I think it would also have to be combined. with public financing for expansions and for development, which could be done in quite a competitive way. So you could have a variety of banks, you know, in my vision, you know, state owned banks, but how would they decide who to invest in. and who to not invest in, who to give a loan. for expansion to and who not to, because you don't want it to be like, oh, I'm gonna invest in my nephew's firm.

and not this other firm, or I'm gonna invest in this guy's firm because he. is Italian but not this guy's firm 'cause he is Albanian, or whatever else. Just make it rational at the level of their goal. is just like any other investment person. at a bank today to maintain a certain risk profile. and to have an interest yield and decide to invest. on that basis. So if there's a huge automotive firm that has been.

in business for 50 years that needs a little operating cash, like yeah, they could get their $50 million, their 3% loan. If you have some crazy blue sky idea and you managed. to get it to that point, like maybe you and your friends would get it at, you know, 12% or something close to what a VC would would offer today. So I only kind of go into these details, not because to say that a system doesn't have to. in advance map out all the different possibilities, but I think it does have to be willing to accept a lot.

of things that we know today. You know, I can't give you a version of socialism that's, everything's gonna be fine, we're gonna live harmoniously and we won't have these sort. of tensions and you know, you could hunt in the evening and, you know, fish in the afternoon and write criticism, you know, or whatever else. I do hope that there's horizons beyond this. that we could aspire to, I do have those visions, but for now, I think our task as socialists is to imagine a,

you know, five minutes after, you know, midnight, like what can we do right away within our lifetime vision? - So that means through some level of central planning, reallocating resources to the workers. - So I think the primary mechanism in this private sector. under socialism would be a market mechanism, firms competing against each other to expand, connected to a system of public financing.

But even at that level, the individual bankers. and public banks and so on would be operating based. on their own rationality. And the state would certainly shape investment decisions, but maybe no more than they do in a lot. of capitalist systems. So the state might already today in a lot of countries. decide we wanna invest in green technology, so it is gonna be favorable rates for people or tax credits.

for people investing in green technology. So the state already shapes investment. I think what should be centrally planned, and this is where like I'm proud to sound like. an old school socialist, is things like healthcare, things like transit, things like our natural monopolies. of lots of types, you know, I think can be done. very well through planning, and we already have plenty of examples, but a lot of this society I think would be. the private sphere of worker controlled cooperatives.

competing against each other, weak firms failing, successful firms expanded. - And the banks, you're saying publicly are privately owned? - Publicly owned. - Let's just put it all on the table that it's. almost guaranteed that every system has corruption. So I guess the bigger question is which system. has more corruption? This one was central planning and worker cooperatives. versus unfettered capitalism or any flavor of capitalism?

- I think any system has potential for corruption. I think it depends on like how good your civil services, how much oversight do you have to re resolve a problem. once it arises? - How does corruption happen in a socialist system? So you have to, again, I apologize, but the large scale examples of it, so we can, we can look at Soviet Union, China and Sweden. Fundamentally different nations and histories and peoples.

and economic systems and political systems, but all could be called in part socialist. And so what, you know, there's a ridiculous almost caricature of corruption. in the Soviet system, the gigantic bureaucracy that's built, where somehow corruption seeps in through. kind of this dispersion of responsibility, that nobody's really responsible for the corruption.

I just had a conversation with Ed Calderon. who fought the cartels in Mexico, and there's a huge amount of corruption in Mexico, but it's not like even seen as corruption. You understand when a cop pulls you over, you give this much money and so on. And so that kind of seems to happen in certain systems, and it seems to have happened in social systems more. than in capital systems in the 20th century. Or maybe I'm wrong on that. - No, I mean, I think in a lot of countries it's seen. as the cost of doing business right.

Now in particular countries built on a system. of central planning or just state allocation of resources. where the state both producers and allocates. and things run through bureaucracies, then I think you're much more apt to have corruption. than in a system with just a smaller sphere for the state. So for example, if you're in a hypothetical version. of the US you might see a lot more corruption. in like the Post Office, but you know,

you wouldn't have that corruption in your workplace. So you kind of learn to go around that. For one thing, even in state sectors, you can have, and this often is a case in democratic countries, you have a transparent civil service where people. who are corrupt are prosecuted by judges, where it's frowned upon and it just, over time it goes away. So you go from having political machines that were tied. to certain, you know, had friends.

in certain police precincts and whatever else. in the US in the 19th century and, and early 20th century to now today, that would be a huge scandal and unheard of, right? So I think over time having a independent court system, having a truly meritocratic civil service. can be implemented anywhere. I think though in the Soviet Union, the extra little bit that happened. was you had a bureaucracy that just had so much power. because the bureaucracy was producing.

and distributing everything and everyone was relying. on the bureaucracy with jobs. The way to social advancement was through the bureaucracies. So you end up with people, like Khrushchev, you know, people going from peasants to, you know, supreme leaders of countries just through. like getting hooked up in the bureaucracy. and advancing within it. And, you know, not all these were bad people. I don't think Khrushchev was that bad of a person, or Gorbachev, but this is our, their mechanism to advancement in systems like this.

In the vision of democratic socialism that I proposed, the state doesn't have that overriding power to begin with. But I think in either case, you know, corruption has arose in many different systems. and has been successfully dealt with. I think on the developmental trajectory. of even countries today that we think of. as being very corrupt, corruption will, you know, fade away as well. But you definitely need a system in which individuals act,

individuals are incentivized to act rationally. So if you're in a system in which cops who are corrupt. are prosecuted and investigated. and there's internal controls, a civilian board review. and kind of an internal investigators. within police departments or whatever else, there will be less corruption over time. if people are punished. If you're in a system in which,

if you're running a firm or you're the manager of a firm. and elected manager and everyone at that firm. is trying for more efficiency and trying. for more excess profits or whatever else, at the end of the day, you know, dividends at the end of the day, then if you try to hire your nephew. and he is not good at your job, you're not gonna win reelection, right? So you shouldn't, I think no system. should rely on a change in culture that come naturally. or some sort of individual altruism. I think the systems have to be constructed in such a way. that it's not rational to behave poorly.

- In sort of from a theoretical perspective, either a socialist or capitalist system can have, can have either culture. But it seems like if you prioritize meritocracy, if the people that are good, whatever the good means, in terms of integrity, in terms of performance, in terms of competence, it seems like that leads to a less corrupt system.

And it seems like capitalism, there's all kinds of flavors of capitalism, but capitalism, because it does prioritize meritocracy, more often leads to less corruption. So that's not a question of political or economic systems. It's a question of what kind of stuff do you talk about. that leads to a culture of less corruption? - First of all, I think in theory maybe capitalism. warrants meritocracy, but I think in practice, anyone watching this or you and me would think.

of some of the people we know that work the hardest. and they're often, you know, working class people work in the food service industry. or whatever else, right, I think we don't have, in practice, I don't think we actually live in a society. that rewards people for hard work. I think we reward people for a combination. of accidents of birth plus hard work. - Lemme push back because, yes, so I agree with you, but let me push back on a subtle point.

'cause I like to draw a difference. between hard work and meritocracy. 'Cause as a person who works really hard, like I work crazy hard, but I've also worked with a lot of people. that are just much better than me. So hard work does not equal skill, good, productive. So I just wanna kind of draw that distinction. But I agree with you. I don't think our society rewards directly hard work.

or even high skill. There's many examples, at least we can see. that it does not do so. - So we have an unequal distribution of talent of course. So if we lived in a society in which there was some level. of acceptable inequality, and it's normative, kind of the question of how much we would say. is acceptable, right, and that inequality was based on this unequal distribution. of talent then I think that would be fine with me, right? That would actually be a meritocracy.

What I see in the US is often, okay, so if you are a upper middle class or rich kid. and you get a good education, you know, K-12, out of those people, there will be some that work extra hard. and go on to do incredible things or are very successful. and there'll be other people that do not right, and decide for whatever reason or go down a different path. And you could say maybe among that group. of the upper middle class, you know,

there is a meritocracy, right? But they're actually given those opportunities. to make their own decisions and to fail, whereas many, many other people, the vast majority of American society, I would say 60 plus percent don't really get. those opportunities to make those choices to begin with. And I would aspire to the type of world the least. as a first step in which our only inequalities. are based on the, or unequal, innate kind of distributions of talent.

- Yeah, I guess a lot of people worry that when you have. a socialist in any degree central planning. or perhaps a collective of workers, that it won't result in that kind of meritocracy. that you're talking about. But you're saying that no, it's possible to have. that kind of meritocracy. - Think about it this way, the workers themselves are incentivized. and are shaped by market forces too, right? They're trying to respond to consumer needs and preferences. They're trying to expand market share, they're trying to make money.

So it requires no kind of leap into these people. are gonna be more altruistic or whatever else, even on purely bourgeois terms, the same way you would maybe justify, you know, competitive capitalist firms, I think you could justify this system. as long as you think that people, elected management can perform just as well. I think based on the experiences of cooperatives, we've seen that they can. And then at the state level, state bureaucracies have their own sort. of sets of incentives. But in most systems that already.

have extensive state bureaucracies, these people at high levels are appointed or elected, they're held to certain standards. At the national level, a national government. wants to maintain, you know, the tax revenue. that they need to pay for school services. So we already I think have incentive structures. that you could say that some people might just, I think, disagree with the normative thing of like, why would people have to own their own means of production, control their workplaces or whatever else.

Why do we need this level of equality? Can't we just get by with our existing system, but just like make things a little bit easier. for capitalists to make money, and then everyone will benefit, whatever else. I mean, that's a normative question. In my vision of socialism, there'll be plenty of, you know, multiple parties with different views and perspectives. trying to either push us deeper into more radical forms. of socialism or on the other hand to kind. of roll back to, you know, more capitalist forms of government.

So I think that again, you can't try to make up. a perfect system and try to implement it. You have to, you know, do it as a process democratically. and so on. - So just philosophically in your gut, you're more concerned about the innate equal value. of human beings versus the efficiency. of this wonderful mechanism. that we call human civilization are producing cool stuff. Just like a gut, if we're sitting at a bar,

that's where the gut feeling you come with, of course your mind is open, but you want to protect. the equal value of humans. - So I don't wanna fight the hypothetical, so I'll say equality, I am concerned with equality, but I don't think the two are necessarily always in tension. But also when you think about that, (overlapping discussion). when you think about all the great things. that human beings have produced, often I think people today just look at the end outcome.

Like we go to the pyramids and we'll marvel at the pyramids. and the human achievement that it took to make it happen, but we won't stop to think about all the suffering. that went into the making of that thing. So I think we kind of lean in the opposite direction. where we marvel at our achievements, but we don't often think about the suffering or exploitation. that went into certain human achievements. I would love a society in which we could marvel at things. and not have to worry about the exploitation.

that was involved because there was no exploitation. or oppression involved. There was just human ingenuity and creativity. and collaboration. - And to the degree which you may disagree, to the degree, there's a tension between the two, at least give equal weight to the consideration. of the suffering and don't just marvel at the beauty. of the creations to the degree there is a tension. between the two. - What what Stalin did actually too, it's not just capitalist, what Stalin did was he sacrificed whole generations because.

he thought that he was building something for the future, for future Russians to enjoy and for future people. of the world to enjoy. And actually that analogy that I just gave. about the pyramids was written by Karl Kautsky, the German socialist anti-Stalinist critic. when he was complaining about US journalists. and others going to Russia in the 1930s and marveling. at all the new industries. You know, are these people blind to the suffering, you know, behind these things that they're marveling about.

- Speaking of which I think you mentioned. in the context of a social democracy, that freedom of speech and freedom of the press. or basically the freedom of people to have a voice. is an important component, which I think is something that caught my ear a little bit. because if you think about the Soviet Union, one of the ways that the authoritarian regime. was able to control, it's almost part of the central planning, is you have to control the message and you have.

to limit the freedom of the press. So there's a kind of notion, especially in like ideas or maybe caricatures. of the ideas of cultural Marxism, sometimes caricatured even further as wokism, that you want to be careful with speech, you want the censor speech because some speech hurts people. So in some sense you want to respect the value, the equality of human beings by being careful. with the words you say. So is there a tension there for you?

- I think there's no tension, and in part I think that it is very condescending. or patronizing to assume that people can't take debate, that people can't either as a society or individuals. visually be engaged in the exchange of ideas without, or even very vigorous debate without, you know, being broken by it. It's just not the case. I'm basically a free speech absolutist.

I mean, I would draw the line at obviously. direct incitements of violence. or certain other speech like that. But in general--. - Do you think a lot of people would be surprised. to hear that? - No, I mean not, not people who know my work. I mean, more generally I think a lot of people on the right, even in the center I think might have the idea. that a lot of the far left wants to censor them. I think some of the center left wants censor them. But I think a lot on, on on the far left on the, the Marxists or socialists left, I think that,

you know, free speech is more or less the norm. - Yeah, where is the imperative, the sense coming from? Is this just some small subset of the left on Twitter? Is there some philosophical idea behind certain groups that, like if we were to steel man the case. in which group actually has the interest of humanity in mind. in wanting to censor speech?

- I think we might need to just take it case by case, for an example, by example. 'Cause honestly, I would have to think. about a particular case. But let's just say generally that a lot. of American liberalism rightly sees the revolution. around the civil rights and later the extension. of this rights revolution for gay rights. and so on as being a very positive achievement.

of the last half century, and I completely agree. Now for me, now that we've won those rights, a lot of our battle for change needs to go beyond. the representational realm and needs. to really reground itself in the material bread. and butter struggles of ordinary people trying to survive. the battle for good healthcare for all Americans and so on. These are my immediate demands.

I think there's a segment of American liberalism. that doesn't want to go in that confrontational. economic direction and wants to skirt away. from battles over things like universal healthcare. and so on and really are just still caught at this battle. over rights and representation, and it's devolved in such a way that they feel. like they need to make change. The way they make change is only. through interventions and culture. 'Cause they don't really have the same sense. of class and class struggle that agree or disagree with it.

It's a very material plane. So instead, you know, they look at comedians who said the wrong thing, or they looked at all sorts of other ways to make change. It's not really making a change, it's just making them look bad and making our culture worse. And I think that's where a lot of it comes from. But I think that a lot of the left, even the left that's much more into battles over, you know,

race and lots of other stuff like, real serious anti-racist on the left, of course I'm an anti-racist, but a lot of my work. is focused on the primacy of class. But even these people are very concerned. about material struggles and issues. and they don't really care about, you know, these issues they think are ephemeral kind of issues. - So when you focus exclusively on language, that somehow leads you astray. Like, on being concerned about language. without like deeper economic inequalities and so on,

you just become an asshole that's on Twitter. pointing out how everything, (laughing). how racist everyone is. So the anti-racism becomes a caricature of anti-racism. - Exactly, because anti-racism was really. about the struggle of people for equal rights and voting. It was about the struggle for people who were trapped into, you know, bad neighborhoods because they were, they couldn't get decent jobs and their neighborhoods.

were redlined or whatever else. It was really like a struggle for survival. And what was the main demands, like the language of this? One, it was the march for jobs and freedom. It was the slogan, I am a man, you know, asserting the kind of universal dignity of people. This is what the civil rights movement was about, and it wasn't a surprise, there was a lot. of self-described socialists, people like Bayard Rustin, A Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King Jr. I mean these were people who were, Ella Baker,

they were socialists, you know, and I think a lot of Americans agree with them. with their immediate demands, even though they weren't themselves socialists. But it was a very materialistic struggle, and I think a lot of this has been co-opted. into just some sort of vague and, you know, just disconcerting complaints about language. or culture and so on. - Martin Luther King was a socialist.

To what degree was he a socialist? I would love to learn about that. - Martin Luther King, I think broadly, called himself at various points of his life. a Christian socialist or a democratic socialist, especially after his speech against the Vietnam War. in the Riverside Church, I think that was '67. The last years of his life, he became much more involved in struggles. against the war and also struggles for workers' rights. You know, he was assassinated when he was at a rally.

of workers' rights. So he thought the next battle was gonna be. an economic battle. He had this famous line where he said, I don't just want to integrate the lunch counter. if it means that we can't afford to order. a burger while we're there. You know, that was the line, along those lines. And I think that got to his point, where the civil rights struggle was part. of a step of building some sort of a wider movement. So he and these other civil rights leaders. were very much interested in working with organized labor,

working with, you know, the left as it was constructed then. and building some sort of mass space for not just rights, but redistribution. - Yeah, it's fascinating. It's fascinating which figures self-identified. and were in part socialists. - Albert Einstein was one. - [Lex] Albert Einstein--. - Albert Einstein wrote an article. for the first issue of this left wing magazine, it's actually still publishing today called, "Monthly Review" in I think 1949. And his article is called "Why Socialism?".

I don't think it's paywalled, so people should check it out. But yeah, Einstein was one. - Huh, huh. So probably the central idea is the pacifist, the anti-war idea for him, or no? - Honestly, it's been so many years since I read it, I think it was more about, I think it was actually more economically focused. But I would need to go back and--. - But is war in general a part of the fundamental ideas.

that socialists are against, democratic socialists are against? Like what's the relationship between socialism and war? - So I think that traditionally. in the socialist movement war was associated. with capitalist competition and international competition. And you can look at World War I as very much a case. where different nations were competing with each other. and developing quite violent rivalries that was in part. based on competition and the periphery over access. to markets and colonies and whatever else.

So it was very easy to draw direct correlation. I'm opposed to more, I'm opposed to imperialism, the domination of strong nations, you know, dominating smaller nations. I wouldn't call myself a pacifist. I think most socialists wouldn't call themselves pacifist, 'cause there are some struggles that are worth fighting for. You know, there's national liberation struggles. and so on where if there's no democratic avenue for change, you know, positive change has been made through,

through armed revolts around colonialism and whatnot. But we're living in an age where hopefully, you know, I know neither of us have children, but our our children, our children's children, you know, the future won't have to live through war. And that is one thing that as countries. have gotten more developed as the world has changed, we've actually seen less and less war. Like, I won't dispute, pinker on this, I think it's true. Obviously Putin's invasion of Ukraine and, you know,

the conflict in Ethiopia is like kind of an exception. But on the whole, I think we're going in that direction. But I think it's always been, you know, a major organizing plank of socialists against war. and against just kind of this sense. of right wing nationalism and national identity. that often leads to war. And obviously not everyone on the right has embraced that. A lot of libertarians are consistently anti-war as well, but I think the right ideologically has been associated.

with war even if some advocates of capitalism have not been. - Then there's the military industrial complex, which is the financial machine of the whole thing. I presume, well since a lot of that is government, what's the relationship to socialism. and the military industrial complex? - Well, a lot of it's government contracts, but it's privately produced right, by company's a Lockheed Martin.

and things like that. You could draw a very crude materialist connection between. any of these things and to kind of prove. an ideological point. But we could produce just as many arms. and then just bury them or never fire them off or whatever, whatever else. Obviously there are companies that have a vested interest. in heightening up tensions or saying that we need. to buy a new weapon system to be prepared. for a conventional war with China, Russia. Meanwhile, I think we all know that.

if there's gonna be conventional war. between these countries, like it's gonna, you know, it's gonna lead to something worse. And, you know, no amount of advanced fighter jets. is gonna make a difference. But I try to avoid cruder causal connections. even though there are relationships. Like, it's kind of like the old slogan, which was quite an effective slogan. in the early 2000s, and my first anti-war marches when I was a teenager,

I definitely have shouted it, but kind of No War for Oil. Like both is like, correct in that it gets. to what people's sense is of like what's going on. and how it's bad. But also like analytically it's kind of wanting to explain. what really happened or why we ended up in the, you know, in the Middle East, which is like a much more complex geopolitical story. - Yeah, and it is a story of geopolitics. It's perhaps less a story of capitalism or socialism. It's a story,

yeah, it is a geopolitical story. that I think actually operates outside. of the economic system of individual nations. It has to do more with honestly in part egos of leaders, and there's a international battle for resources, but surely there's alternatives. - Yeah, definitely. And I think that part of what being a socialist is, is about dreaming in the long term about a different. sort of world without, in my mind,

needless divisions of people into nations. with standing armies. You know, I'm sure we'll still have pride. about where we're from and there'll still. be distinctive cultural features and so on. about where we're from. We definitely would, at least for the foreseeable future, be divided into places as like administrative units. But the idea that there should be a Mexican army. and an American army and a Russian army. and a Ukrainian army is just on the face of it,

I think in the long run, will be seen as ridiculous. Just like we see it as ridiculous today, looking back, at the idea that, you know, a lord from London would, you know, be engaged in civil strife with the Lord. from like Liverpool and a bunch of peasants would die. You know, it just kind of on the face of it. just seems kind of ridiculous that these different places. would have their own banners and lords and armies. I think in the long run, you might have to zoom out a thousand years,

but in the long run, people will say the same. about nation states and standing armies and battles over, you know, specks of dirt that mean nothing. in a cosmic sense. - Yeah, no, for sure, aliens would laugh at us, or humans that go far beyond earth and look at the history. Well, most of the history will be forgotten. because if humans successfully expand out into the universe, just the scale of civilization will grow so fast.

that the bickering of the first few thousand years. of human history will seem significant. - There's a very Marxist idea that I both appreciate. in one way, but on the other hand it's kind of scary, which is that, you know, human history is only now beginning. Before, we were in pre-history, but in the future, like we'll be in kind of real history. I think that a lot of really important history. has already happened and I think posterity will remember,

and I think that it will be easier to assign, you know, certain people, the role of like villains, the people, you know, not to engage. in the contentious topic, off topic of Ukraine. or whatever else, but the idea that, you know, one government or man would launch a, you know, war to recover, you know, or to take, you know, several hundred square miles of territory, and tens of thousands of people die,

I think seems absurd to us, many people today luckily. But it would not have seemed absurd 50, 60 years ago would've just been a normal thing, right, these kinds of territorial disputes and so on. And I think, you know, projecting in the future, I think within our lifetimes we'll live to see that kind. of conflict be eradicated. And in part you could say that like why, I think it's because of popular pressure and organization. So you could say kind of the pro-worker socialist. organizing part of it, making it less normal.

If you're a capitalist, you could say, well, markets are more interlinked, so war is even more irrational. I don't really have a firm answer. Whatever it is, you know, I think it's a good thing. - You mentioned Marxist view of history. It's kind of interesting to just briefly talk about, what do you think of it? What do you think of this Marxist view of how. the different systems evolve from the perspective. of class struggle is what we're talking about? - Well, I fundamentally, I'm a Marxist. I fundamentally believe in the broad contours.

of historical materialism. But I think we should be clear on what Marxist theory. tells us and what it doesn't tell us. You know, I think Marxist theory tells us pertinent things. about how societies evolve, about how the distributional resources work. in any given society, who owns, who doesn't, how the conflict, distributional conflicts and so on, I think Marxism can tell us a lot. - How surplus is distributed.

- Exactly, yeah, exactly. What it can tell us is like, as a friend, put it like the sex appeal of blue jeans or whatever else, you know, that's beyond what Marxism is meant to do, - What economic system can tell us about the sex appeal. of blue jeans. - No economic system, but socialism--. - [Lex] Dammit. - In the Soviet sense when it was turned into, you know, the Soviet style dialectical materialism was meant. to tell us everything from, you know,

explain genetics and agriculture, whatever else in a very disastrous way. You know, so I definitely don't believe in the application. of these ideas in an extremely wide way. And also I'm a Marxist because it's a framework. that helps me understand pertinent facts about the world. If at some point I no longer. think the framework is doing that, I will not be a Marxist, but I'm a socialist on normative grounds.

because I have certain beliefs about the equality. of people because I believe in we should have a society. with liberty, with equality, with fraternity. And that I hope I'll always be a socialist until. the day I die. But it's kind of a very unscientific. or unserious thing to say, this is my framework. from beginning to end, you know, for the rest of my life. - But from a perspective of history, you should say that, so Marx says that you go through,

societies go through different stages. It could be crudely summarized as primitive communism, imperialism, maybe slave society, feudalism defined by mercantilism, and then capitalism and socialism, and finally stateless communism. Am I, did I miss something there? - I mean, I think that was close enough. I mean, I think that's definitely true. of Marxist theory, that the contradictions of capitalism,

the fact that it has brought together all these workers, all these materials and whatever else, and it's now allowing it to socially create wealth. on a mass scale, but that wealth is, that process is being privately directed, and also the surplus is being privately kind. of appropriated is a contradiction, and that would lead to some sort of rebellion.

or revolution or change and will ha and eventually. this contradiction would be a (indistinct) production too, so we would have to move up into a socialist society. - But actually, just to backtrack, so in terms of contradiction, so it starts when we're in a village, hunter gatherers, that's what you call primitive communism, where everyone's kind of equal. It is kind of a collective, right? All right, maybe you could, hold on a second, and then inequality's form of different flavors. So that's what imperialism is. This one dude rises to the top and has some control.

of different flavor. That's what feudalism with, when you have one dude at the top and you have merchants. doing some trading and so on, and then that leads to capitalism. when you have private ownership of companies. and they do some, they result in some kind of class inequality. And eventually that results in a revolution that says, no, that's, this inequality's not okay. It's not natural, it doesn't respect the value. of human beings, and therefore it goes to socialism.

where there is, under Marx's view, I guess some role for the state, state is doing some redistribution, and then the pure communism at the end is, you know, like it's a collective. where there's no state centralized power. Which part of that is wrong. - No, I think broadly, the Marxist theory of history.

is about different types, different modes of production. that exist at various times based on material conditions. So in the early times in this theory, there was not much surplus being generated, right, and there was generally egalitarian societies. Then as we became agricultural, as society developed, there was more surplus being produced.

Then there was a group of people, the ruling classes of their age that controlled. and distributed, that controlled that division of labor. and appropriated more of the surplus for themselves. and they weren't involved in productive labor. In early primitive society, everybody's involved in productive labor. Later on you had casts of priests who did nothing. but kind of pray and write and kind. of lecture people all day, right? And you had kings and rulers and bureaucrats.

and traders and so on. You have a more complex division of labor, but also more inequity driving out of that. Capitalism was a revolutionary system. because it took away, one, it made us tremendously more productive, right? It expanded production beyond our wildest imaginations, but it also no longer bound workers to their Lord or manor. or whatever else. They were now free to move, free to engage in contracts.

with employers and so on. But even though workers are now producing. all this tremendous wealth, and even though productive forces had been matured. in such a way, they were ultimately taken away. from all the wealth that they were creating. They got some of it back, they were in wealthy societies, but they were all there collectively together. producing this wealth, and that was a potent force. So Marx theorized that would lead to a revolution.

or change in a socialist direction. I think in fact what we saw was that yes, workers are dependent on, capitalists are dependent on workers, but the dependency is obviously symmetrical in the sense. that workers are also dependent on capitalists. But in fact it's an asymmetrical dependency. in that ordinary workers need their jobs more. than capitalists need the contribution. of individual workers.

So it became kind of a collective action problem. where you would need the mass of workers. to get together to decide to change things, but also people would be afraid because. they'd be dependent on their jobs for their livelihood. and so on. So revolution became a lot harder than people thought, especially in democratic countries where workers. had certain outlets and certain powers. and rights and responsibility. You know, it's no surprise that where you did. have socialist revolutions,

they were in places like the third world, post-colonial states trying to emerge out of colonialism. They were in places like, you know, China and Russia, autocratic countries and never. in a advanced capitalist country. Now in Marxist theory of history, even as interpreted by a lot of smart Marxists. like GA Cohen and others, there is a certain inevitability. to socialism after capitalism.

The way that I would put it myself is I kind of have a more, I guess, you could say like Kantian view of it. Like I think socialism is something that ought to happen, but it's not something that necessarily will happen, and we'll need to organize and persuade, and also potentially, again, the key part. of any socialist system that's democratic. is you have to allow for the possibility.

of a democratic revision to a different sort of system. So I'd be more than happy in my vision of socialism. for there to be capitalist parties getting, you know, hopefully 3%, 4%, or 5% of the vote, maybe a lot more in the same way that in the US, a republic, we could right now have a monarchist party. No one's gonna support a monarchist party. in the US in serious numbers. - Although that's gaining popularity. - In Europe or elsewhere? - No, in isn't there in the anarchist tradition,

isn't there, aren't they saying that one of the ways. you could have a leaders in monarchy. because they're more directly responsible to the citizens. If you have a leader, it's healthier to have a monarch. I'm not familiar with this, but I've heard this stated--. - The left wing anarchist traditions, like an anarcho-cynicism or whatever, like their slogan is kind of no kings, no gods, no masters, or whatever, no bosses.

So they definitely would not agree with that. But I am, you know, not familiar enough. Anarchism runs a gamut from left to right. in interesting ways. - I'll have to ask about, I'll have to ask you about that, but yeah. Okay, so you're not, you don't believe Marx's theory of history. in the sense that it, everything, every stage is a natural consequence of every other stage. Of course, he would predict that somebody. like you must exist in order for those stages. to go from one to the next.

'Cause you might, because you have to believe art. in order for action to be taken, to inspire the populists to take action. - Two things. One is, I do broadly believe in Marxist's theory of history. 'cause it's just explaining how productive forces develop. in the relations of production in any given system. I guess there's a theory of transition from capitalism. to socialism that Marx didn't really spell out, but it was kind of implied that it would naturally happen.

And Marx was living in an era of tremendous upheaval. You know, Marx himself actually saw when he was living. in London in the 1870s, the Paris commune, when workers took over, for just a few months, but they took over, the producers of Paris. took over the city, basically created their own government, their own system and so on. So he was living through an era of up upheaval. And Engels, especially oversaw or was the mentor. to all these rising socialist parties.

So he was very closely collaborating with socialists. in places like Britain and Germany. when they were drafting their first programs. for the social democratic party. So it felt like this was gonna happen. It felt like this rise in working class would take power. But I think the stability of the system was underestimated. It's easy to see the contradictions in the system, but can you see its mechanisms of stability,

the way in which mass collective action. or revolution's more the exception or the norm. Could you have imagined if you're Marx. not only how much wealth the system would produce over time, which I think he could have imagined, but also developments like the welfare state. and mass democracy and universal suffrage, which might have changed how workers relate. to the system or operate within it. So I think it's just the transition part. that I think wasn't spelled out properly.

But I think in either case, as socialists, we can assume that history is working in our favor. We just need to kind of hold out. and wait for the inevitable revolution. We have to convince people of both, one, the struggle for day-to-day reforms. and why it's important to be politically organized, why it's important to be a member of a union. or to advocate for things like universal healthcare. or whatever else to try to kind of build the cohesion. and sense of self, of the class.

Then ultimately for the desirability once we accomplish it, once we build social democracy, of going beyond social democracy, which is of course the challenge. Now, I don't think it requires leadership from the outside. I think there are plenty of organic leaders. that have emerged from the working class, that have advocated for socialism from the working class. And if you look at the class composition during. the glory days of the European socialist parties,

I mean, this was very much a working class parties. and organizations. It's only been in the last like 30 years. that it's been taken over by professionals and, you know, not uncoincidentally, you know, they have accomplished very little in those 30 years. - So that's the practical and the pragmatic. Can we actually jump to the, at the horizon, as you mentioned, as a social Democrat, you're focused on the policies of today,

but you also have a vision and dream of a future. And so Marks did as well, so the perfect communism at the end. Can you describe that world and also is there elements. to that world that has elements of anarchism, sort of, again, like I said, there's Michael Malice next door, so like anarcho-communism, I don't even know if I'm using that term correctly, but basically no central control. Can you describe what that world looks like? - I think the traditional socialist vision of kind of,

if you want to call it full communism, would be very similar to the anarchist vision. of a world without coercion and mass abundance and so on. I myself don't share that vision. I believe that we will always need. to have a state in some form as a way to, one, even just mediate difference.

I think traditionally a lot of Marxists have thought. that after you remove the primary contradiction, quote/unquote, of class, that the other, all other political questions would be resolved. And I think that's a lot behind a lot of the thinking of, we're gonna have a full communism after politics. I don't think there will be an after politics. I think for one thing, let's say, I'll give you another northeast example. Let's say me and you are trying to, with different groups of people, we're trying to figure out how to build a crossing.

of the Hudson River. And for various reasons, you and the people around you. want to build a bridge, me and the people around me need a, wanna build a tunnel. That's a question that you will probably. need a mediation for, right? You'll need one, it's a big project. There'll be a very complex division of labor and so on. But even beyond that, just politically, you will need the state to mediate the difference. You'll need to have a vote, have a vote that people trust, have institutions that people trust and so on.

to make a decision. Society is never going to go beyond that decision making. - You don't think it's possible outside. of the state to create stable voting mechanisms. or as human nature can always seep into that. - I just wonder why we would have to, if the state is democratic and responsive, the state isn't authoritarian. - So it might not be called a state. It would function as a state. - But why not just call it a state? But in other words, like if you don't have something like that,

then don't you have a greater risk of tyranny. or a tyrant emerging in the vacuum? So I think people's fear of the state. is what would happen if the state had too much power, and I think that's legitimate fear. That's why we have democratic kind of checks on state power. and certain guarantees and of freedom and so on. But yeah, I guess I just wonder, I'm more afraid of the vacuum and not having. a democratic responsive state and what the world. would turn into.

And also, I'm just not a utopian thinker, if that makes sense. I like to think that I'm a egalitarian thinker, I'm a socialist, but my mind just goes to like, you know, I could see a vision of the future that I would like, like 50, 60 years from now. Maybe there's some sort of future of super abundance. and automation and there's some sort. of techno utopian future. We don't want some of those things. that would exist in my, you know,

five minutes from now vision of socialism. But I just don't see it, and in general, I'm kind of weary of visions of change. that seem like they're not built off little things, pieces that we have now and not built off history. and experience and whatever else. Like, I don't want a year zero. I don't even like the term pre-history because I think. there's a lot in history that I want. You know, I want Shakespeare under socialism,

you know, I want a lot of things that, that I think we should be grateful for. There's a part of tradition that I think that exists. that's hierarchical and exploitative and whatever else, but there's another part of tradition that's our sense. of place and belonging and our connection with the past. and hopefully the future. And I wanna keep that. - Yeah, so you're worried about revolution. or otherwise a vacuum being created and you're worried. about the things that might fill that vacuum.

So the anarchists often worry about the, the same mechanism of the state that controls voting. or keeps voting robust and resilient and stable, the same mechanism also having a monopoly violence. And so that's the tension. So they're very, they get very nervous about. a central place having a monopoly on violence. - Whereas if there is gonna be a place. within a monopoly on violence, let's just say,

temporarily take that for granted, should it not be a place with a skilled, elected, accountable, transparent civil service. with a democratic mandate and so on? - Yeah, yeah, well put. Speaking of AI, just to go on that tangent, do you think it's possible to have a future world, at least in 50 years, 50-100 years where AI, there's an AI sort of central planning,

sort of the, we removed some of the human elements. that I think get us into a lot of trouble. Like you could, you can take a perspective. on the Soviet Union and the flaws of the system there. have less to do with the different ideologies. and more to do with the humans in the vacuums. and how humans fill vacuums and the corrupting nature. of power and so on. If we have AI that's more data driven. and is not susceptible to the human elements, is it possible to imagine such a world,

almost like from a sci-fi perspective. - Maybe in the future, you could imagine. certain calculation problems that arose. during central planning solved through advanced computing. But I would say that there's another whole set of problems. with the system that were incentive problems, and I'm not sure how that advanced computing would solve. the incentive problems of how do you get people. to actually produce things that other people want? Kind of that informational question. on how do you communicate without endless meetings.

or someone reading your brain? What do you actually want? So there's that kind of informational question, but then there's the incentive of, you know, how do you get people to work efficiently at work. and how do you get firms to use their resources. that they're getting more efficiently. And I think solving the calculation problem solves. some of these questions, but not all of them. But you know, that's kind of a, who knows?

But if your vision of the future requires some sort. of leap into a technological unknown, that's very hard to advocate for today. - It's exciting to consider the possibility. of technology empowering a better reallocation. of resources. If you care about a kind of the innate value of human beings. and think of the mechanism of reallocation of resources, good way to empower that equality,

that it's nice to remove the human element from that. Like if you work really hard and you're really good. at your job, it's nice to be really data driven. in allocating more resources to you. - So kind of, like, I kind of think that the agency part. requires human beings and conscious human activity. So I think if you have a sort of planning system that works. and let's say the technology is there for it to work,

I would want it to be democratic planning in such a way. there is a human element, there is some debate and deliberation in society. And also even in my vision of socialism. with the state sector and state investments and so on, I'd want there to be more public discussion and debate. about certain things so it's not just left to technocrats, 'cause you'd wanna live in a society where you. just find out the next day that there's. some massive infrastructure project that you haven't, you know, had a chance to think about or debate.

or feel like you're participating in. You know, and--. - And debate is not just facts and logic. That's why, if the whole universe was about facts and logic, computers could do a better job of that. There's something about humans debating each other. that goes into the difficult gray areas. of what it means to be human and what it means. to have a life that's worth living. That requires humanity. And I'm also worried about, while I'm excited by the possibility.

of AI controlling everything, half-joking, but the reason I'm really terrified of that is because. usually there's a possibility of a human taking control. of that system. So you now start to get the same kind. of authoritarian thing. Well I am a human, I'm smart enough to be able. to control this AI system and I will do, based on what this AI system says, what's good for you. It's kind of like talking down to people and then use. that AI system to now have the same kind of thing.

as the Holodomor in 1930s. - And also our preferences might change. So an AI system might say the goal of humanity. is to just increase infinitely efficiency. or increase output, whereas we might collectively. decide that, you know, we have enough and we want to, you know, have a trade off. And I think that, you know, we need a system that allows for people. to make certain trade offs. - And have more of this leisure that I've been learning.

about from you. This is a very interesting concept. Leisure, I'm gonna have to, how do you spell that? All right, so if we can step into the practical, we're talking about historical and philosophical , into the practical of today. What are some of the exciting policies. that represent democratic socialism today, modern socialism? I think you mentioned some of them, you know, Medicare for all or universal healthcare.

Something you haven't mentioned is tuition free college, increasing minimum wage, maybe stronger unions. like we talked about. What are some ideas here? What are some ideas that are, especially policy, are especially exciting to you? - Well, I think that hours reduction. has always been an important demand for socialists. So I mean, it's been a reality. in certain countries like France in recent decades,

where part of the logic is if you have a bunch. of people working for 40 plus hours a week. and you also have some unemployed people. who would like more employment, then it's not a zero sum game. You could reduce hours to 35 hours and still maintain. the same output by employing more people. to kind of fill the slack in hours. So one, I think it's a solidaristic thing. in working class movements between unemployed. and employed workers.

I also think that, yeah, it gives people more time. So Marx was a big advocate in his day of a 10 hour bill. in the UK that would've the hours of working time. and reduced child, or eliminated or reduced child labor. and other things as well. And part of it was this is a radical demand. because it's reducing the sphere as you saw of exploitation. So it's putting limits on how much time the capitalists.

can take from ordinary workers and how much freedom. they would they would have. With healthcare, one, I just think it's a, like a government healthcare system. You know, you could tell me that you don't want it. in the US but you can't tell me it doesn't work. 'cause we've seen it work. in every other major industrial system in different forms. - So what does that usually involve? What does universal healthcare involve? - So there's different varieties. In the, UK for instance, they have a National Health Service.

in which medical personnel and hospitals. are run directly by the state. It's almost like a mini-Soviet system to be honest, but just for healthcare, and it works pretty well just for healthcare. And I think it's one example of the way. in which you could actually take the market. So I give you a vision of socialism that involves. a lot of market, but I think there's certain spheres. where you could remove the market from. and still have an efficient system in part because, you know, this is an area in which we, people don't have,

obviously for cosmetic procedures, whatever, they have preferences. But for most routine things that people do in healthcare, they just need to see a doctor, you know, they need to get diagnosed. Some of these systems have had trouble. with wait lists for specialists or whatever. That's more of like an allocation problem of, if you want more specialists, you pay specialists more. Like these are problems that could be solved by like,

through the mechanisms of planning. and government run healthcare. So that's kind of the most left wing. that you could get, is the system in the United Kingdom. Beyond that you have a system like Medicare for all. where you say, all right, most of the doctors besides for public hospitals. that already exist are gonna. be privately employed by hospitals, and the hospitals are gonna be private. But instead of having. all these different insurance carriers,

we're just gonna have one national insurance carrier. that we're all gonna pay into. That national insurance carrier is going to negotiate. the price of healthcare with doctors, the price of drugs with the pharmaceutical companies. and so on to hopefully reduce prices and to implement. a different little bit of planning into the system. 'Cause if there's only one, you know, big national insurance company, that company has a lot of weight and power,

but you know, you could still visit your same doctor. and there's still some, it's not as radical, of a shift in that direction, and that's the dominant demand of Bernie Sanders. and the left right now. There's 30 plus million people in the US. that would be insured that currently aren't insured. if we move to this system. There's a lot of other people that are underinsured. or worried about how to pay copays or premiums involved. I think it would be a net benefit for the vast majority.

of the US population, even if it was offset. with certain taxes, 'cause we spend a lot of money out of pocket. with health insurance, and it's a demand also that's like widely popular. So for me it's almost like if you're trying. to build support for something like socialism, we were talking this lofty vision of socialism. after capitalism or what worker ownership. of the means of production would look like in practice. and so on. And by the way, you're one of the few interviewers. who ever asked me any of the details. So it's good that I've been thinking of a rough sketch.

in my head for the last, you know, whatever, 16 years I've been a socialist. But we have to start in the here and now, and if you can't convince people that the state could, could play a bigger role in their health insurance. and you can't convince Americans in a whole host. of other sectors that they should be living. in something closer to social democracy, how are you gonna convince those people. that there should be worker ownership. of the means of production?

It's kind of a ridiculous like leap. if you don't have the credibility as the group of people. organizing for universal healthcare, organizing for a $15 minimum of wage. and able to get the goods. And also in practice as we fight for these reforms, ordinary people will have a better sense, at least my hope is of what it means to be involved. with politics and what politics can do for their lives. It's positive, 'cause right now when we talk. about politics it often just seems that we're talking about.

like a very glib cultural conflict removed. from the things that are important in our lives, whereas in truth, I think politics can be a tool. for us to make our lives better. - Yeah, and there's like deep ideas here where, in some sense universal healthcare. and worker collectives are not so radically different, that there's philosophical ideas to explore and accept. And also from my perspective, at least,

maybe I'm wrong on this, but it seems like with a lot of things. at the core of politics, the right answer from an alien perspective is not clear. Like everybody's very certain of what's the right answer? Everyone's certain the universal healthcare. is terrible or in the case of universal healthcare, majority of people think it's a good idea. But I don't think anyone knows, because I think that depends on cultural history, on the particular dynamics of a country, of a political system,

on the dynamics of the economic system in this country, of the changing world. The 21st century is different than than the 20th century. Maybe the failures of communism in the 20th century. will not be repeated in the 21st century. Or the flip side of that may be capitalism. will actually truly flourish or with the help. of automation in the 21st century, like I don't think anyone knows. So like people like you are basically saying, like arguing for ideas and we'll have to explore.

those ideas together. Why do you think if universal healthcare is popular, why don't we have universal healthcare in the United States? - Well, democracy is a great thing. Political democracy is wonderful. It came from the struggles of ordinary people. to expand suffrage and so on. But the economic sphere, entrenched power in the economic sphere bleeds. into our political democracy. So I think there's a lot of people with the vested interest.

in not having universal healthcare. There's large industries with the vested interest. in not having universal healthcare. They pay for ads, pay lobbyists, they influence government and they. have made it very difficult. So you can't get universal healthcare done without the bill. Even if you pass something and you're trying. to make a change. Like Obamacare was supposed to have a public option. Everybody's been running on a public option, the Democratic Party for 12, 13 years, why don't we have a public option, people know that if people have the choice of buying.

into a government plan, they might just keep, that might be the slow road to really. having universal healthcare. So I think a lot of it's opposition. - Do you like that idea, the public option maybe, you can like, because isn't there complexities, like preexisting conditions? So isn't a public option, mean you can not have any insurance until you get. into trouble and then you can, if it covers preexisting conditions, just start paying for insurance then,

therefore young people don't pay for insurance? Isn't it better to go full in? - I don't support a public option in part because. I think if we allow politicians to just say, Hey, I support a public option, it's just kind of a way to signal your support. for universal healthcare but give us nothing. And I think that's what we saw under with Biden. a lot of other politicians. that have supported public option. I think in practice if a public option is defined. in such a way that it just means you, you know,

by default can just opt into a public plan, and let's say, hypothetically you don't even have. to pay for it, then it's just a backdoor. to universal healthcare really quickly, 'cause I think the vast majority of people. who aren't currently covered, and also a lot of employers to be honest, would probably drop their private coverage if they knew. their employees can just get a public option. and maybe would only provide supplemental insurance. or whatever else. But I think the broad overarching point of all these demands. is to say that socialists need to be really connected.

to the day-to-day struggles of people. to just improve their lives. So if you're feeling like you're paying $400, $500 on the Obamacare market for health insurance. and that's hampering your ability to do what you wanna. do in your life, then maybe you would support a candidate. who's for universal healthcare. If you feel like you're struggling to find work. that you could afford to pay your rent with. or whatever else, maybe you'll support a candidate committed.

to all sorts of mechanisms to reduce housing prices. or increase your power as a tenant, and you know, whatever else. So I think it's like these day-to-day concerns need. to be connected to the more abstract. and lofty vision of change. Otherwise our politics just becomes like this, this fantasy world thing that's, you know, nice ideas to think about or debate, but really won't make much of a difference.

in people's lives. - What do you think about free college? Should college be free? - So I would say free college. is not at the top of my list of priorities, but it definitely should be free in my vision. of a just society. - What is it that you're taught, just to clarify, is the universal healthcare up there? - Yeah, universal healthcare is probably far higher. in my priorities than free college. I think right now the way our system is built, when someone goes to college, they're given credentials,

they're given a degree they carry with them. for the rest of their life. It gives 'em a chance to join kind of a privileged part. of the labor market, right? It's not a zero sum game. I don't want college educated people to think. that non-college educated people are their enemies. and vice versa, 'cause a lot of them. are just ordinary working class people trying to survive. and they're in different areas, they're in different sectors. You know, some of them are in nursing sectors. where they need a college degree and so on. But if you just make college tuition free.

but you don't also make trade skills. and other things tuition free, for someone to learn how to become an electrician. or a plumber or whatever else, then to some degree you're privileging one sector. of the labor market over another. So I would advocate just, if you're gonna make something like that free, you just have to make sure that you're doing it. the egalitarian way and that one,

the options and the routes to college are more equal. So, you know, there's more investment in K-12 education. so that more kids in rough neighborhoods. have the chance to go to college. And for those that choose the trade route. from any part of the country, that they're given the skills and resources for vocational, you know, trainings and that those are also free. And it just feels like in terms of order of operation, I would just start with K-12 education,

improving it and whatever else, then college after, but I'm not opposed to it. - So does that, improving K-12 education, does that mean investing more into it? Is it as simple as just increasing the amount. of money that's invested in public education. - In general when it comes to the public sector. or any sphere that you're investing in, obviously it's not just as simple as throwing money. at a problem. I do think we have a lot of schools that are underfunded, but we have other schools that are adequately funded,

but the conditions in which those schools are, like the neighborhoods they're in. and what's going on in society, the problems are so deep that it's impossible. for just education to solve everything. And I think especially a lot of liberals think. that education should be the panacea, invest in education, you'll help people. If kids are living in poverty, if they go into school hungry or whatever else, like education's not gonna give them everything. they need to succeed.

So sometimes I think put too much weight on education. - And of course you could define education more broadly, which is like the care of the flourishing of the young mind, whatever that is, whatever you call it. - Yeah, a lot of it starts with, so New York City, at least we do have universal pre-K. So from age three onward, you have the option for that. I mean, it's important for kids' socialization, you know,

their parents are now able to, you know, know that they could go to work or do something else. and have their, you know, have their kids taken care of. There's a lot of measures like that we could do. to equalize things. And again, for libertarians in the audience, you know, some of this stuff is scary because. it's obviously more state involved, state involved in pre-K, state, so already very involved in K-12, more investment into state institutions like. our state universities and college.

But for me it's not a question of state versus non-state. It's a question of, you know, good outcomes for people. And it just happens to be that for working class people, having the collective power to elect representatives. that will build a broader safety net. is in their interest for upper middle class people. For others they could afford to pay. for their own provisioning either directly.

or through like Obamacare-like schemes where you. just get a subsidy and you pay the rest yourself. and whatever. This is for really the bottom 40%-plus of the population, they really don't have any options. so they prioritize other things and they end up. with some sort of injury or health problem or whatever else. And it's bad for everyone in society, but it's especially bad for the people at the bottom. of the labor market. - So I saw various estimates for socialist programs. like social security expansion, free college. Medicare for All will cost upwards of $40 trillion.

over 10 years for zero. Okay, they're can argue with those numbers and so on. So there's a cost, there's a taxpayer cost. What are, given the weight of that cost, can you still make the case with these programs, and then can you try to make the case against them, that the cost is too high? - So I will not argue with you on the numbers. 'cause you just threw out random numbers. I do think universal healthcare,

if done right, can be basically cost neutral. I think it's an exception because we spend. a tremendous amount of money on healthcare, a huge percentage of our GDP. So I think it could be done in a way. that's close to cost neutral. - So actually can you argue on the numbers. without arguing on the numbers? So you're saying, just your gut says that there's a lot of, depending on how these programs are done, there's a lot of variance in how much. it will actually cost. There's a lot of bureaucracy and billing right now. in our healthcare sector, for example, that would be eliminated.

There's a lot of costs that are spiraling upward. of provider costs from both doctors, hospitals, but also pharmaceuticals to drug costs. that insurance companies shoulder. 'cause their market share is too fragmented. to really negotiate hard. Medicare can sometimes negotiate better rates, but a Medicare for all would negotiate even better rates. So I think there's a cost spiral that we could adjust. with more government involvement and there's a reason. why we spend a bigger share of our GDP on healthcare.

than other places. But let me just accept the broad premise. that social programs cost money. Now I think that one for ordinary people, most of them, the trade off of even hypothetically if taxes. on lower middle class and working class people. in certain cases go up, that trade off would still be in their benefit. because they're the ones who currently,

who would be consuming more of those goods, and also our tax system and whatnot is progressive, so the rich will pay pay more, the majority will consume more of them. Also, I think a lot of these programs are the bedrock. of a healthy society. So one reason, for example, example that we have so much crime and violence. in the US, there's lots of, you know, cultural and other causes with our level of gun ownership,

American history and so on. But one really important factor is just the level. of poverty and inequality in the US compared. to other countries that combined with guns. and other factors mean we live in more violent, unequal societies. You know, a European would be shocked by the fact. that in even some of our nicest areas. in cities and elsewhere, 'cause there's a lot of rural violence too, it's just normal to have gun violence.

It's normal to have drug related violence. You know, we have what, like four or 500 people. some years in like Baltimore, like a city of under a million getting killed. These are all recipes for a society in which, one, the public sphere is shrunk like crazy. because you're not gonna go wander out for an evening stroll. in a park if you live in a dangerous area or whatever else. Like the rot goes very deep and a welfare state. is one way to live in a better society for everyone.

There's been plenty of studies. There's one book called "The Spirit Level" on inequality, was quite popular. It just notes that inequality is really terrible. for the psyches of the rich too, not just for for the poor. So I think spending some more money living. in a more just society is doable. There's different ways to address certain costs spirals. One reason why our welfare states are getting more.

and more expensive is in part just. 'cause our population is aging. But many of the same people who say we can't afford more. in our welfare states because, you know, we're already spending so much on social security. and all these other entitlements are the same people also, for one, you know, closing borders so immigrants. can't come in to help build the economy. and to fill gaps in the economy and also who aren't. for things that'll make it easier to have kids.

You know, I'm 33 years old. I have a lot of friends who have been putting 'em off. having kids until they save up X amount of dollars, even though they have someone they could, you know, have raise children with because they can't afford. the cost of childcare. They can't, you know, their job probably. won't give them more than four to six weeks. of family leave or whatever else. Like this is not the case in other countries. So I think there's all sorts of benefits.

from having a bigger welfare state. But yes, there are costs and there are gonna. be certain tradeoffs. It's not a magical thing where you could just, you know, have everything without tradeoffs. - So in a progressive tax system, is there, to push back on the costs here, is there a point at which taxing the rich. is counterproductive in the long term? So in the short term, there might be a net benefit of increasing taxes.

because the programs, the middle class, the lower middle class gets is more beneficial. Is there a negative side to taxing the rich? - In theory, yes, of course. So one would be if you tax the rich so much, they change their consumption patterns. and that has negative impacts on the economy as a whole. Like you would have to kind of really model it out, but there would be a certain point in which. the consumption changes might have net detrimental effects.

I think that's more unlikely and the more likely scenario. is you tax corporations and other wealthy, you know, people in society to the point that they have potentially. less money for productive investment, 'cause you're in a capitalist society, so you're reliant on capitalists to invest. So you kind of don't want to be in the worst of both worlds. where you've gone too far for capitalism,

but not far enough for socialism. And my vision of course of socialism, that's one reason why we'd have to take. the investment function away from capitalists. There has to be, if you're gonna make it so hard. for them that they can't invest or they can't employ labor. the way they're employing now you have to create. another mechanism for supply to be created, and that's why that's a transition point. - What about longer term de-incentivizing young people.

that are dreaming of becoming entrepreneurs. and realizing that there's this huge tax on being wealthy? So if you take these big risks, which is what's required to be an entrepreneur, and you are lucky enough to succeed. and good enough to succeed, that the government will take most of your money away. - I think realistically that's not a disincentive. for most people. First of all, we already have a progressive taxation system. The government does take a bunch of the money away.

and people are still striving to become rich. A lot of what people want when they dream of success. is they want accolades, they want respect and of course they want some more wealth, wealth to consume luxury goods with or whatever else. But at a certain point it becomes better for the state to, to tax and either redistribute directly. or through social programs or redirect.

that money through tax credits and other ways. to shape investment towards productive investment. You know, we don't want a society in which a bunch. of rich people fly around a helicopters going from club. to club while the productive economy. kind of does nothing right. At that point, I think a lot. of ordinary rich people might prefer. the government to come in to tax 'em and to try. to spur investment in certain productive sectors. So it really just depends.

But I honestly believe that, that most people don't necessarily want to be rich. for the sake of being rich. They want to be successful and there's. many different dynamics to that, and accolades and social respect. is an important one of them. It's also why people who just become filthy rich, often the first thing they do. is start out philanthropic trusts. and try to give away their money because they want. the social respect and accolades and whatever else,

they don't want just their money. - On that topic, sort of a little bit of a tangent, there's a lot of folks in the left community, far left community, socialist community that I think. are at the source of a kind of derision towards the B word, the billionaires. Does it bother you or do you think that's in part justified, kind of using the word billionaire as a dirty word? - I think it's perfectly justified.

and that it's a populist shorthand, right? So obviously when I talk about inequality, I often talk about power dynamics, right, between workers and bosses and so on. Billionaire is just the 99.1% version of it. It's just a popular shorthand to just explain. the fact that, you know, there's a lot of people who have accumulated obscene wealth. These people aren't in my mind parasites, you know,

in the kind of very, very old school socialist rhetoric, in that of course, capitalists provide employment, take entrepreneur risks, come up with new ideas. sometimes themselves, like sometimes directly manage work. and whatever else. But they exert so much power over the lives. of not just their workers, but society as a whole,

taking away some of their wealth and power is a way. to just empower others. And again, these things have policy trade-offs. If you just snap your fingers and say, Elon Musk, now all your wealth is gone, you're now on food stamps or whatever else. in that kind of arbitrary way, you'd totally disincentivized people. from trusting the rules of the game. as they've been set up in a capitalist society,

and I think that would have negative consequences. for workers. But saying that, hey, this person has too much power. and too much wealth and has too much ability. to dictate things about the lives of others, I think it's just simply a fact. And I think it's true in the cases of people. who are good people and have risen to this position, and it's true in the cases of people who are maybe not. so good people and are, who have risen to these positions. - So I agree with you in part, but have to push back here.

So one of the problems I see is using billionaires. as shorthand to talk about power inequality. and wealth inequality, often dismisses the fact that some of these folks. are some of the best members of our society. So outside of the in however the system is created, inequalities, a young person today should dream. to build cool stuff, not for the wealth,

not for the power, the fame, but to be part. of building cool stuff. Now there's a lot of examples of billionaires. that have gotten there in shady ways and so on, and you can point that out, but in the same way we celebrate great artists. and great athletes and great literary icons. and sort of writers and poets and musicians. and engineers and scientists, we should sort of separate the human creator.

from the wealth that the system has given them. That's what I worry about, is like, in our system, some of the greatest humans are the ones. that have become rich. And so we sometimes mix up the, if you want to criticize the wealth, we sometimes criticize the human and the creator. while that should actually be the person we aspire to be.

- So, you know, I would agree with that. LeBron James, if he's not already in his lifetime, will be a billionaire, and he got his money largely through. just being an incredible athlete, excelling in his field more than anyone, you know, besides Michael Jordan, I think he's my number two. He might be my number one. (overlapping discussion). Yeah, I'm willing to keep an open mind. about the LeBron versus Jordan conversation. But you know, he got that through his merit.

and he's been rewarded, and in part he's getting rewarded. 'cause he's created vast amounts of wealth. beyond what he's getting. This is just his share. You know, he's in a salary capped league, whenever he is doing an endorsement, obviously that company is thinking that he's worth more. than what they're paying him for that endorsement and so on. And to the extent with Elon Musk, people see innovation and they see someone. who will put himself out there with sometimes crazy ideas. because he's trying to think about the future.

and trying to just push things forward instead. of just sitting on whatever money he has now. and just investing it, earning, you know, 6%, you know, return for the rest of his life. You know, I think that's a positive thing. But I think it doesn't get to the broader policy question. When people invoke billionaires, they're invoking the specter of inequality and power. It's not normally the rhetoric that I use 'cause I propose. and I use more traditional socialist rhetoric and terms.

But I think it gets at something real. So often with these sorts of shorthand we use in politics, there are, you know, they're imperfect, but they speak to a real thing. - Yeah, and they feed a little bit of fun. that folks like AOC and Elon. have with each other, creates. It feeds, it inspires, it serves as a catalyst. for productive discourse. Okay, speaking of which, you said you're a fan.

of Bernie Sanders. Would you classify yourself as a Bernie Bro? What's the technical definition of a Bernie Bro? Is that a very it is a subset. No, no, no, I'm sorry, you're a at philosopher, writer, economic and political thinker. Of course you would not call yourself a Bernie Bro. - I'm fine with calling myself a Bernie Bro. That's because it was made up by liberal journalists. to smear Bernie and his supporters. - [Lex] Oh, that's hilarious. - During the 2016 campaign, even though disproportionately his supporters.

were like young women in their twenties, you know. But whatever. I think I'll I ride for Bernie. There's worse things in the world than being called a bro, so it's fine. - What do you like about Bernie Sanders. and to what degree does he represent ideas of socialism, to what degree does he represent the more traditional. sort of liberal ideas? - I love Bernie. Most of all, I like his clarity. He's by far the best communicator we have on the left.

He speaks with a moral force. He's relatable, and he's taken a lot. of socialist rhetoric from academia. and brought it down to its core. in a way that's comprehensible. for ordinary people and speaks to their daily lives. So when Bernie does a speech, people can finish his lines 'cause they know. what he's gonna say. You know, they know what points he's gonna hit. Because socialism in my mind should not be. a complicated thing. Now when we get to more abstract discussions.

about what a future system would look like, when we get to the policy trade-offs today, I think we need to put on a different hat. We should embrace all sorts of nuance and contradiction. and complication. When it comes to the core moral. and ethical appeal, I think Bernie grasped that and how to communicate it. Now Bernie Sanders was politicized a very long time ago. I actually once told him, I've only met him a few times, but one time I joked that in his,

in his book he mentioned that one politicizing moment. in his life was when the Brooklyn Dodgers left town, and he was devastated 'cause he was a Dodgers fan, you know, from Brooklyn. And I said, this is like 2020 campaign, this is maybe 2019, I said, Bernie, you're running for president. You do not need to keep reminding people of your age. (laughing). But you know, he was politicized. through the Young People's Socialist League,

which was an old offshoot. of the Norm Thomas Socialist Party of America. So a very old school socialist tradition. Then he was engaged in labor struggles in the sixties. He was engaged in the civil rights movement. So he came from this old left generation. that I think just had a more plainspoken, more rooted way of understanding change and socialism. It wasn't in my mind, polluted by academia and by some of the turn. towards issues of culture, and yeah, and excessive focus on representation or whatever else.

It was rooted, it was really rooted. in something economic in a way. Then obviously he had all his ideas. and he was also a product to the left. And then he went to Vermont, he kind of did the back to the land thing. He was basically like a not quite a hippie and an affect, but he was out there trying to farm or whatever in, you know, cold as hell, Northern Vermont. And then he decided to do politics, do electoral politics.

And he failed for a long time. He did third party politics. He kept losing races. Eventually he became, by savvy and luck. and things he learned, the mayor of Burlington, Vermont. And he just kept with the same message. And in my book I talk about, I quote, I think a Bernie speech from the 1970s, one of his early campaigns, and I compared it to a Bernie speech. during his 2016 campaign. It was virtually identical. Millionaires was swapped with millionaires and billionaires.

speaking of billionaires, which is beautiful. You know, it's, I think there's, there's something, you know, great to what he offered American politics. and also all around the world, there's a socialist pull in politics, whether you agree with it or not, in all these countries in Europe and any rich country, Japan and so on. And the US really didn't have that. The furthest left you could go was like, you know, Chris Hayes and MSNBC or whatever. I'm very glad that there's a socialist pull. and I think we have Bernie to thank for it.

to the extent that a lot of, you know, self-described socialists don't think Bernie. is a real socialist. It's in part because he stays grounded. in people's day-to-day lives and struggles. I don't think he thinks often the way that I do. and other people more disconnected or a step removed. from day-to-day politics think about the future contours. of a social society and so on, but I think he's morally committed. to a egalitarian different sort of future.

- And I don't think he, at least I haven't heard him. talk about sort of this big broad history and future, so the Marxist ideology and so on, not that he's afraid of it or something, it's just not how he thinks about it. - Yeah, I think he's a practical thinker and also, yeah, he is running, even if he, he should be afraid of it too because he is a, you know, he is a major politician running for president. I think what people want is they want, they want the left wing of the possible,

or at least the segment of the party. that was voting for him, the Democratic Party that is voting for him. They wanted something that was a step or two removed. from what they had now and was visionary. but not so far removed that it seemed like a scary leap. And I think we lost a chance in 2016 to elect someone. that I think would've beaten Trump. or at the very least would've, you know, been close. - Do you think the Democrats screwed him over?

- Yes. Not in the way of deliberate or direct vote rigging, but they put their thumb on the scale for sure. I mean there's, it's not even conspiracy theory. There's all this stuff in the debates about Clinton, you know, being Clinton's, people being fed questions. and whatever else, and just the tone of the media, the media was extremely dismissive and hostile to him. I love that Bernie still does the Fox News town hall. because they're just him speaking to the people. and he's not afraid of going on, you know,

any sort of outlet and making his case. But I think a lot of the liberal media. in particular always had it out for Bernie Sanders. - What was the, 'cause that was really annoying, that was really annoying how dismissive they were. I've seen that in some other candidates, like they were dismissive towards Andrew Yang. in that same way. So forget the ideology. Why are they so smug sometimes towards certain candidates? What is that?

Because I think that's actually at the core, to a degree, if Democrats or any party fails, it's that smugness, 'cause people see through that. - I think a lot of these people are friends, even if they don't know each other, they're friends 'cause they went the same schools, they know the same people, they have the same broad just ideology and worldview. So they had a sense of what the Democratic Party. should be and who should be running, and who was gonna win and also what was serious. and unserious. So Bernie would say some things about the world that,

objectively, to a lot of people seemed correct. or at least pretty close to correct, and a journalist would just look at him. like he was from outer space. To some extent, this also happens to people on the right. You know, people on the right often say things. that I find repulsive or just wrong, but there's parts of the media that would describe. their certain views as illegitimate. or outside this boundary of acceptable conversation.

I think there should be a few things outside the boundary. of acceptable conversation, you know, hate speech and so on. But like, there's this attempt to say their views. are illegitimate and therefore anyone who votes for them. for any reason is illegitimate too. And that's one reason why I think it's fueled. a lot of resentment and will ultimately end up. fueling the extremes of American politics. that people feel like, you know, they're not being listened to. - Yeah, and some of it is also a style of speaking.

and personality where if you're not willing. to sort of play kind of a game of civility, or there's like a proper way of speaking. if you're a Democrat, if you're not doing that kind of proper way of speaking, people dismiss you. I think in certain sense, whatever you feel about him, people dismissed Donald Trump for the same reason, where it's the style of speaking, the personality of the person, that he's not playing by the rules of polite society,

of polite politician society and so on. And that's really, that troubles me because it feels. like solutions, the great leaders will not be polite in, they're not going to behave the way. they're supposed to behave. And I just wish the media was at least open-minded to that. Like, which I guess gives me hope about the new media, which is like more distributed citizen media, right, that they're more open mind to the revolutionary,

to the outsiders. Right. I actually, first, I really like Bernie Sanders. I first heard him on in conversation with Tom Hartman. He had these like weekly conversations. And just the authenticity from the guy. I didn't even know any context. I didn't even know honestly he was a democratic socialist. or anything. The authenticity of the human being was really refreshing,

and when he, I guess, decided to run for president, that was really strange. I was like surely, this person has no chance. (laughing). Just like, he seemed too authentic. He seemed too, like, he's not going to be effective. at playing the game of politics. So it was very inspiring to me to see. that you don't necessarily need to be good. at playing the game of politics. You can actually have a chance of winning. Yeah, that was really inspiring to see. What about some of the other popular candidates?

What do you think about AOC? I don't know if she self identifies as a socialist or not. - She does self-identify as as a democratic socialist. I think she was a very inspiring figure. for a lot of people. She was kind of out of this Bernie wave, of the first set of Bernie candidates in 2018. that identified with him instead. of the Democratic Party establishment. I think that she's still developing as a politician. and it's very difficult when you're.

in a deep blue district and when you don't often. have to worry about reelection or talk to, or modulate your rhetoric to win over swing voters. in your district, but then you're immediately a national and cultural figure. So AOC basically goes from her views, which are compelling, in my mind, a lot of her programmatic views are compelling, wins her district and then has her own rhetoric,

which to me, compared to Bernie, owes itself more to the academic left, in the way that a lot of the left has learned to talk. I don't mean academic in sense that she's like. a Marxist or whatever else, but academic in the way that she may be using at times, like confusing language to convey basic points. when she gets into like the like language. of intersectionality and whatever else. - Especially in the context of cultural issues. and stuff like that. - Exactly.

Instead of just the plain spoken Bernie like, yeah, discrimination is wrong. If you ask me about a cultural issue, I'll come down on the same side as AOC, I'm sure, you know, nine, 10 times outta 10. But I'll try to root it into just basic like, yeah, treat people with respect, you know, and they'll treat you with respect, and that's the way we should govern. our civic sphere, you know, and we don't need to talk about intersectionality to, I think, get that. But, so there's that rhetoric. But she's not just regular congressperson.

in a deep blue district. She's also a national and international cultural. and political figure. So she's now a spokesperson because of largely. like a media event of her surprising upset election. and her being, you know, young and like being really connected. to this post Bernie moment. And I think amid these constant one attacks on her. from the right and also this media attention. and this notoriety, she hasn't really modulated.

or adjusted her audience, her rhetoric, and how do you win over someone who really hates. a lot of your ideas but might actually believe. in some of your policies. And I think she's been ineffective quite frankly. in the last year making that transition, whereas I think other politicians who are not so far left, who don't identify as socialist, but let's say, a John Fetterman has managed.

to become more effective. And I don't think it's a question of character. or whatever else. I like AOC so I don't want to put it so harshly, but I think a lot of it has to do with her being. a congress person in a deep blue district. and Fetterman being, running for statewide office in a, you know, quote/unquote purple state. But at her best, at her best she does it, but it's like glimmers. It's kind of like, I dunno, what sport are you biggest fan of? I'll give you a sports analogy. - I like the, I mean, NFL is up there, soccer's up there,

but probably UFC. - Okay, well I can't give you good analogy for any of those, but it's like a raw prospect. Like, you know, someone who shows glimmers of hope, so they were drafted really high and they bounce. from team to team and you're like, I'm clinging onto my AOC stock, but I think that she needs to be self-critical enough. and her team needs to be self-critical enough. to know that the goal is not merely. to be a national cultural figure.

and win a reelection in your deep blue district. The goal has to be to become truly. a national political figure, which will require changes. - A unifier, an inspiring figure about the ideas. that she represents. - Definitely. And she has other things against her. Like I'm obviously class focused, but there's no denying, I think that some of the hostility to her is like, is sexism, you know, it's rooted in I think people. wanting to see her fail or whatever else. But that's only some of it, you know. I think some of it otherwise is her struggling.

to relate to people who don't have a lot of her, you know, starting points as far as moral and ethical beliefs. - Yeah, but she's actually great at flourishing in. all the attacks she's getting. She's doing a good job with that. And a lot of those attacks would break me, if I'm being honest. (laughing). - [Bhaskar] Yes, that's the--. - Amount of fire she's under, but you don't want that to become a drug to where you. just get good at being a national figure. that's constantly in the fights.

and are using that for attention and so on. You still want to be the unifier, and that's the tricky switch. Do you think there's a chance there's a world. in which she's able to modulate it enough. to be a unifier and run for president, and when? - I think she's very far away from being able to do that. I think that even other politicians that are also polarizing. within the Squad in terms. of what they say or their ideas, whatever else,

are very effective communicators, like Ilhan Omar and others. I think, AOC I mean, that's my hope, right? My hope is that someone like AOC could. The last year plus has not been extremely promising, you know, in my mind in part because she's become, or she's continued to position herself. as a lightning rod cultural figure. Whereas I think a national political figure needs to pick.

their spots and also pick their moment for changing. their rhetoric and adjusting to their audience. And I think she does it in certain environments, but that needs to be your national message. when you're out there. You need to be speaking towards the not already converted. And I think Bernie does that. Bernie strips his politics down to the basics. - So I agree with you, spiritually, but I also, we also have an example of Donald Trump.

winning the presidency. Isn't some of the game of politics that's separate. from the policy being able to engage in rhetoric. that leads to outrage, and then walking through that fire with grace. - First of all, I think Trump was, is kind of a unique personality in American history. So it's hard to compare anyone to Trump.

- But don't you think AOC is comparable. in terms of the uniqueness in the political system. we are in, or no? - I think Trump was much more, is much more of a firebrand anti-establishment force. in that, and I mean this negatively, for what it's worth 'cause I, you know, disagree with Trump, but he was willing to set fire. to the Republican establishment, right? He was able to self-fund, you know, largely his campaign and he already. was a media figure without them.

AOC has been much more cautious. for the Democratic party establishment, in part because she's not trying to run. a national political campaign right now. for the outside, like a 5% chance. they're gonna be president, let me set fire to everything. She's trying to help people and help her constituents. through the game of getting committee appointments and, you know, getting wins in the margins. And I think that's understandable, for what it's worth. But in the process, I think, what's the difference between AOC.

and a progressive Democrat. During 2016, it used to be pretty easy to say. the difference between the Berniecrats. and a progressive Democrat, right? Because we were establishing our own outside third force. in American politics where, you know, you could knock on the door of a lot of people. who would end up voting for Trump and they would say, oh, I have a lot of respect for Bernie or whatever. They were still gonna not vote for him, but he wasn't considered part. of the Democratic Party milieu. I think now with AOC, there's a much closer association.

of AOC and her policies with ordinary Democrats. where she needs to draw stronger distinctions. She doesn't need to do it like Trump did with just, man, I forgot all of them, though, I found some of them amusing in the moment, like all his nicknames about oh, Lyin' Ted Cruz, and then the rest, you know. But I do feel like she needs to, yes, differentiate herself a bit more, but then also just keep her language simple. Trump was more complex than Bernie.

in his literal language. But he was repetitive and there was kind of a rhythm. and a cadence to a Trump speech. I think AOC needs to, like Bernie, reduce her rhetoric down to a couple key lines. and signatures and focus her politics, not on 20 issues, but on three or four most important issues. and have that message discipline. Bernie will do an interview with you and he'll write down, hope you do interview Bernie,

but he'll write down like five things and, yeah, I'm only gonna talk about these five things. Yeah, ask me about this. Okay, I'm talking about these five things. - So that's a message discipline that Bernie. has been exemplary on. - Yeah, for sure. - I think that's learned, that could be developed. - I think she could develop it. Listen, I hope I'm answering your question, I think not the way I should answer it, being someone, you know, broadcasting to people. on the left, and you know, elsewhere,

I hope AOC goes in that direction. I just think that she is a lot going against her just cause. she's already a national figure and she's. in a deeper blue district. But we need to root our politics then. in working class people and a lot of districts that, I don't know, the type of kitchen table conversations are, I hate that cliche, but I just used it, but a lot of these conversations are just different. in their tone and cadence,

and it's not just a question of, you know, Fetterman or Tim Ryan in Ohio. and kind of just white working class voters. I mean, working class voters of any race. There's their day-to-day needs and the day-to-day things. they want to talk about is just at a different plane than, you know, a Met Gala cultural statement. - Yeah, I mean it's clear that you respect and love. and would like to see different ways. I mean, she's young, so the different trajectories.

that she could develop that would ultimately. make her a good candidate. I'm just looking at odds here for, and I disagree with them. I'm buying AOC stock here given these odds. So in terms of democratic, who's gonna win the 2024 election? So that includes running and winning? On the Democrat side is 18% chance for Biden, 7% chance for Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom at 6%, Michelle Obama at 3%. Hillary Clinton at 2%, and AOC at 1.5%,

and then Bernie at 1%. - I would not buy AOC at that mark. I would buy Biden like crazy though. I'm not a gambling man, but I would, I would totally toss a G at Biden at that amount. - AOC at 1.5% chance. - I think it's, I don't think she runs. - You don't think she runs? Yeah, okay, that's--. - I don't think Bernie will primary Biden either. I mean if Biden doesn't run,

then obviously it's an open field. But I just feel like--. - Do you think Biden runs? - Yes, I think Biden properly runs. - Oh man. Oh boy. - He's an incumbent president. He's an incumbent president. So it's just, it's very hard to imagine. another Democrat being able to do better than him. - All right, what about the competition? - I think Donald Trump is the best thing. for the Democrats period, just 'cause it would create this turnout mechanism, this excitement around, we have to stop Donald Trump.

He's attacking DeSantis. I mean already he's trying to, you know, the DeSanctimonious thing. But yeah, I kind of like, yeah, Trump's kinda like the Don King of American politics. - Yeah, it's interesting what kind. of dynamic chaos is created. It probably led to more people being interested in politics. Well, almost guaranteed it led to more people. being interested in politics,

but maybe not in a healthy way. Maybe it created an unhealthy relationship with politics. where it's created more partisanship. - For me, I'm not, I haven't, don't have a problem with partnership. It's what kind of partnership. So I think Trump has cultivated like a lot. of right populists, a relationship with his supporters. It's almost like a leader/follower relationship. in a way that doesn't actually enhance people's knowledge. of politics and the issues, but actually just leads him to follow the party line.

Ideally, I think socialist politics and politics on the left. should be something different. Eugene Deb's, the great American socialist leader. of the late 19th and early 20th century used to say, you know, "I'm not your Moses, "I can't promise to lead you to the promised land, "because if I can lead you there. "and you just follow me there, "someone's just gonna lead you straight out. "as soon as I'm gone", and I think there's something nice about that kind of anti, you know, blind following, leader/follower kind.

of dynamic on the left at its best. - That's said, in the way the, at least the political race in the United States. has turned out. It seems like it's turned into a bit of entertainment. and they're having personalities and characters. is really important. So in terms of policy and actual leadership, yes, maybe having a leader.

like an authoritarian big leader is not good, but maybe for the race it is, for the drama of it. You just want to have drama and attention. on people who are actually going to turn out. to be good leaders. That's a weird balance to strike. - Yeah, earned media is what I, they always talk about, right, in political campaigns. Like, you know, the more on you could get on TV, the better. Even like I really like Fetterman. He just won his campaign, but a good part of his early campaign,

he had pivoted from talking about issues. to just talking about Dr. Oz living in New Jersey. and kind of having the troll campaign against him, which I found amusing, but also, and it was effective obviously, one. Yeah, but it's a bit depressing. 'cause I would've rather a whole campaign cycle. about healthcare and jobs and other issues. - Yeah, and this just the, the hope is that people just get better. at that kind of social media communication.

So I do actually think there's something. about doing political speeches. that makes you sound less authentic. because you have to like do so many of them. It must be exhausting to like day after day. after day make the speech. You're going to start sort of replaying the same stuff. over and over as opposed to actually thinking. about the words that are coming outta your mouth, and then the public will know that you're not. really being that authentic. Even though you believe those things,

you're just, it's just tough. I just wish we, they didn't have to do, constantly do speeches. So I think that the fact that Bernie's speeches very clearly. like came out of, if not directly his own pen, but his own rhetoric over the years and he kind. of wrote it seemed authentic., even if he was repeating it, and then Trump, his just wild improvisation, I think people found real, you know, in a certain way. And I would love for the left more generally. to tap into some of that anti-establishment sentiment, but obviously do it in a way that's productive,

that doesn't blame immigrants or whatever else. for problems but, you know, it's kind of built on a different basis. But people are fed up for good reason. with a lot of conventional politics. and we need to speak to that, otherwise it'll only be the right. that is taking advantage of those people's anger. - Well I almost forgot to ask you about China. So both, historically we talked about the Soviet Union, but what lessons do you draw from the implementation. of socialism, communism in Maoist China and modern China?

What's the good and the bad? - Well I think it's very similar to the Soviet case. in that socialism came to China. through not a base of organized workers. and a capitalist country at a certain level. of development and so on, but it came through the countryside and in conditions. of civil war, strife, you had Japanese invasion.

and whatever else, and Mao built his base in the peasantry, then came down to the city to govern. and tried to build a base and rule over workers. So it was kind of an inversion of classic socialist theory. Now the same thing that I said before about Stalin. and assessing the Soviet Union has to apply here, 'cause obviously, you know, I oppose authoritarianism, and you know, I obviously, all sorts of moral condemnations, I should do, but to look at what the Chinese Communist Party.

actually accomplished, I think we kind of need to take a step backwards. from our moral opposition to the means. in which they accomplished it. and just look at it developmentally. China benefited greatly. from the Communist Party's implementation. of basic education and healthcare. So in a lot of China, you had one of the conditions,

women were absolutely terrible. There was still foot-binding and all sorts. of like terrible backward practices. You had a huge, vast majority of the population. that was illiterate without any access. to basic education and you had no health access, especially in the countryside. So those are the three good things. that China did, improve the status of women, get everyone into primary education, and improve the lot of healthcare.

Besides with that, their agricultural campaign. was a failure, just like Stalin's. for many of the same reasons I mentioned before. The Great Leap Forward crashed, industrialization didn't really work either. In a way, is China better than India. or other countries that didn't have the basic education. and the strong state authority.

and the health improvements and whatever, I think maybe, but I think that's why we need. to sometimes go beyond just economic measures of success. 'Cause if you told me tomorrow the US will grow at 3%. if we maintain democracy, but it'll grow at 8%, 9%, everyone will be wealthier if we move. to some sort of authoritarian government, I think you're asking the wrong question. if we're gonna make your decision based on growth, right,

'cause it has to be based on some sort of, you know, principle. But the same dynamic of from the beginning, the Chinese Communist party ruling over people, emerging from the outside through armed conflicts. and ruling over ordinary Chinese people have continued. Since Deng Xiaoping, the policies have been better, economically, and often at times, not always, the technocratic governance has been, you know, quite good. But that doesn't mean that the party. has a democratic mandate or has the,

should have the right to govern as they see fit. 'Cause clearly, you know, it doesn't have that mandate in swaths of the country. or in places of Hong Kong or elsewhere. But to me, nothing the Chinese Communist Party does. has anything to do with socialism. I think even by their own definition today, it really doesn't. It's a sort of nationalist, authoritarian, developmental state that has done some good things.

to improve the living standards of the Chinese people, other things that were counterproductive and, you know, as a democratic socialist, you know, I certainly don't support that state, but I also hope that the US and Biden. will find a way to avoid, you know, intense rivalry and competition. economically spilling over into something worse. - From a democratic socialist perspective, what's one policy or one or two ways you could fix,

if you could fix China, if you took over China, what would you like to see change? - Well, the democratic part. comes before the socialist part. So I would say there needs to be multi-party elections. in China and state censorship and control over the press, in other words, needs to be done with. As far as their immediate economic policy, I think the idea of maintaining strong state control.

of certain, you know, commanding heights of the economy, while liberalizing other spheres has done quite well. in China's case, lifting people out of poverty. But again, you know, there's something really lost. in the society, even if it's getting wealthier, if you're a great, you know, if ordinary people don't have the ability to participate. in dissent freely. And the Chinese authorities have allowed some,

you know, it's not North Korea, it's not a totally totalitarian state. There's been workplace protests, have been all sorts of anti-corruption, local anti-corruption protests and things like that. But it's up, the government decides what's permitted. and what's not at what particular moment, and I think the long run, even if it can survive, there's a better way to do things, which is just quite simply a democracy. - The thing is though, the lessons of history that China is looking at,

there's this dark aspect. So building on top of the fact that it seems. like under Stalin and under Mao, under Stalin, Soviet Union, and under Mao, China, has seen a lot of economic growth. And then one dark aspect of that, while under the Great Leap Forward, you have, you know, upwards of 70 million people dead. Today, I think there's a large number of people.

who admire Stalin and admire Mao. - What they admire is the stability. and the strong leadership. So, and there's a lot of people who miss. the Soviet Union, right? The reason why they miss it is that it was a system. they knew, it provided the basics of their livelihood. Then afterwards, like look at Russia in the nineties, people were in chaos, you know, the communist party was, had a huge amount of support, democratically. Anti-democratic measures had to be taken, ironically, against the Communist Party. to keep it from regaining more of a foothold in Russia.

But we don't need that trade off. You know, we could have a form of, imagine if Russia went to system closer to social democracy. that maintained the stability that people wanted, the welfare state that people wanted, but restructured the economy in not a shock way, but in a way that made sense and that ordinary people.

felt ownership of instead of just oligarchs. who were former communist party bureaucracy. just dividing up the country for themselves. I think the same thing in China. Like first of all, certainly from the west, you know, the US government and people in the US should have, you know, have no say over what should happen in China. The Chinese Communist Party has more authentic authority. than any of us do in the country. But, you know, I think that the fears of instability.

that a lot of Chinese people have, why I would imagine that even in a democratic election, the communist party might have majority support. is because they fear the unknown, they fear collapse. That was one of the big lessons. of the Soviet collapse, right? Do you want China divide into five, six states? You know, do you want economic turmoil? Do you want mass immediate privatization? Do you want whatever welfare state you have destroyed.

and so on? I think people are right to have those fears, but there's a different route towards democratization. that maintains stability, right? There's different routes that you could have democracy. Not every country had to go down the route of Yugoslavia. and the USSR and so on. - You are the founder of the magazine, "Jacobin", of which I am a subscriber.

I recommend everybody subscribe whether you are. on the left or the right. he magazine does tend to lean left. Does it officially say it's socialist? - Yeah, we're a socialist publication. We try to be interesting. So we try to like, you know, have articles that kind of have debates. and contestation and whatever else. But we're definitely, we're all socialists. (laughing). - Well it's a a lot of really interesting articles, so I definitely recommend that people subscribe, support. I only, like the product of the 21st century,

only subscribe to the digital version, but I guess there's also a paper version. - Yeah, there's like 70,000 subscribers in print. - In print. Does it come like on a scroll? I don't even know it's a paper. (overlapping discussion). - No, I'm gonna mail you a bunch of copies. No, it's perfect bound, you know, it's long issues. Our Jacobin's publisher, (indistinct). recently did a redesign of the publication. So it looks really good. It's up there in the design award competition range.

- Yeah, it's sexy. I can show it off to all my friends, look. - Put it in your coffee table. You don't even have to read it. - First, I need to get a coffee table, but yes, I'll get both. That's what respectable, listen, I've upgraded my life. I haven't had a couch, I don't think ever. So I got a couch recently. 'cause somebody told me that serious adults have a couch, and I also got a TV because serious adults. have a couch and a TV, and as you see it's been here for many months. and I still haven't like unboxed it.

So this, I'm trying to learn how to be an adult. looking up on YouTube, how to be an adult. and learning slowly. After that I'll look into this whole leisure thing. Anyway, what's the origin of "Jacobin"? What was the idea, what was the mission. and what's the origin story? - So I started "Jacobin" when I was between my sophomore. and junior year of college. Basically, I was already a socialist. I was involved in the Democratic Socialists of America. I was in the youth section, the Young Democratic Socialists. I was editing their kind of youth online magazine.

called "The Activist" back then. And to be honest, I had my ideology, I had my views, I had a group of people around me that we. would debate together and occasionally write. for this other publication, "The Activist", and so on. And yeah, just a product of creative ignorance. in the sense that I knew I had the capacity. to maybe pull off an issue or two. I just had no idea how long I would keep doing it, you know, and I just eventually consumed my life slowly but surely.

Like I had different plans for my future. I kind of, you know, but I ended up just being. a magazine publisher. I literally didn't know what a magazine publisher was, but it just kind of happened. - What's the hardest part about running a magazine? - Well the hardest part is obviously the things, just like any enterprise, right, the things beyond your control. Like you could put out something that you think. is great or interesting, but then you need the feedback of people. actually subscribing to it.

And you occasionally encounter periods where you feel. like you're doing your best work but you're not getting. the audience response. And I think you just need the kind of the self-confidence. to just keep doing it. And obviously if you're totally obscure and crazy. and way off the mark, you're never gonna build that audience. But I think a lot of publications have tried to, same thing I guess goes with YouTube shows, whatever else, they try to adapt to what everyone else.

is doing right away when they don't achieve success, whereas for me, the early issues of "Jacobin". got very little resonance and took a while. for it to build into something. But a lot of it was just the confidence to just keep going. and keep publishing what I would want to read. and just hope that I'm not so much of a weirdo. that I'm the only one. - Is there some pressure that you could speak to. of audience capture? Because it is a socialist publication, you have a fan base, a readership base.

Is there times you feel pressured not to say. a certain thing, not to call out bullshit, not to criticize certain candidates, all that kind of stuff? - Yes, definitely. Of course. You know, I myself am looser on the self-censorship. than other people. But that's only because I've, you know, gotten this far just shooting from the hip or whatever. And occasionally, you know, you'll come. to a rash judgment, right?

You'll speak too soon or complain about something too soon. and you'll have to kind of either apologize. or kind of reconsider whatever else. But on a host of issues, you know, I have views that maybe not all of the left has, but I know that the core of my politics is. a politics against, you know, oppression against exploitation against all the things. that we talked about. And if you know that's at the core of your politics, then you could maybe say, you know what, I don't think the left should,

should respond to the real racism still out in the world. by adopting like an excessively racialized rhetoric, if that makes sense. Like I fundamentally just am a universalist. and I believe that people, no matter where their backgrounds are and so on, kind of want the same things for themselves and for their, for their families. And I feel like a lot of the left or some of the left, not even the far left, more like the center left. has adopted kind of a stance saying,

oh, we need to talk about white privilege or, you know, white Karens or white guys or old white guys doing this. or whatever else. And to me it's not only wrong. in a moral sense, but it's counterproductive, because the last thing I want is a young white teenager who, you know, feels unrepresented politically. and wants to be a part of maybe even the left to feel like, like, oh, I should think more about my identity. No, the whole point of anti-racist politics.

is we wanna live in a world where, you know, you know me and you can go around the corner. and get a beer and we're not, you know, people of two different, you know, races getting a beer. We're just two, you know, guys in America getting a bear. You know, it's just, we're trying to get, have the type of society in which there's less. of that sort of communal or racialized identity, and that was a whole point of a whole generation. of anti-racist struggle. But now we seem to be kind of reifying it in the media.

and in culture and in politics. And that's one issue where I've been kind of banging. the drum on this to the point that it's annoying. in certain parts of the left. I don't think there's maybe extreme opposition. among socialists, but it's more like a why do you keep focusing on this? Let's focus on our real enemy, the Right, instead of criticizing, you know, this part of--. - No, I think it's really, I am really glad you exist, I'm really glad you're beating that drum because I think. that's one of the,

one of the reasons that the left has not had. a broader impact or is not heard by more people. that could hear its message is because of the othering, the othering of like, as if there's two teams, as if it's black and white as opposed to having, there's a common humanity and a common struggle. amongst all of us. You also wrote the book that we mentioned a few times, "The Socialist Manifesto: "The Case for Radical Politics.

"in an Era of Extreme Inequality". What's the framework, what are the key ideas of the book? - So a lot of it's a look at socialism's past, present and future basically. So a lot of it is historical. The opening chapter uses a pasta sauce factory. as a way to explain certain Marxist concepts, but also a theory of change, like how we get from, let's say, pure capitalism to more regulated, you know, unionized and social democratic systems,

and then beyond social democracy. into my vision of socialism. That's kind of the first little bit, it's a visionary kind of like look. at the future of socialism. But then I try to explain why some. of the past socialist movements have gone wrong. 'Cause I think we can take for granted, I think a lot of people want to live in a different. or better society, but they look at past examples and they're skeptical. and I think there's good reason for skepticism. So I try to explain both these successes of certain systems.

like social democracy, but also what happened in Russia, China and kind of more of historical overview. Then the book kind of ends in the present. It ends with looking at the Bernie Sanders campaign, why it resonated, looking at some of the problems facing the US, the UK, other advanced economies and why I think. the socialist message is still relevant. 'Cause for the longest time,

I'm 33, I became a socialist as like a teenager. and for the longest time it seemed like I was just. a member of a historical society, you know, keeping alive an idea that nobody was interested in anymore. And now, you know, it's heartening to see more young people. interested in the idea, but we actually need to, I think have a clearer sense. of what we stand for and how we make our movement. Like it used to be more rooted in the working class. So if anyone rewinds the tape, may go to when we first started talking.

about early socialism, when I was talking about the German social democratic. workers movement or all these different early parties, I think at various points I used the word worker. and socialist movement interchangeably, because in fact the time, it was pretty interchangeable. Socialism was the ideology that had the appeal. of the working class movement. You know, you couldn't really separate between the two. Now obviously socialism's like a fringe ideological.

concurrent among a very small minority. of the working class, which is fine, but we need to get to the point I think ideally. where when people talk about unions. and people protesting and social movements and socialism, they all kind of are one and the same as part. of the same broad movement. - How did you become a socialist? What was the personal story. or the idea took hold in your mind? - So I'm the youngest of five. I was the only one in my family born in the United States.

So it was very obvious to me that my life outcomes. were very different than life outcomes of my siblings. So my three oldest siblings, you know, didn't go to college after high school. Some of 'em got their degrees, you know, much later on as adults. But I was from a pretty young age had access. to a great public school district and was put. on the track that you're gonna go to college, you know, this is kind of the outcome.

And like I said, even my grandmother was illiterate. My mom didn't have a lot of educational opportunities early, you know, in her life. She actually graduated from college the same year I did. So she later got her kind of degrees and whatever else. But to me it was obvious that so much my life outcomes. weren't just a product of hard work or my family sacrifices. 'cause of course I had the same family as my siblings,

but the product of state institutions helping out, evening things out. Public school district, public library, like all sorts of afterschool programs, all that was the domain of the state. and I really benefited from it. So in essence, my core was the social democratic belief. the state should redistribute a bit, build public institutions, be an equalizer. Now how I became a Marxist and a socialist. was much more random. I was just intellectually interested in it.

and eventually I kind of merged the two together. where I merged together my more pragmatic. and practical interest and day-to-day concerns. and reforms and so on with my loftier intellectual interests. in Marxism into, you know, the politics I have today, which I try to kind of balance and do both. And I think a lot of socialists in the organization. that I joined as a teenager, the Democratic Socialist of America and elsewhere, try to do the two, try to maintain some sort of balance between here.

and you know, our vision of the future. - What do you think Marx would say if he were to read. your book, "Socialist Manifesto", and do a review? - So I think Marx would say that my vision of a socialism. after capitalism maintains key elements of what he would, of the commodity form. So a lot of what Marx was concerned about was. what markets do to human relationships in a negative sense.

His early writings especially focus a lot. on the alienation of labor. My vision of socialism, at least in the near term, a lot about, is about deifying certain sectors. So reducing the market in certain sectors. and reducing alienation but not eliminating it. It is about eliminating exploitation and oppression. So knowing Marx and knowing how critical he was of certain. other socialist strands and tendencies.

And he would often write very snarky notes and letters to. people like Engels being like this guy LaSalle, he's a total asshole. Then he would send a separate note to LaSalle saying, Hey, can I borrow a five grand like this? This is actually true. He did the boat, he did the boat. (indistinct). - So he would be really good at Twitter, is what you're saying? - Oh, he would be the best at Twitter. And also he used to be a, he was a journalist before with his work. for the New York Tribune. He was very clever, very snarky, he would be awesome at,

at Twitter. I think him and Elon would have a good back and forth, but I think it would be critical some parts. But I think the, the strangest part for him would be reading the historical. sections and seeing the way in which his ideas, which was fundamentally ideas about human emancipation. were used for evil, for hardship, you know, for in, in ways that did the opposite of emancipated, but in some cases, you know, enslaved people. And I think he would have definitely not want to be.

associated with them. He probably would rather be associated with me than them. But even then only begrudgingly. - What advice would you give to young folks in high school, in college, how to have a career they. can be proud of or how to change the world? - I think be intellectually curious. You know, read outside your, your current beliefs and understand read authors on.

their own terms. So the worst thing in the world to do is to read anything, especially work of fiction, but anything and try to deduce the authors, you know, backgrounds or politics, whatever else, like read it on its own terms first, then you could reread it and kind of do other examinations. or or whatever else. And also read a lot of history. So I started off reading books. like Eric Hobsbawm's four books on history going. from the 1700s on all the way to 1994.

The last book is Age of Extremes, but I think understanding history gives you a bird's eye. view of everything. Sociology, economics, everything. So these big sweeping historical books are really useful to. know. Like everybody should know basically, you know, what year or at least like what decade, you know, serfdom was abolished, what decade surf slavery is abo abolished, you know, what century Magna Carta was, you know,

when the Roman Empire fell even though it's kind of debated. when the Roman Empire fell. All these, I think like being a person. with a general knowledge and general sense. of history and whatever else just makes you. more eclectic and interesting and it's way better than just. like, especially a lot of my Indian friends, you know, not just Indians but the hyper focus on like you gotta. specialize and you have to like focus on on math or. engineering, whatever you wanna do. You just know your field really well, but nothing else, like I think there's something really to,

whether you're getting at school or you're just gonna. do it by yourself, giving yourself kind. of a liberal arts education. - I think there's a lot of power to sort of having. the facts of history in terms of in time. when stuff happened, but also really powerful is knowing spatially. like the geography, that we're a point on a map. and there's interesting dynamics that happen. throughout history of all the different nations in Europe, of all the different military conflicts. and the expansions and the wars and the empires. and all that kind of stuff.

It really puts into context how, how human history has led to the place we are today. 'Cause all the different geopolitical conflicts. we have today, even the politics of the day. is grounded in history. Maybe less so for the United States. 'cause it has a very young history, but that history even from the United States is still there, right from the Civil War and understanding that gives you. context to when you tweet random stuff about this or that. person or politician and so on.

Yeah, very true, very true. One of the regrets I have currently is I have perhaps been. too focused on the 20th century in terms of history, the present and the 20th century. A lot of people write to me that there's a lot of lessons to. be learned in ancient history as well. So not just even American history but just looking farther. and farther and farther back. Yeah, that feels like it's another time, it's another place.

It's totally has no lessons, but then you remind yourself that it's the same human. beings, right? - Yeah. And also we're no smarter them, we just have more crude knowledge in part 'cause of them. But like, you know, they're just as, they were just as clever as us, you know? - What do you think is the meaning of this whole experiment. we have going on on earth now? What's the meaning of life? - Well, I think there's no broad meaning of life. There's, you know, it was an accident, but we ourselves need to make our own meaning.

And for me a lot of it is about posterity. Trying to do something worthwhile while on earth, but also leaving something behind. It could just be relationships with friends or or family in. the future. Maybe having a family and, and kind of like leaving behind that sort of legacy like. little bits of yourself, but also, you know, them being able to learn the same way I have little bits of. my parents and my grandparents and me. And then also I think in a social sense,

zooming out from just the individual and the, the family leaving the world behind a little better. I would love to be a part of a movement that created a world. with a little bit less suffering, a little bit less oppression or exploitation or, or whatever else. That's really why I'm a, why I'm a socialist, you know, it's not about snapping your fingers and curing the world of. everything in one in one go, but it is about,

I think putting our lives, giving our lives some sort of meeting and purpose. And you don't have to be a socialist to do that. You could just do it at the, you know, at the micro level, in your own day-to-day interactions. But I just feel like life has no good meaning without, without thinking of posterity in the future. - And I have to say thank you for doing so. Thank you for caring about the struggle of the people in the. world through ideas that are bold.

And I think challenging for a lot of people in a time when. socialism is something that can be attacked aggressively by. large numbers of people still persevering and still. exploring those ideas and seeing what of those ideas can. make for a better world. That's beautiful to see. Bhaskar, thank you so much for talking today. Thank you for all the work you do. I can't wait to see what you do next. - I appreciate it. And yeah, thanks for keeping an open mind with these conversations and. to your audience too. You know, it's, it's nice to have a space where, you know,

people can debate and think at length and don't have to. worry about sound bite culture. - Thank you brother. Thank you for listening to this conversation. with Bhaskar Sunkara. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Karl Marx. "Democracy is the road to Socialism.". Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.