#19 - WTF is socialism

Speaker 1 00:00:03 I really think that it can be summarized by saying that, you know, where capitalism is in a, an economy that is deeply undemocratic. Socialism is the politics of democratizing the economy. And from there, there's a ton of details and disagreement and, uh, different ideas about what it is. But I think it's important to, to emphasize that because in, in the height of the Bernie moment, you saw of these Mees and there was just basically like anything the government does is socialism. Like if the government sweeps, uh, roads of snow that's socialism, and that's not really the point Speaker 0 00:00:49 Welcome. This is another session in our podcast. We're calling, talking strategy, making history. I'm Dick flax. My partner in this crime is Draka Lamore hall. Hey folks. And, and, uh, hi, Draka so we, we are calling this second season of, uh, talking strategy, making history, we're calling it socialism and it's discontent. And, um, maybe today's session we can call WTF is socialism. Speaker 1 00:01:24 <laugh> Speaker 0 00:01:26 One good reason for doing that is the fact that the word socialism has come back into a lot of use politically after a long period of very little use, but the meanings of it, uh, are not at all clear, even when you hear the voices like Bernie Sanders talking about socialism or democratic socialism, and that is maybe a problem, but it's also an opportunity for folks like us who have tried to teach about these matters and who've studied these matters and who identify with this tradition to try to bring tools for people to clarify the meaning of this tradition and these this word. And I, I was just looking at, at a Gallup pole that was done a couple of years ago after Sanders was calling himself a socialist. And they asked Americans mm-hmm <affirmative>, uh, what they mean by socialism and how they view it. A lot of people about a fourth of people have no way of defining socialism. Sure. Some of them call it government ownership of the economy and some say, no, it means the welfare state. It means government. It doesn't even, they don't even refer to government. They say bringing about more equality among people. Yeah. How would you start to frame a conversation about WTF as socialism Speaker 1 00:02:56 <laugh>? Well, yeah, I think that is a great kickoff because, um, for more than a hundred years, people have been arguing about what socialism is, people who call themselves socialists and people who hate socialism. Right. Um, and yeah, I mean, often central to it is a question of, is it a, a specific system in which the government runs the economy or owns the, uh, the means of production or is it about, uh, something, you know, vague or broader, uh, set of goals around economic democracy, participation equality, um, uh, and you know, every, like both sides are kind of right in defining it that way. Um, and I think the best thing to do is, um, to kinda like go through and talk about the way that the word has been used, at least on the left positively for the last a hundred years and what kinds of things it tends to to mean. Speaker 1 00:03:56 And that's all, that's what I'm gonna try to do today is just kind of go through what historically people have been talking about when they say I'm a socialist and I'm for socialism. Um, and we'll try to do it in kind of bitesize chunks, uh, starting today with the, the, the basics. Um, and then moving on to some of the, the, the bigger dilemmas within socialism or within the socialist movement as we go forward. Does that make sense? Yeah, of course. So fir the first thing to know about socialism is that it, it, it arises historically as a response to capitalism. And, and though, even before a capitalism was really super developed, uh, there were people talking about more egalitarian and cooperative ways of doing the economy and calling it things like socialism or, um, communism, or, uh, you know, new Jerusalem as some of the Christian, uh, inspired early socialists would call it. Speaker 1 00:04:55 But, but socialism as a real developed political force as, um, you know, something that political parties start to talk about, uh, and organize around, uh, that's a, a response to, uh, capitalism, a, a critical response to capitalism. And so I thought we could start by going through, you know, what are the things about capitalism that people didn't like, um, and wanted an alternative to the first is that capitalism is, uh, an economic system in which the, uh, the things that one can own that produce wealth are owned by private individuals. And that's usually referred to as capital. So whether that's land or a factory, or in today's economy, you know, more esoteric things like, uh, intellectual property, patents and so forth, but the things that are able to generate wealth for society, um, uh, those things are in private, hands in capitalism. Um, and, and what that means is that the decisions about what get done, um, what, where resources go, what people get paid for, what work they do, um, whether a patch of land gets developed or is left, uh, undeveloped and, and wild, those decisions are made driven by the motive of profit because the people that get to make those decisions and control the resources are self-motivated. Speaker 1 00:06:26 And so they're going to wanna get, you know, stuff back for their, uh, for any investments. They're gonna wanna ring wealth out of the things that they, uh, own, whether that's again, land or a factory. Speaker 0 00:06:40 Yeah. One comment I would make just, uh, is that if you're an, if you're producing something that you want other people to buy or make use of, um, and I often would give this kind of thing in class is that, um, you have to take account of what people need or try to take account of it. You make an assessment of it, but the motive for your, for your offering of these goods is, as you said, your profit, not their need mm-hmm <affirmative>, that's what really drives the production is you are wanting to maximize or, or grow your profits rather than fulfill others' needs. And where you, you know, we also live in families, where is where, um, parents care about their children's needs. Members of the family are thinking about their needs, not about their personal profit. And I used to <laugh>, I used to teach this by saying, suppose you went home for the weekend. And then when you left, uh, to go back to school, your mother presented you with a bill for the weekend. This would seem like crazy. You'd be very anxious about that, usually, right? Speaker 1 00:07:56 And as, as, as capitalism developed, the, a whole set of relationships between people started to become based on profit, right? And that's right. Uh, one of the, the big criticisms of capitalism is not just that it has inefficiencies or there's exploitation in it as an economic system, but it starts to, uh, grow into other areas of human interaction and life and make everything about maximizing profit. Um, and so, uh, and, and, and that at least from Marx, from that kind of socialism, a more analytical and scientific socialism that developed after Marx's work in the middle of the 19th century, Speaker 1 00:08:42 That problem of a society that becomes based on profit and exchange and money basically is because the people who own the economy and run the economy, um, uh, are private individuals and, and it's not controlled or directed by something more democratic or something based on another set of values, like need or development or scientific value, whatever it is, some other set of values than just maximizing profit. And so, you know, what the root of that for marks and for the movement around socialism is the relationship between the people who do the work that produce the wealth and the people who get to get the profit from it and benefit from it. And the, you know, though the, the, the labor theory of value per se, the, the idea that it's the amount of labor that goes into making something that, that produces its value in the market or its value in capitalism has taken quite a beating. Um, even by socialist economists, left economists over the years. And philosophers, that is still a really important part of the left or socialist critique of capitalism is that human beings put in all their sweat, their brain power, their time away from family, their time away from sports or leisure to go and make money for other people, um, instead of to express themselves, or even just to feed their family. I don't want to get too down the hole of class relations there, but Speaker 0 00:10:24 People are free. They're not slaves. Uh, although some, some socialists call them wage slaves, but they're free, terrible termed they're free, they're free in the sense that they can, they can leave a particular job. They can go to another job. They can find other ways of livelihood, uh, if they can, uh, but free to do that. Uh, but what are they getting paid? Well, according to Mark's the most basic way of understanding that was you, you, the employer pays the worker that which will enable him or her to come back to the workplace. In other words, to, to be able to have the nutrition and the, and the wherewithal physically to come back to work. And that's the class struggle. So to speak comes from the fact that that's never enough to justify, uh, the price that the worker is paying for coming to work. And so workers typically will struggle, uh, collectively or figure out ways to, um, to raise their, uh, wages. But if the production is for profit, then the worker's always not getting the full value of her, uh, labor, right. Speaker 1 00:11:38 That's the critique at least, right. Is that something's being stole and taken from, right, right. A worker. Um, and what that, you know, leads to is, uh, imiseration right. There's poverty is, uh, a lower standard of living for people. In fact, the people who, who produced the wealth of society, um, and this sort of inversion that those people, the hardest working people, uh, uh, get the least in the system. And that's, that's actually like something that not, you know, Marx wasn't the only critic of, as capitalism was developed, even capitalism's biggest early cheerleader, uh, Adam Smith, you know, noted that people working in these marvelous, wonderful factories that are revolutionizing how much we can produce and revolutionizing society and so great. And he loved it, but he's like, Hey, if you just sit there and hit widgets all day, it makes you as, you know, dumb as it's possible for a person to be. Speaker 1 00:12:36 So we should probably have, you know, healthcare in schools and so forth for folks to supplement that. So just wanna point out that this issue, that, you know, what was happening in capitalism in its early days of thousands of people coming in from off the land and, and out of their peasant villages to work in these factories for super long hours, it wasn't just people who wanted to abolish capitalism, you know, socialists who saw that and were like, wow, that's, that's not good. <laugh>, that's bad for society. Let's do something about it. Um, so just putting a pin in that for sort of the next yeah. Speaker 1 00:13:13 Part where we talk about what the alternative is, um, just a couple more, uh, that I would throw out there. And then I wanna see if I've missed any from your perspective Dick, but, you know, there, the thing about capitalism always striving for profit and always needing new markets to expand into it. You know, Marx describes capitalism so well, so thoughtfully, right as this revolutionary force that is just constantly expanding, changing people's lives, turning people from being peasants and Lords into factory workers and factory owners, all of that all over the world, but it's incredibly unstable, right? It, it, it uses up, uh, all the resources that it needs for, you know, for further growth and then stalls. And for all these reasons, socialists have always pointed out that capitalism is bumpy is chaotic that you have these boost, these booms, where like a few people get really rich and then it, everything collapses and tons of people are, you know, thrown into the streets. That's been a criticism of capitalism from the very beginning. Speaker 0 00:14:22 Mark's had a very specific, uh, I think explanation or several of them for that, which is that if, uh, if workers are not paid the value, uh, of their work, for example, then there's a process in which of under consumption, if you will. Mm-hmm, <affirmative>, uh, the capacity grows of the, of the, of the factories and, and, and production facilities to really produce larger and larger scale. But the, the consumers who happen to be the workers, they can't afford to buy the full product. And that leads to slow down stagnation, decline and bust, as you said. Um, and I mean, I remember, uh, I taught at university of Chicago when Milton Friedman was on the rise. And I remember hearing him at one point say he, he, he believed in the free market. Totally. He really was not in favor of much government intervention to smooth out those, that business cycle. And he said, you need a certain amount of, uh, bitter medicine to cure the, uh, dysfunctions of, of the economy under capitalism. This is part of what's. And he, he was these corrections. Yeah. And that's how he viewed it. Well, as we know, you know, that's not very good politics, so, so, um, um, yeah, Speaker 1 00:15:48 Well, yeah, cuz a correction, I mean, just to put a fine point on it, like a, a correct market correction can mean, you know, thousands of people thrown out of work, um, and then losing their homes and, you know, whole communities suffering from structural unemployment. There's lots of things that from a bird's eye view, from a capitalist point of view, you're like, ah, but you know, there's the, the whole thing has equilibrium and, and so forth. And so the booms and busts they level out or they, they, they pencil out and socialists have always been, I mean, we're some of the first critics to come in and say, yeah, but that has real human consequences. It's not good for society. It's not good for people. Let's have something more stable and rational, which is where the tension. And this is where the, the role of the government, I think in the ideas of socialism is so I is important. Speaker 1 00:16:42 Um, even if we don't wanna overstate it, which is that there's an idea that there's something other than market forces that can be brought to bear in, in the economy that will make things more stable. And that's usually talked about in terms of planning, um, and though the dichotomy between markets and plan or how much planning there is by the government in the economy and how much is just is left to the market and competition, you know, that's been a big debate in policy and in government for, for, for century. But the, I think it, it's safe to say that only the most weird fringy really kind of anarchist conceptions of socialism do see an important role for the state in forcing some rationality into the economy. Um, and yeah, so I mean that, that again has been, and that's like in the communist, Manifesta you see all this stuff that's, you know, almost sounds like we need war resource boards and, um, an unemployed, an army of the unemployed. It's just, it's like very like, Hey, we just need to organize the economy because we can't let it be a mess. Speaker 0 00:17:53 Well, and also there are things that you to have a workforce that can actually be effective in the, in the capitalist production. You need things like education, you need, um, streets, you need, uh, sewer systems, you need, uh, public services that capitalist private capitalist investment are unlikely to be able to support on the scale that would be necessary. So, so despite all the talk about free market, uh, I think business types have always advocated certain kinds of government action as part what they need in order to have a productive economy for their own profit. Speaker 1 00:18:39 So there's also a couple of other critiques of capitalism that came to be associated and were, have been part of the socialist movement. Um, but I, I wanna sort of give a recognition that it often took and has taken, continues to take, you know, struggle to push these, these issues, um, into focus, even within the socialist movement, the labor movement, the social democratic movement, the left, the role that capitalism, the inequality that capitalism plays and that exploitative relationship between worker and capitalist, the way that it maps onto reinforces takes advantage of race, inequality, racial, uh, you know, white supremacy systems of colonialism and white supremacy and of course, gendered inequality and gendered power differentials in society. So the relationship between capitalism as a system and racism and sexism, uh, patriarchy, I think, uh, is also a very important part of the tradition. Um, but often had to be sort of fought for, um, as all as traditional socialists tended to see everything through the prism or through the lens of, of class. Um, and that class was the most important, uh, relationship in society or the most important identity. Speaker 0 00:20:03 I think what one way to look at what you just said about class is that bringing people into factories and similar capitalists, uh, enterprises, um, all playing the same role would foreground their class position, their position as workers and their differences of language of skin, color of ethnicity of gender would be superseded by that common interest that they had as shared, uh, as being workers. And that's not really the reality that we've really experienced in this country. And so a lot of people on the, you know, coming out of the Marxist tradition have questioned the class, the, the primacy of class in the real world, partly on grounds. And maybe you could talk about this a little, that capitalism itself encourages, reinforces nurtures racism, nurtures, patriarchy, as part of its capacity to function, which isn't what the, uh, old line original Marxist might have thought. But certainly now probably a more common way of looking at, but how does that work? Why would racism and patriarchy be serving capitalism and, and con continued by it? Speaker 1 00:21:21 Yeah, I mean, I think there's two sets of answers. At least, you know, one is a kind of more simplistic historical appeal to solidarity, right? And, and, uh, things like racism, xenophobia, sexism, prejudices being very useful for keeping people divided. So if you can stoke the anger of Anglosaxon workers versus Irish immigrant workers, or black workers, or whoever, you can keep them from organizing and pushing their agenda on you. Um, and there's definitely like, you know, all kinds of historical examples of from implicit to extremely explicit mobilizations of race animus and, and ethnic discord by bosses to break up workers. I mean, that's, that's happened for sure. I think on a, a deeper, more sociological level, uh, you know, there's just the fact that the, you know, capitalism when it was starting as a system, got this gigantic, uh, influx of resources of just raw money, power, productive power, however you wanna describe it from slavery and colonialism, which needed white supremacy to function because that's how you could justify systems of slavery and taking people's land and all, you know, genocide and all that. Speaker 1 00:22:46 So it's marked from the beginning of the capitalism, never could have gotten off the ground if there wasn't this co-evolving ideology of, uh, white supremacy and racism. And then of course there's the, the Marxist feminist socialist feminist critique that, you know, the same is true of, of just a gazillion bazillion tra you can't even, it's so hard to calculate the amount of labor power that women put into society. That's not even conceptualized as something to be paid. So all of the housework, the emotional work, the, the extra things they're expected and pressured and punished if they don't contribute in society, um, you know, very early on women, critics of capitalism took these, these socialist tools of analysis and said, Hey, this whole system can't function without all of our work. Um, and we don't get, you know, forget about an eight hour day. Speaker 0 00:23:44 So one way to maybe simplify what you just said is to say the, one of the key drives in a capitalist economy is to cheapen labor costs, wherever possible, and racism and, and patriarchal structures are primary historical ways of doing that, uh, right. And they continue to be, you know, one of the things that, uh, also needs to be mentioned, and to me, it's really important coming, uh, in my own development coming out of port Huran and the SDS students for democratic society is in fact democracy. And you, you're a political science major at one point. Um, there's sort of a, a conventional wisdom that capitalism and democracy go together. And yet the socialist critique is quite the opposite. Right? Speaker 1 00:24:37 Yeah. And, and, uh, it's good. It's a good point. And, and a vast one because, um, we, you know, I I'm emphasizing what the critique of capitalism is made by socialists, but it's really important to point out that, uh, the, the first generations of socialists, again, influenced by marks were also, you know, thought that capitalism was very progressive from the standpoint of this kinds of societies that existed in Europe before capitalism. You know, so they're like, Hey, it was, it was worse to be a surf. Um, it was worse that the powerful people that owned capital just inherited it from their, from their parents. And then they made us all go to war. I mean, they're, they're like capitalism is better. And the, the fact that this capitalist class, this class of owners who are not the aristocracy, this new class of the people that are trading and owning factories and all of that, the OI Z the middle class, the capitalist class, um, you know, Marx was very clear that they were a creative class and that they were pushing for power and representation in government. Speaker 1 00:25:50 And so I think part of the old connection in, in people's minds between capitalism and democracy, cold war stuff aside is that like capitalism developed along with democratization in Europe and in the United States, right. That, um, the move from like Kings and Queens to elected bodies definitely was tied to capitalism and the rise of the, the Bouchez so to speak. So that's true, but you know, what kind of democracy is it who's left out. There was the a hundred year plus struggle to get even men of the dominant race who didn't own land, just regular schlubs to even be able to vote in most of the early democratic systems. Right. It was like a very small group was Athenian almost that actually got participate. So, especially, especially in Europe, in Latin America, also the socialist movement was a big, big part of the overall movement for more democratic rights, right. And for more democratic decision making. Um, and so I think the best way to summarize it at least, is that the socialist left thinks that the relationship between democracy and capitalism is complicated <laugh>, um, in some ways it was part of the development, but it also undermines it. I'm sure you have like, lots of great examples of what are some modern examples of how capitalism existing alongside a democratic government system that don't make great bedfellows. Speaker 0 00:27:32 First of all, uh, what, there's a familiar answer to that, which we all know, uh, even if we're not socialists, which is, uh, economic inequality, differences in wealth lead to differences in power, uh, and can't be simply overcome by, by having, uh, elections, uh, and, uh, that has to do, you know, however you want to diagnose that can, uh, the use of wealth to basically buy political influence through campaign contributions, other forms of bribery, um, or, and even, and here's something that's rarely discussed the capacity of corporations to withhold, uh, investment or investors to withhold investment. If they don't like government policies that they think, uh, damage their interest is a factor in different ways in allowing and giving space for the government to do various kinds of policies and reforms. That's just thinking about the, um, framework that we, that we living within. It's a sort of fundamental flaw, even if the electoral college were abolished, even if the Senate wasn't so undemocratic, even if the Supreme court, uh, was changed to a more democratic institutions, all of those are things, uh, that I really would like to see happen, but they would not overcome certain the other realities of the disproportionate power of corporate, uh, decision making and, and investor decision making over the economy beyond that is this, that the daily life of people who are working for who are workers, who are working for employers, is that they spend most of their time. Speaker 0 00:29:25 And, uh, in settings where they have no democratic voice or very little democratic voice in the workplace that communities subject to the, um, economic activity of, uh, private companies have very little control over those company's decisions that might deeply affect the community as a whole, the, the whole problem of the environment, um, and climate change and so forth stems from the fact that private economic activity, uh, can't be easily controlled through simple conventional democratic procedures given the kinds of government. Speaker 1 00:30:05 So, and, and that's actually, that's the last bullet point that I have about in terms of a critique of capitalism. What is it about capitalism that motivates socialism? And that, that is the degradation of the environment. The ecological question that because of this rapacious need for growth and consumption in capitalism, we have, we we're destroying the planet and that you, you know, you need some countervailing public force, you need planning, you need something that is the opposite of just let everybody maximize profit and use whatever resources they can grab in order to solve the, the, the climate crisis. For Speaker 0 00:30:47 Example, that's an understatement, right? <laugh> Speaker 1 00:30:50 So just to recap real quickly. So the, the critique of capitalism goes like this because economic power and decision making, and the giant sucking sound of, of profit is in private hands, whether that's individuals or collections of individuals through stock, that that makes society degrade in terms of the values that drive all kinds of human endeavors, it has at its core and exploitative relationship that extracts work from people, uh, in order to make profit and doesn't pay them or give them back what their work is really worth. It's incredibly chaotic and leads to booms and busts that are bad for whole countries, bad for whole communities. And even though it was in some ways, a force for democratization in the 19th century and in the, the transition from feudalism, uh, it also is very bad for any kind of modern democracy or it's hostile in some ways, and undermines modern democracy by creating inequality. And then lastly, it's chewing up and destroying the planet that we all depend on, uh, for life. Um, and doesn't have any kind of rational mechanism for pulling back and stopping. Speaker 0 00:32:06 I can even add a few more, very serious problems that Speaker 1 00:32:09 Okay. Speaker 0 00:32:09 Pop into my head. And, and that has to do with war. Um, not that human beings didn't take up, uh, weapons against each other throughout history, but certainly capitalism has not done much to do away with war on the country, uh, wars on a scale never before seen and foresee. And why is that related to capitalism? Because one of the major roots of those foundations of those wars was fights among different nations for control over, let's say natural resources in particular places, or for, um, control over trade of various kinds fights that were economically rooted, even though there might be nationalism and all kinds of other, uh, cultural things involved. Uh, the fundamental reality was, uh, driven by economy. That's what socialists would say. And there's clearly a lot of truth in that. And, you know, and to add to that injustice, the, the wars are not fought by the capitalists who advocate those kinds of things. Speaker 0 00:33:14 They're fought by workers, and that's a longstanding socialist critique of the, of the whole system mm-hmm <affirmative>. And in fact, Eugene Debs, the great socialist, uh, leader of this American socialist party went to jail for five years for saying what I just said for saying in a speech during world war I, your masters, the capitalist start these wars, but you, the workers of the world fight against each other, uh, not for their own interest, but for capitalist interest, that was the argument he gave. And, um, you know, probably rings true to, to this date for a lot of people <laugh>, Speaker 1 00:33:50 As I said, there's definitely a truth in it, but you're right. That, and it's important to underline that that's, uh, the creation of war and conflict is definitely something that socialists have pinned on capitalism, uh, for a very long time, that critique has held up not as good as some of the other ones, but it's definitely, you know, a part of the tradition. Right. Do you have another one? Did you say had two points you wanted? Speaker 0 00:34:12 Well, um, to come back to the point about democracy, to me, the, and this is part of the socialist tradition, but not necessarily dominant within it has been the idea that what's really fulfilling for human beings is life in communities where everyone has a voice in the, in shaping that community and its future, uh, having a voice in the decisions that affect you. This is the port here on statement kind of line participatory democracy. Well, you can't have that in, in a, uh, capitalist framework. So it's not necessarily that that any other system has yet provided that level of full human empowerment that could be envisioned, but the vision is part of what I think has motivated people to wanna get past capitalism, to find mm-hmm <affirmative> another way. Speaker 1 00:35:06 And that's a good, good segue. So we've, we've talked about like what we've, you know, hated about capitalism, what, uh, has been points of criticism and what people who have called themselves socialists have argued is that we can have a different kind of economic system, uh, and therefore a different kind of society and social system, because of the way that capitalism influences all of our relationships and makes them, you know, all about, uh, these financial transactions. And so, you know, I, I, I just, I made another list of bullet points <laugh> that, uh, I thought we could go through that are just, you know, what are some of the characteristics of policy or alternative structures, and I'm gonna be very general and vague here that have been called socialism over the years, or, or pushed by socialists. Speaker 0 00:35:55 Let me just say, when we look at your, your list, it isn't just characteristics of socialism in a way each of these represents a different emphasis in what, how we define socialism. That's absolutely. I, I think where we are now, and that's the value of your list is because the word socialism may mean all of these things, or only some or overly one of these things, but let's go through, right. What are these things? Speaker 1 00:36:21 Excellent. That's an excellent point. And, and in fact, that's the, that's why there's so many different kinds of socialists right there. Yeah. The first thing to know, just historically, right, is that there's a, a break in the socialist movement between those who want to use revolutionary means to take full state control, uh, and create socialism by Fiat <laugh>, but in a revolutionary way, kind of all at once. And those who start to participate in elections, win power in democratic, uh, systems in Europe, especially, and wanna push towards socialism and, and then become kind of paralyzed. We're like, well, how do we do that? What do we do? We're gonna talk, I think, in another episode about the tensions and disagreements between those two big traditions, uh, democratic socialism and communism or revolutionary socialism, the point is both, both of these traditions continued to talk about some alternative to capitalism called socialism mm-hmm <affirmative>, even though they began to describe very different things, um, which is, which can be baffling. Speaker 1 00:37:32 So in the, in response to capitalism's private ownership of the means of production, of capital, of the, the levers of power and the, the productive forces in society in alternative to that in response to that socialists, uh, argue for a democratic control and ownership, a, a common or public control or ownership. And now that can be government nationalizing, something, you know, making, um, general motors, a government owned entity, uh, or as this common in Europe, like the government will, uh, you know, own a certain amount of stock, a majority stock in a company, or it can be nationalization of whole parts of economic life. Like making sure that with the, the utility system is public, uh, the, the things that allow others to do economic activity, providing that as a public service would be part of this, not leaving it up to the capitalists. The first part of defining socialism and talk about socialism is that socialists have wanted to have the government D directly own or some kind of cooperative institution, own important parts of the economy. Not necessarily all of it, not necessarily all of it at the same time. I mean, this is where the disagreements come in, to what extent, let you know, allowing things to be privately owned and so forth. We can argue about that all day. Well, Speaker 0 00:39:08 Could I just digest a slight amendment of that way of talking the word social ownership might be, uh, more embracing and more, more of what has actually been advocated than simply government ownership. And in this country with a federal, we, we have so many levels of government, the, the word government ownership could mean city ownership, or it could mean it could mean state owners, a particular state, or it could mean national. So social ownership embraces the, the cooperative ways of ownership, uh, as well as, uh, public ownership through the government. That's just a point I would like to make, because I think it's often misunderstood. It is maybe it's true. My impression is back a hundred years ago when people like Debs were, were defining socialism publicly, they did mean government ownership. Speaker 1 00:40:00 Absolutely. Yeah. And that's why I'm trying to notch soft pedal that, that, right, Speaker 0 00:40:04 Right. Speaker 1 00:40:04 That for a long time, and in like in a party like the British labor party, um, you know, up until the nineties, their official policy was, and definition of socialism was that the commanding Heights of the economy, the biggest corporations, the, the big insurance companies, big banks would be nationalized, would be taken over by the government, made public entities. And that in and of itself was the definition for them of socialism. So trying to be ambiguous in that, there's also people that are like, ah, a big go, I mean, government giant federal bureaucracies can be bad for certain things, like, let it be local, or let it be cooperative. That's owned by multiple stakeholders or whatever. And, and that can, that's also socialists. Those are also socialist ideas. So you're right. That the idea is that the thing that we, we, that all kinds of socialists can agree on is that ownership should not be purely private and that it should be socialized in some way. Speaker 1 00:41:08 But I also think that that intervention into the economy for macroeconomic policy and planning purposes to direct the economy is also like an intrinsic part of the socialist idea, right? So not just ownership of things, but also like we're gonna use monetary policy. We're gonna use tax policy. We're gonna use whatever kinds of policy we can to direct the economy towards democratically defined goals, cleaning up the environment, getting more women into the workplace, transitioning to higher value added, uh, export mm-hmm <affirmative> industry rather than agriculture. And I, those are all specific examples of macroeconomic policy that socialist governments in the 20th century, uh, you know, successfully steered their country toward. And, um, and that, that I think is that audacity to be like, we're gonna we're the, the public ultimately is gonna move the economy, I think is a distinctly socialist idea. Um, yeah, again, even if like a lot of us are sort of over the idea of the central government owning everything, and then another aspect that is also about the public sector, um, and public provision is that socialists have pushed for a strong public welfare state. Speaker 1 00:42:27 And by that meaning a lot of programs and institutions that provide universal goods to folks, um, for free or low cost universal goods, like healthcare education, unemployment childcare, very much so. Um, and so, you know, that's why the classic socialist campaigns on the 20th century were like up, you know, to build a pension system, um, to build, um, uh, you know, preschools. And, and I just wanna say two quick things about the, a socialist welfare state, because liberals are for a welfare state. Uh, Christian Democrats have been for a welfare state, but socialists have traditionally been insistent that the welfare state actually be built in a way that gives working people more power in relation to their bosses. And by that, I mean that without a welfare state at all, you're completely dependent on your employer for everything, um, to give you time off, to provide you with healthcare, uh, or not, right. Speaker 1 00:43:40 And you have to pay for things like childcare, education fees, or healthcare, or taking care of a loved one out of your wage. So if you lose that wage, you're, you're, you're totally screwed. What a welfare state allows is that a worker can say, Hey, I'm not gonna tolerate these low wages or tolerate this, um, abuse at work I can quit. And I know that I can still feed myself. I can still, I'll still have healthcare. If I get sick, um, I can still send my kid to a school and so forth. And it changes that power relationship, the, the sort of absolute starvation, um, isn't hanging over every worker's Speaker 0 00:44:22 Head. That is such an important point because, uh, it is so current. Now this is what's happening right now in this country because of COVID or what, and the general chaos of our, of our society, uh, major programs of social benefit, like a child tax credit increase, uh, as one important example were introduced and the Biden bill back better bill, uh, that, that in some form is still on the, as we talk here, uh, still on the congressional agenda contained a per more permanent inscription of the child tax credit that take just that the idea that every family would get a certain allotment monthly, uh, of some hundreds of dollars for each child that they had with a very high income cap on that like $400,000. You wouldn't get it. Um, and if you don't pay taxes, you still get this, this as a check, uh, as a, as a kind of rebate. Speaker 0 00:45:32 So to speak, this kind of program does exist on a very marginal way in this country, but it, uh, for some level of, of, of poverty, but this would be a more universal program. And look at what's happened. It's been severely attacked. This guy mansion. He, he says, uh, oh, if you give that money to people in west workers in West Virginia, they're gonna spell it, spend it on drugs. What a, what, how does this guy run for office? And he wants a work. He wants a work requirement built into it, which is right. Just the opposite of what it, and what's this about. It's what you just said. This kind of provision actually empowers, uh, working people, uh, in a way. And the evidence is out there. It's really, uh, the people are leaving jobs, uh, maybe because under the COVID era, they've gotten these extra benefits that gave them a way to, to live. That meant that they didn't have to show up at these, uh, crummy jobs, uh, at very low wages, wage battles are going on right now. This is, it's just startling because these are very minimal programs compared to what we know exists already in European countries. Right. Speaker 1 00:46:48 Right. And I mean, and again, a set of policies that in a lot of countries are supported across the political spectrum right. Of giving people money when they have kids, because it's expensive to raise kids, um, that is seen as so radical here in the United States. Um, it is, yeah, it's, it's an example of how socialists have proposed ideas and policies that have been supported by people who are not socialists and implemented in some places, but or half implemented in other places and so forth. And that's why, you know, it's, it's kind of lazy or shorthanded to say like, oh, Sweden, that's a socialist country. It it's not, but it is a country in which people with socialist ideas and people with socialist, uh, worldviews people with the critique that I just described of capitalism and a policy, uh, toolbox. That's like the second part of that, of our conversation, you know, set about over a hundred years to create through partial victories and partial retreats, all set of institutions and programs, um, that, you know, really change the way that capitalism is experienced by people in Sweden compared to the United States. But it's still capitalism. Speaker 0 00:48:08 Let me just make one point with that occurs to me, which is a, in, in a strange fact that the social wage is a way to talk about what this is, providing people with livelihood, not dependent on their private wage, but a social wage that's provided for everybody, um, is good. It's good for the individual corporation, right? Uh, to often they don't have to pay those, he healthcare premiums. They don't have to pay some of the costs, uh, for, for the life chances or the life situations of their employees. Those are socialized rather than privatized. And yet I think that in this country, maybe in Europe too, but is tremendous resistance because it's so empowering to workers to have these options. This is what I'm thinking now. I haven't really fully realized this point until recently. Speaker 1 00:48:59 Well, no. I mean, actually when it comes to, it depends on the, on the specific policy, but yes, there's been a lot more support from especially bigger employers. Mm-hmm, <affirmative> in the big European economies in Western Europe, especially for, for, you know, universal healthcare programs, social insurance programs, unemployment insurance, and pensions, where the burden is shared between the, you know, the, the worker themselves paying into it somehow, uh, the government paying into it via progressive taxation paying into it. And then the employer paying into it, that's the norm in the world. Um, and something that a lot of major employers love because they share the burden and so forth. Um, and, but at the, the ideological resistance to any, any kind of small umbrella that, that a workers in America could use to shield themselves from like the most brutal things about capitalism is just really remarkable. It's what it's really, really remarkable. Speaker 0 00:50:04 So when Bernie talked about socialism, this is what he meant. This is the particular thing he meant these European based, uh, social democratic programs. Speaker 1 00:50:15 Yeah, I think so. Speaker 0 00:50:16 Uh, and he never talked about public ownership or social ownership in his campaign, you know, whatever he privately may or may not believe about those things. Um, he didn't even talk about the planning functions that much, but he talked about catching up to the other industrial countries in terms of provision for healthcare, uh, universal healthcare, uh, childcare, uh, and other programs that are so desperately needed in this country. We are really a backward country now in terms of living standards, because of the total neglect of these disparity treatment of these kinds of programs. Speaker 1 00:50:56 Yeah. And there were, there are two other pieces of the, the overall socialist vision that Sanders also highlighted that, okay. I just want to get in. Yeah. Uh, and then we can wrap up, right. But the, you know, one is the power of unions and, and an institutional power for the, for unions to play a role in, uh, not only in the workplace, but also setting economic policy and being a big part of stakeholder in, uh, in setting an economic agenda for a country. Um, that's something that, that socialists pushed for have pushed for, have always believed in, um, that part of, even if we're not gonna take over all of the companies, the companies themselves need to be democratized. And so part of that is through trade unions and strong protections for trade unions, or like a lot of countries, uh, in Europe have done moving to some kind of system where unions negotiate for whole industries or sets of employers and so forth, even if they don't, um, represent people there, et cetera. Speaker 1 00:52:03 Uh, those kinds of systems where unions are institutionalized as a stakeholder in society. Um, that's a huge, a very important part of socialist ideas. And one that I think really very much to his credit, uh, Sanders has just been consistently a Clarion voice on mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, and then the, the other piece of that is democratizing these companies, these corporations, through forcing them through regulation or through the laws, by which they have to, you know, behave and structure themselves in a way that forces themselves to be more oriented towards the public. Good. And again, different countries or different parties, different socialist thinkers have had different approaches to this from, you know, having the government or, uh, unions own a certain percentage of stock. Um, so they they're on the boards. And again, that's something that Sanders has really emphasized, that's just way out of control. Um, and way out of the norm in the United States is just how unregulated untaxed and unaccountable the corporation is in the United States. Speaker 0 00:53:08 And just as a footnote to that. So over the, you know, ever since the progressive capital P progressive movement, back in the early part of the 20th century, the alternative to socialism that's been proposed by, we could call 'em liberals or, uh, as well as progressives was regulation of corporations while allowing them basically to be private. What I would like to do at some point in one of our podcasts is take a look at what is socialistic in the United States that we can learn from, in terms of what positive can learn from, but also what kinds of regulation or efforts to control capitalism have been tried that we might say it's about time to give up on hope for those things that might be a fruitful discussion. Um, so yeah, we, we've maybe more than used the people's patients right here, but I think I've enjoyed this conversation with you. Draka um, and it, it really does set the stage for a lot of other things coming up down the line, uh, for people to look forward to. I'm excited because we've got a lot to offer in the way of intellectual challenges, tools, uh, for us, I think, uh, we might be giving some time next time to the very confusing question to people is WTF is communism. And how does that relate to what we've been talking about? Right. Speaker 1 00:54:38 Let's, let's get into minor tiny bit tiny, tiny, tiny bit of psychology, but mostly talking about what's communism versus socialism. What is a revolutionary socialism versus democratic socialism and kind of unpack and get some of those right. One last thing I just had this thought, which is the, the two long didn't read from all of this, of what, what the fuck is w two F is socialism. Um, you know, I, I really think that it can be summarized by saying that, you know, where capitalism is an, an economy that is deeply undemocratic. Socialism is the politics of democratizing the economy. And from there, there's a ton of details and disagreement and, uh, different ideas about what it is. But I think it's important to, to emphasize that, because in, in the height of the Bernie moment, you saw of these memes and there was just basically like anything the government does is socialism. Speaker 1 00:55:40 Like if the government sweeps, uh, roads of snow that's socialism, and that's not really the point, it's not just an argument with our crazy, extremely radical right wing in this country. That's just is against the government doing anything. I mean, that's there really beyond the pale worldwide, frankly, most people in the world think the government should like do some things. Um, it's we have a weird fringe that is radical on that. So the government just doing things isn't socialism, but when we are expanding democracy into areas of economic life and economic power, where it was previously private or hoarded, or, you know, elite, when we're expanding access to that power, we're doing socialism. The rest is details, Speaker 0 00:56:35 You know, and the right wing lies to think they're standing up for freedom. But the, but really we will, I'm sure want to get into the fact that the kinds of socialism that we see as possible and that we advocate is a way of expanding freedom, not beyond capitalism. Uh, so, so we'll be back. Speaker 1 00:56:55 Sounds good. Speaker 0 00:56:56 That's a promise. And thank you all for being here with us. How Speaker 1 00:57:00 Time, Speaker 2 00:57:01 How many socialists we got out there tonight? Come on, let's see a show of left hands. Did you drive here on a public street? Speaker 3 00:57:16 Socialist? Speaker 2 00:57:20 You go to a public school, Speaker 3 00:57:24 Socialist. Speaker 2 00:57:27 You ever visit a public library. Why I'll you? Why? Cuz you're a socialist like you list's Instagram, Yellowstone, national park ever been there. Yeah. You're a socialist like Teddy pink Roosevelt. That guy was talking about universal healthcare, your tax agent appropriate and regulate nanny state socially.