Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 Trying to get, uh, private corporations to serve social purposes. It is the worst of all worlds because you have to bribe them in order to do it. And they end up controlling the terms.
Speaker 2 00:00:22 Good evening friends. This is Dick flax with another episode of talking strategy, making history joined here by partner DKA, Lara Moore hall. And if you've been following us, you know, that this season we've been focusing on the theme socialism and it's discontent. And just at the time we started the new season, there appeared an article by our guest today, Bob Cutner and the article basically involved Bob Cutner embracing socialism. And I thought this was it's a rather brilliant article, an extremely ambitious actually effort to pull together a number of threads around that theme. Uh, but it's striking because it appears in the American prospect, a journal that, uh, Robert helped to found a number of years ago. And that journal was founded as the, you know, the voice of liberalism within the democratic party. And it seemed to me that the fact that Bob, one of the founders of the journal felt the need to announce this turn in his thinking, mark something important in history, perhaps, and certainly in the, uh, evolution of the American progressive movement. And so we reached out to invite Robert Cutner one of the most distinguished journalists in America today. Someone who's been a guest on this podcast in our last season to come back and, uh, explain himself with respect to this, with respect to this work greetings Bob.
Speaker 1 00:02:10 Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 00:02:11 Uh, we're very privileged to have you. So, um, what's the gist of this piece called capitalism versus Liberty in the Mo is it the most recent issue or the last issue of the American prospect, another issue coming out pretty soon. So tell us about how this happened and, and what it is. You're trying to say there.
Speaker 1 00:02:35 It's funny, uh, it's very autobiographical piece, which is not something I ordinarily do. And, um, it struck me that my, uh, trajectory, my, my childhood, my political life, uh, has a kind of arc to it. And, uh, I came of age during this, uh, 25 year period when it looked as if activist government, uh, anchored in political democracy in a strong labor movement, uh, could, could carry out the vision, say of John Maynard canes or Franklin Roosevelt and harness capitalism for the public good. Uh, when, when I was growing up, the income distribution was becoming more equal and the welfare state was being expanded. Labor movement was growing the whole Marxian picture, uh, of, uh, workers being immiserated and the state being the executive committee of the ruling class, uh, looked silly. It just, that didn't describe what was happening. And so, uh, it also in my own lifetime, uh, I'm very much a child of the new deal.
Speaker 1 00:03:53 My father died when I was very young and, um, my mother was able to hang onto our house thanks to social security. And my dad's veteran's pension. When my dad got sick, he got, uh, superb medical care through what was then the, uh, socialized medicine for two generation of American men, the, the VA. And so I was a new dealer before I'd ever heard of Roosevelt, just, just by dent of family experience. And so the, the promise of, uh, activist, government engaged citizens, uh, strong trade union movement, stabilizing capitalism, and devising what Paul Samuelson called a mixed economy looked entirely plausible. And, um, and then, uh, beginning in this seventies and more so in the eighties and more so in the nineties, um, the system, uh, turns against ordinary people and the democratic party turns its back on, on Roosevelt. You have, uh, one neoliberal democratic president after another.
Speaker 1 00:04:58 And um, all of this seeds, the ground for Donald Trump, uh, as a kind of a backlash in a fashion kind of predicted and described by, by Karl Pani who I like rather better than Carl Marks as a critic of capitalism. Uh, but in any case, uh, it became very clear that uh, the postwar period was in anomaly. It was a grand exception to the fact that capitalism generates protest inequality and also the, the, the, the premise that capitalism goes with Liberty. Uh, that's also true only to the extent that there's a strong labor movement. The strong state, uh, capitalists are perfectly happy to, to get in bed with fascists. And, um, so early in the, in the, uh, history of the American prospect, uh, Paul Starr and I had a debate in the pages of the magazine, Paul being my co-founder. And, um, the question was whether, um, social democracy is the, uh, is the natural air to liberalism.
Speaker 1 00:06:05 And Paul said no. And I said, yes. And it turned out we were both wrong because social democracy let alone liberalism was not robust to contain capitalism. And all of the European countries that embrace social democracy have turned out to be just another species of neoliberal. So I conclude from all of this, that, um, if you are gonna have a decent society, you need to go beyond liberalism. If you're gonna have enlightenment values, you need to go beyond, let's say new neoliberalism and I've, I've often been asked, what's the difference between social democracy and democratic socialism? I think the difference is the degree of public ownership. Uh, social democracy, at least as defined in Western Europe is basically welfare, capitalism and welfare capitalism. Isn't strong enough. There are fiscal contradiction, there are political contradictions. So if you want the kind of, uh, robust egalitarian economy, you need enough public social ownership, not necessarily public ownership, but social ownership to really weaken capitalists as a political force, as well as creating greater economic, uh, equality. So after, uh, a long Odyssey, uh, that's where I come out. And as I say in the piece, um, I don't think I've become more Marx. And I think the world has become more Marxian,
Speaker 2 00:07:29 Right? So many threads there that we're going to try to at least touch on as we have this conversation, but let's focus on the, on really what the conclusion is that you're just, uh, alluded to the social ownership, uh, as a key definition of the qualitative difference between a framework called socialist and a framework called social democracy or the welfare state, and, you know, one of the interesting things and one of the, I think reasons rock and I wanted to have this podcast series on socialism is because the term has gotten to back into the political discourse of this country because of Bernie Sanders, most particularly, but yet his definition in the campaigns didn't involve social ownership. I don't think there's a single plank of his, of his presidential platform, uh, where social ownership is foregrounded. It's much more fulfillment right. Of, of European social democracy extending to this country where we've never had it, that's healthcare, uh, and labor protections and, uh, uh, childcare kinds of things that we all need. And that actually would solve many, many of our problems, but they're not exactly different from social democracy. Uh, because I think, let me add my understanding that in Vermont, Bernie has been much more, uh, supportive of actual examples of what you mean by social ownership than he was saying during the campaign.
Speaker 1 00:09:09 Yeah. Let's start with, with Europe for a minute. Let's go to Bernie. So one of my heroes is Carl Pani and, um, there was a period in, in, in, uh, Vienna, uh, when it was known as red Vienna and Vienna was a hotbed of municipal socialism. And, uh, there was all kinds of social ownership. There was the world's best, uh, social housing to this day. There's a legacy of that, a lot of social housing. And they had taxes on people who had servants to support, uh, childcare and kindergartens, and they had unemployment, uh, very generous unemployment comp run through the trade unions. They had municipal gas and electricity and water. And the problem of course, was that, uh, red Vienna could not exist as a socialist island in a capitalist sea, uh, much less a socialist island in a fascist sea. And to some extent, I think that's befallen social democratic Europe where, uh, global neoliberalism makes it very, very hard for an individual country to have high levels of taxation and, um, uh, support a welfare state simply by dent of tax and spend.
Speaker 1 00:10:26 And, um, it's interesting this week, um, the socialist party, which is a left party in Portugal became the only left government in Western Europe, maybe in the entire world, uh, maybe with the exception of Chile to have a, uh, an absolute majority in the Portuguese parliament. And, uh, this has become the exception and it's become the exception, I think because so many social democratic parties have become another species of neoliberal party. And that's not necessarily because they're sellouts it's because although some of them are it's because of the larger circumstances in which they operate globalized neoliberalism. And so, um, you, you need a degree of, of, of economic nationalism, but in a progressive sense, and you need a degree of social ownership. Now, housing is, is a, is a very, very good example. And, uh, Bernie, uh, as mayor of Burlington, uh, championed socially owned housing, not, not traditional, uh, public housing necessarily, but housing that can never, uh, revert to market priced housing.
Speaker 1 00:11:43 And there are lots of different ways of doing this. Uh, they have some of it in Canada. You can have limited equity co-ops, uh, you can have, uh, land banks of various kinds. And if you compare that with the way we subsidize housing for, uh, moderate income people in the United States, uh, we basically bribe capitalists by giving them tax breaks and, uh, or by giving, uh, poor people, housing vouchers that then make landlords richer and rather than creating a permanent supply of social housing, uh, it just enriches landlords. And, uh, there's never enough of it to go around and because it's scarce prices keep being bid up. And so the social subsidy is like running after a bus that's, uh, that's accelerating faster than you are. You, you never create a durable supply of social housing. So there's a kind of a textbook case of the need for social ownership, where you take housing out of the market sector altogether, and you have it be socially owned and it's permanently socially owned.
Speaker 1 00:12:51 And then you add to the supply, uh, over time. So that's, uh, that's one example of public banking, uh, is another example. And, um, uh, some kinds of, uh, of socialized industry, uh, is another example. I mean, why, why should broadband be something that you have to buy from either Comcast or from the phone company in Chatanooga as a legacy of, uh, Roosevelt and the TVA, uh, you have the fastest internet in the country, and it's also the cheapest internet in the country. It's socially owned for 69 bucks a month. You get one gig of internet which provides, uh, TV, uh, internet access and phone service. That's about half the price that any private provider can, uh, can deliver it for. And so you, you not only insulate, um, the society from predatory capitalism, but you also demonstrate that socialism is actually more efficient than capitalism. Uh, much of the time
Speaker 2 00:13:56 Dak has spent a great deal of time in the midst of social democracy in, in Scandinavia and still, uh, recently went to Sweden as going back there shortly. Uh, what's your thoughts at this point in the conversation?
Speaker 3 00:14:09 Well, I mean, I, I think that's a really good, uh, overview of sort of where getting us caught up to where we're at, uh, in terms of the role that socialism and capitalism play in the thinking of, you know, social, social, democratic governments and people trying to turn that into policy. Um, I think that's, that's a, a pretty, pretty darn good surmises of it. I think, um, the what's, what's interesting. And, and by the way, just backing up, I mean, I read your piece and really enjoyed it. I think it's really good. I hope it gets wide, uh, wide readership and I'm, and I'm interested personally in sort of what kind of responses you've gotten, what you've responses you've gotten from other kinda self-identified liberals or people who maybe defined themselves as somewhat skeptical or to the right of socialism. Um, and the, just a thought I would throw out there and, and we should, uh, all remind each other to put, put links to all of these things in the, uh, episode notes, but the, uh, around the same time that, that, uh, uh, Michael's piece came out, um, uh, Thomas Piketty's new book, uh, uh, about socialism and so a collection of essays that he's published over the last few years, but with this really excellent, uh, introduction in which he, um, maybe in a little bit overly of, uh, economist, uh, or sort of engineer approach tries to give an introduction to, like, what is a case for socialism?
Speaker 3 00:15:45 What is, what would socialism kind of look like? And what, what really struck me was the similarity to, in your arguments about coming from a, a, a place of, kind of, yeah. Believing, uh, in markets, looking at the collapse of the Soviet union and so forth, and then coming to a very kind of like rational, uh, analysis or, or conclusion that, you know, when watching, watching markets unleashed, they didn't actually accomplish the things we maybe thought they would. So, um, I think I know you re you've reviewed that book you've reflected on it. So I'd also love to see your, or hear your perspectives on that. And then one other piece <laugh>, that is kind of the, uh, an interesting companion is, I don't know if either of you have checked out, um, this piece in the Atlantic, by David Brooks about conservatism, um, which the, the overlap and what's interesting is that he also is telling this, this autobiography of starting as a socialist, and then seeing go moving to Chicago and seeing public housing in a horrible state, then sort of discovering the, the, the, uh, Austrians and Burke, uh, et cetera. And I think it's sort of funny, cuz it's sort of, he right away recognizes the racist strain and conservative thinking, but, um, eventually that kind of catches up with him and he's like, that's kind of all that's left right now in conservatism. So I'm out. But anyway, it's a kind of reverse story. That's, that's interesting. And I guess if either of you have read it or thought about it, I'd love to hear your take, but anyway, those are some of my, my reflections. Thanks a lot for coming.
Speaker 1 00:17:34 Sure. Those are great questions. Let me, let me start out with Scandinavia. I mean, I continue to be, uh, a huge fan of, of suite of social democracy and they have managed to hold out, uh, along with the Norwegians, uh, sort of better than almost anybody else. They're, they're very adaptive. On the other hand, the European union, a as a kind of a, uh, repository of neoliberalism keeps making inroads on the Swedish model and, uh, under cutting the rights of trade unions. The, the, the Swedish model, as you know, is, is very deliberately not status it's, it's a consensual social bargaining model based on very strong trade unions. And, uh, some of the rulings of the European court of justice have undercut the rights of, uh, of Swedish trade unions, making it harder for the Swedish to have their own model. Um, so even Swedish social democracy to some extent is under assault.
Speaker 1 00:18:35 And they also made the mistake of trying to steal the thunder of the neoliberals by injecting more market competition into the public sector. And that has also, uh, backfired and peeled off some of their core working class, uh, support. So I think the, the social democratic compromise is under, uh, uh, assault everywhere now in response to the question of how people responded to this. Um, you know, a lot of, uh, my, my DSA friends and other socialist friends, you know, wrote me kind of sweet notes saying, uh, welcome comrade. We knew you were one of us all along, which that effect, uh, uh, I did not get a lot of pushback from liberals because it's awfully hard to challenge the argument that in terms of what it delivers for ordinary working people, liberalism has gotten pretty thread bear, certainly democratic presidents since Carter have failed to deliver for working people the way Roosevelt did.
Speaker 1 00:19:39 And that has, uh, seated the ground, uh, for Trump now Picketty um, so when the New York times sent me a note and said, uh, would you like to review this book? I said, sure. And then I read the book and I was slightly appalled at Picketty because he's a celebrity, um, gets away with writing a 26 page essay and tacking it onto several dozen recycled Lamone columns and calling it a book. But because it's Picketty, and the fact that this little essay is Picketty is conversion to socialism. Uh, I was, uh, as kind, as I possibly could be to the book consistent with intellectual honesty, uh, because I thought it was very important that that, that be out there. And of course Picketty getting away with this, uh, is, is an example of how celebrity gets commodified. Uh, your ordinary author could not, could not sell a 28 page original essay peg to a bunch of recycled columns and call it a book.
Speaker 1 00:20:45 But, uh, because everything gets commodified Picketty is taking advantage of his own celebrity and selling it. And God bless him because it's a, it's a good message. And the message is basically, here's a guy who starts out as a, as a kind of virtuoso, um, economic statistical historian of moderately leftish politics, but certainly not a socialist and writes this, you know, incredibly dense book that, that the ratio of people who bought that book and put it on their coffee table, the people who actually read it has to set some kind of record, but capitalism in the 21st century was the best seller. And basically he demonstrates that, uh, because of the logic of, uh, returns on capital, uh, compounding faster than GDP grows, capitalist economies grow more unequal over time. It's just inherent in capitalist economies. And the only exception is this anomalous period in the middle of the 20th century. So Picketty after writing another, even more dense book, um, comes to the conclusion that capitalism is just gonna keep generating more and more, uh, inequality. And if you wanna do something about this, you have to be some sort of socialist. So, um, it's interesting. I mean, he's a, you know, a virtuoso technical economist, uh, I'm more of a what a Deon <laugh>, but we, we come to the same, uh, sorts of, uh, uh, conclusions.
Speaker 2 00:22:25 Well, do you both have the same emphasis on what the heart of a socialist, uh, path would look like? You're emphasizing social ownership. He has a different, um, focus, doesn't he on income redistribution?
Speaker 1 00:22:42 Yeah. And I think income distribution's much tougher because, uh, if, if you start, uh, and this is one of the problems of the welfare state and this, this is a criticism of the welfare state that has come from both the left and from the right it's come from Neo Marxist, it's come from NeoCon conservatives. And, uh, the, uh, if you have an in inordinate degree of inequality, uh, in fact, beverage made this point, the 1940s, you, you, you, you want the welfare state to spend money on what the Brits call social income, right? Um, healthcare childcare, uh, things that you get as a citizen, if on the other hand, you start out with so much income inequality that the welfare state goes broke, um, uh, dealing with the income inequality, then it doesn't have the money for all these popular public services. And it has to tax people at a higher rate, which makes it politically unpopular.
Speaker 1 00:23:41 So I think, um, I think I'm borrowing from one of my friends at E P pre distribution is better than redistribution. It it's much better if you start out with a more egalitarian income distribution to begin with, and you can get that through things like, uh, better distribution of wages, you can get that through, uh, uh, the Peter Barnes idea of, uh, uh, distributing property rights in the commons. If, uh, if the taxpayer and the government generates scientific breakthroughs that then, uh, uh, platform monopolies or drug companies capture all of the monopoly rents on, that's not fair. And, uh, the average citizen should get a piece of the action Barnes. Uh, analogy is the Alaska permanent fund, where in, instead of, uh, giving north north slope oil to the oil companies, uh, this, this anomalous Republican governor, uh, decides, Hey, let's give it to the citizens of Alaska.
Speaker 1 00:24:43 So every year, every man, woman and child gets a check from the, from the state government of Alaska. And, uh, even though Alaska tends to, uh, elect Republicans, nobody is opposed to the Alaska permanent fund. And so if you can, um, socialize wealth either by giving everybody a piece of the action, uh, or by having more social ownership, then you do not have to have as much heroic redistribution of income. Now that said, I'm all in favor of universal basic income. And that is something where you're gonna have to have the tax revenues, uh, to come up with the money. But, but that way, uh, it, it's a kind of, uh, more grandiose version of the trial tax credit. You don't have to worry about what students of the welfare state call cliff effects, where as your income goes up, your welfare benefits go down because everybody gets it. And so it's a foundation upon which to build, uh, other forms of, uh, of income, uh, in, uh, via, via labor. So I think it's a, it's a mix of a social ownership, both in the sense of government ownership, but also in the sense of individuals owning a piece of the collective economy and getting dividend checks, uh, as, as citizens of that economy and deliberate income distribution,
Speaker 2 00:26:09 I grew up at the same time that you did and, and have the same experience, even though I was a red diaper baby and believed, you know, that Mark's probably what was the, was the Bible, um, in, in college and in my graduate education, I learned over and over again, that marks had been superseded by the capacity of capitalism with a, with partnership of the government, a mixed economy, as you put it, uh, to actually solve the very problems of, um, immiseration and, uh, gross inequality, uh, that marks wanted to secure by socialism. And that's what we learned, uh, that was essential. Even people like Seawright mills, they basically were saying, yeah, capitalism can solve the, uh, problems of, uh, impoverishment, but the, but, um, power would be concentrated in elites. And Marza similarly, the, the working class is going to be inert because their economics, uh, situation is going to be a, uh, adequate, uh, so we need, um, you know, a, a different kind of revolution, uh, you know, more psychological or cultural than, uh, than, uh, Marxian one.
Speaker 2 00:27:33 And that was the, the currency of thought among everybody, pretty much who was, who was talking in the intellectual sphere back in, in the fifties, certainly, and even much into the sixties. But so out of that comes the new left. And I was there at port Huron. We had this conversation, uh, and people like Tom or Hayden, who was the primary author of the port Huron statement. They said, well, why do we need that word socialism, let us invent a new alternative vision. In, in the, in the statement he used this unwieldy John Dewey term, participatory democracy. It's hard to build a political slogan around that, but that was intended to embrace aspects of the socialist vision, but not in, but put it on a more American footing. And I, by the way mentioned, Dew, we, because in my little bit of further investigation of what he was trying to do politically, it was a similar thing decades before, uh, we need an American left.
Speaker 2 00:28:46 Capitalism is not adequate for democracy or for, uh, hu human survival, but, uh, we need to, we need to have a vocabulary that's American, not European to, to, uh, frame it. And that's been my politics until Bernie comes along and shows that you can have a popular support with social, the word socialism. And, and I think we, we are trying on this podcast and you you're made a major contribution to, so the effort to let's put, what's the definition of that. What do we even mean by that? Given 150 years of experience with, uh, systems that call themselves socialists that, uh, shall we say, have not worked in the directions that they, that they promised or claimed? So I'm, I'm just part of, this is not a big question, but, uh, to me an interesting tactical question about politics, if let's say Elizabeth Warren is running against Bernie Sanders imagined this, and, um, he's a democratic socialist. He says, no, I'm not a socialist, but I am for workers being elected to, uh, boards of directors of the major corporations. And I am for major subsidies for, uh, childcare. And I am for, uh, getting rid of student debt and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2 00:30:09 Um, and I don't know who you actually endorse personally in that race, but, um, a lot of people on the left that I know say, well, Warren has a better chance. Why don't we, um, why don't we just get in line about her? It turns out to be politically not true that she had a better chance, but for a while, it looked that way. Anyway, that's a practical, political problem about messaging. So to speak about language, about framing, what's the value of actually bringing the word socialism back into a definition of what we are for as progressives, as, as liberals. In fact, you say we need socialism to save liberalism. So let's add that to the mix of things for you to talk about.
Speaker 1 00:30:56 Uh, well, Bernie, Bernie is so important here because Bernie has been using, uh, the self descriptive term socialism all of his life. And he's demonstrated that if you're a straight shooter, if you're not corrupt, if you deliver ordinary people, uh, they're gonna say, yeah, he's my guy. And if he, uh, if he says that socialism, then I'm a socialist and I'm certainly gonna vote for him. And of course the public opinion, Pauls, remarkably demonstrate that, uh, a majority of people under what, 35 have a positive view of socialism, not surprisingly given the kind of capitalism that they've grown up under. Now, you get to the issue of messaging. Uh, Elizabeth Warren for her own reason says, decided that, um, she's not gonna call herself a socialist. I've never, I've never asked her why not, but she's just made that decision. And, uh, I think in substance, their politics overlap very, very heavily.
Speaker 1 00:31:55 The tragedy of, uh, of 2016 and 2020 for that matter is that if they both hadn't been running, one of them would've been the nominee in the president because they, they split what was clearly a majoritarian tendency in the, in the democratic primary electorate. But I think, I think Bernie has demonstrated that socialism can be a good word. And, uh, as I said in that piece, um, I resisted the word for a long time for a couple of reasons. First of all, I thought I was a left liberal or a social Democrat. Secondly, I, I don't like, didn't like, and still don't like the, the sectarianism that socialists, uh, tend to, uh, tend to fall into. And, uh, the proof of the pudding is DSA, which, which, uh, you know, should be absolutely riding high right now and damned if it isn't falling into the kind of sectarianism that, that socialists just have this horrible tendency of falling into, uh, since Adam and Eve.
Speaker 1 00:32:58 And, um, and I guess, uh, the third reason I resisted it is that for the most part, um, it, it doesn't seem American. Now, Bernie proved that that's, that's not the case. And, and so, uh, and you might as well be hanged for a sheep. The, the right is gonna call you a socialist. Even if you call yourself a social Democrat or a left liberal, and you might as well, uh, say what you mean. Um, that doesn't mean that a majority of the electorate thinks socialism is a good word, which means we have a bit of a selling job to do. But, uh, I mean, I think the easier point to make is the rapaciousness of 21st century capitalism, which keeps being demonstrated every single day of the week and the way it just screws, working people. And Trump, uh, has a kind of a completely fake version of that.
Speaker 1 00:33:59 And the, the democratic left, uh, needs to have a, an authentic version of it, which, which really delivers for working people. I got to sit in on, uh, a focus group of, of, uh, swing voters who turn out intermittently, and most of them have given up on politics. Most of them don't see a difference between the two parties. Don't worry that America's about to go fascist. And one woman said, um, the, the, the, the moderator, the facilitator asked about, uh, well, what, what do you think the government might do in a positive way? And one person said, yeah, I heard there, we're gonna do something about student debt. Well, in fact, Biden for the second time, or maybe the third time has just put off collecting student debt. And this woman says, God, if they actually did that, that would just save the lives of tens of millions of people.
Speaker 1 00:34:58 And wouldn't that be incredible if the government just kind of canceled student debt? So I was practically jumping up and down with frustration, cuz Biden could do this with a stroke of a pen. And, um, and that would get an enormous amount of attention and Biden who I think is doing, uh, a pretty good job under horrible circumstances. I'm afraid that the inference that he's gonna draw from the blockage of build back better and mansion and cinema, and all of that is to temporize instead of doing a Harry Truman 1948, and just going bigger, going, going all the way to, to sort of be a populist and be a scourge of capitalist.
Speaker 2 00:35:41 Yeah. And the press is, is push a lot of articles that push in that direction very hard, uh, are happening. So Draka jump in,
Speaker 3 00:35:50 Uh, I'm glad you kind of pivoted over to talk about the current situation and the Biden administration. And I always really appreciate your thoughts on the play by play in Washington, um, and encourage our listeners to always look for Robert cut's, uh, byline on analysis of what's going on there. It's always really great. Um, so yeah, so what's your take on why Biden specifically on an issue like on, on the issue of, uh, student debt? Um, isn't trying to like get a w in our column when exactly when we're the agenda's being log jammed in, in Congress, is it, is it cuz he's, is it his background as being, you know, the guy from the finance capital or the, the debt capital, um, and something that simple or, or how, how worried are you that it's, um, a more strategic, uh, retreat from really like a high point of pretty robust, progressive, uh, rhetoric and policy proposals that were coming out, uh, over the last year or so. So is it a sign of worse to come or not?
Speaker 1 00:37:01 I, I don't necessarily think so. So let's, let's divide the question. I mean, obviously you, you, you can't blame Biden for the fact that he doesn't have the votes and he's done a fantastic job in appointing the most progressive regulators and other cabinet and subcap officials since FDR. I mean, I never thought I would live to see the day when a democratic president appointed senior people, some of whom are to the left of me. It, it just absolutely extraordinary. So then the question is why doesn't he do more with executive orders? And he's done some really good stuff with executive orders. I mean, he's, he, he toughened the order on, on contractors, uh, having to pay at least 15, $15 an hour, not just on the federal contracts as in the Davis bacon act, but anybody who's a federal contractor has to pay all of their employees, whether they work on that contract or not at least $15 an hour.
Speaker 1 00:38:02 And he's done some, some really good stuff on, on corporate concentration. Um, I would like to see him just go for broke on stuff like student debt. The government has the, uh, power to put a lot of, uh, pharmaceuticals where there's price gouging into the public domain and contract with, uh, companies to just make generics. And I don't know whether they're worried about the effect on the deficit or they're worried about, um, the argument. And I think it's a spurious argument that because the average person doesn't have a college degree, you're using general fiscal resource to, to, to support people who are above meeting income. I mean, if you unpack that it's the kids from working class families whose parents don't pay the tuition who have to go deeply into debt to go to college. And it's those upwardly mobile striving people, middle Quintiles who were drowning in debt it's it's debtor's prison. And, and if, uh, you know, if Biden were to declare a debt Jubilee, that would be front page news and he would get enormous acclaim for it. And I'm sure that there have been, uh, debates inside about whether this is a good thing to do or not. And, uh, I hope desperation <laugh> will, will force him to do it because he will be so, uh, in need of a win.
Speaker 2 00:39:31 Well, your article made me think, uh, changed a lot of my thinking, this, the question of raising social ownership as a concrete practical matter in current society, uh, which I had sort of, you know, marginalized that question, given all the other problems that are happening, but here here's a situation now happening in California that I think is illustrates your argument, and also may be useful for us to highlight just because people need to be aware of this. The public utilities commission of this state has decided that there's too much subsidy for people who have rooftop, solar, uh, installations. That that is, um, uh, those subsidies, which include, uh, tax writeoffs for an installation, but also, um, rebates for, uh, electricity generated by your solar system that go back into the grid and the utility companies privately owned utility companies, uh, argue that the more that people put solar on their roof, the more that poor people who can't afford to do that, um, have to pay the bills to keep the grid going.
Speaker 2 00:40:51 And to me and the governor is caught in between powerful environmental and solar industry forces on the one hand and other forces, including some unions who, uh, continue to support the utility kind of argument. Um, but that argument only makes sense because we have profit seeking private utilities, controlling the, uh, the electricity. Um, if, if, uh, if you had a single public, uh, public utility system, that was not, that was owned by the public, you could allocate these issues in a different way. You wouldn't have to, uh, charge these, you know, charge some people to pay more for the grid, uh, in order to keep the private companies in business. And it's true that the private, I mean, it's a real dilemma. It's not just greed. They have to pay tremendous amounts. I believe because of the degree to which their operations have caused major fires in, in California.
Speaker 2 00:42:00 And so we, we re this is a, to me an example of where, and this wasn't, wasn't just true in the, in the F in the new deal period that the, the need for public ownership of power was so evident because, so there was no way for private, uh, investment to create the power sources that were needed. That's why we have the Bonneville power project in the Northwest, the TVA in the south, uh, and those things were privatized very quickly, many of them after, after the war big campaign to privatize, uh, utilities. Um, so I never thought about this until I read your article. This is actually a foreground, a fore groundable, um, PO policy debate that could should be, I think, part of the discussion right now, we've got a, it would be catastrophic for CA in my opinion, for California to reduce support for solar installations. I mean, in the midst, we're supposed to be a, a global leader as a state in, in this there's. I mean, there's more complexity to this issue, but, uh, I, I'm just partly just saying people should go read your article and see how it affects your thinking, uh, about all of these issues, cuz it certainly affected me.
Speaker 1 00:43:21 Well, you know, this is an area where Roosevelt was more radical where Roosevelt was actually a socialist, uh, where, where the new deal went beyond, uh, just stabilizing capitalism and, uh, Roosevelt was deeply committed to public power. Uh, he used the phrase yardstick, competition's a wonderful phrase. He demonstrated that public power was more efficient than private power because it could get economies of scale and it didn't need to make a profit. And so he would use public power to show the true cost of power and forced the private utilities to reduce their costs. And he would also use public power to, uh, bring electricity to rural areas that were not profitable for private power. And actually, even though there was a lot of pressure to privatize, uh, a lot of this stuff after the war for the most part, TVA resisted it. And um, uh, I, I believe Bonneville is still public power and the REA co-ops are still public power.
Speaker 1 00:44:23 And the, the market share of, of the, uh, the socially owned utilities has been pretty stable for 50 or 60 years. So, I mean, you need more cases like this where you can demonstrate that not only is social ownership more equitable, but it's more efficient. Certainly certainly true of banks. I mean, one of the great travesty was the privatization of Fannie Mae. The, the original Fannie Mae was a public socialized institution. It worked like a Swiss watch, never lost any money, never, never tried to slice and dice, uh, uh, mortgage back securities to, to rip off investors. And, um, in 1969 it was privatized and once it was privatized, it just, uh, became, uh, another private maximizing corruptible institutions. So I, I think we need to, uh, reclaim a legacy, not just of the greater equity of social ownership, but the greater efficiency of social ownership.
Speaker 1 00:45:25 And, and this brings me back to David Brooks, uh, and public housing in Chicago cuz the, the history of public housing is very interesting. It's you, you can't talk about why public housing went bad without talking about the role of racism. And um, uh, as you know, Dick, uh, the, the original public housing was public housing for working class people, white people, although there were some segregated, uh, complexes for black people, but you had to be well behaved to prove that you deserve to be in public housing. And, um, then as, um, America, uh, Suburbans based on a lot of public subsidy of highways and automobiles, um, public housing becomes the residual housing of the poor. And then when it becomes, uh, housing, uh, for, for black people, uh, there's no social investment in it. There are no jobs. And, uh, it, it, it becomes, uh, housing for, uh, for welfare recipients and they're, they just drop social standards of, of, of good behavior.
Speaker 1 00:46:39 And, and you can't talk about public housing going down the drain without talking about American racism. And there are communities where public housing is still much sought after is still good housing. Some of the public housing, uh, even in New York city and in smaller cities is still quite decent housing. So there's another case where, um, the, the, the, the, the racism that unfortunately was a blemish on the new deal, as well as the rest of the society, uh, ends up undermining, um, a socialized, uh, institution. But that doesn't mean that, uh, public housing is ruined for all time.
Speaker 2 00:47:19 Yeah. And in fact, and, and our town here, I think 15% of the housing units are publicly developed. And you, you, if you see the apartment complexes that are done by our housing authority, they're indistinguishable, they're design and, and beauty are actually rival anything that's been done privately. They're highly desirable, and they're actually very affordable for low income people. Uh, and now the housing authority, if we had the, the degree of social investment in housing that we need, um, that authority would have capacity to develop a lot more workforce housing, middle, middle class housing than it's been able to do. Um, yeah. And this is very much on the agenda of, I think more and more people in California, more and more activism is quickly building around these, uh, this, this kind of, um, issue. I, I, my parents lived in a housing co-op in Brooklyn, uh, with, uh, five very Sable buildings called Kings view. There was an even bigger co-op called Queens view. These were built by consortiums, I think of nonprofits and trade unions and so forth, uh, in, in the fifties. And that there was in terms of red Vienna. I kind of think there was a, a parallel housing development in New York city, uh, after world war II, somewhat like red Vienna, but much of that got privatized.
Speaker 1 00:48:50 Well, interesting story. Uh, I mean, my parents, uh, I was born in Parkchester in the Bronx mm-hmm <affirmative> and Parkchester was another one of these nonprofits developed by MetLife, uh, with, with, uh, tax breaks. But interestingly, uh, due to a fortunate quirk. So there were three of these big complexes built at the time in the early forties, Stuyvesant town, Peter Cooper, village, and Parkchester. And, um, when market prices just become too attractive to, uh, not give into Stu in town and Peter Cooper village get privatized Parkchester, they attempt to privatize it, but the Bronx is still too unfashionable. And so the guy who tries to privatize it goes bust, and it goes back into nonprofit ownership. And today Parkchester, uh, in the Bronx, uh, you can get, um, a quite decent two or three bedroom unit for a couple of hundred thousand bucks. It's sort of lower middle class, upper working class, uh, affordable housing. And it's, it's quite nice. And, uh, due to a little twist of fate, uh, Parkchester was, was spared the fate of S Stu town in Peter Cooper village. So this stuff is doable. It just takes political will and, and political organizing.
Speaker 3 00:50:14 So I just wanted to pull out and underline something, uh, that, uh, Robert said that I think is really interesting, um, that, uh, you know, that socialism, uh, encourages us, our socialist outlook encourages us to take options that even though they're the most controversial or the most opposed by the wealthier corporations are like the most efficient for society and, and really, and, and even corporations benefit from it and so forth, but we've been really scared away, even, even self-proclaimed socialists and policy makers in Europe are, have been scared away from those kinds of more public or communally controlled or democratically controlled options. Um, uh, you know, since, uh, since the fall of the Soviet union and the neoliberal turn, et cetera, but, um, an example of that, right? And you, in your piece, you don't talk as much about the environment as in some other, some other areas, right, is that, um, there are, there's more than one way that we can, you know, address climate change and kind like force the economy to, to restructure there's a socialist way to do that.
Speaker 3 00:51:32 And there's a less socialist way to do that. And the issue that Dick, uh, raises with, um, you know, California wanting to meet its goal, uh, of, uh, leading on installations for, uh, of solar panels, like the, the way we chose to do that, not only is it, you know, fucked with, by the private utilities, but the whole roll out of it. And the whole way we did it was privatized was private and capitalist, right? It was the government giving up a little, like putting out a little bit of money often in the, in, in, in tax credits, right. Which are kind of neoliberal to, to begin with, to make it more profitable for private companies to build solar panels on privately owned homes. And now the debate is like, oh, can we roll that out to the poor? And are they fair? Whatever is all very, I think, quite cynical. Um, and, uh, and what it's meant is that, you know, the, the quality of jobs and the pay and the safety, uh, of, for workers that have done all the work to put up those solar panels is like the worst in the construction industry as well. So we could have taken a high road public way to do that, but we took the capitalist road even to address climate change
Speaker 1 00:52:47 Well, and there's a, there's a larger point here. And, and that is trying to get, uh, private corporations to serve social purposes. It is the worst of all worlds because you have to bribe them in order to do it. And they end up controlling the terms. There's a marvelous article that was written, uh, in 1978 by my colleague, Paul Starr, and his former colleague, Y eSpring Anderson, who's a Danish born sociologist. One of the, one of the great students of comparative welfare state called passive intervention. And I still assign it to my students. And the point is that the United States, because we don't have the votes to do it right. We end up with, with the most EF inefficient possible way of achieving social objectives, we have to bribe private industry to do it. And so you get very inefficient housing, you get very inefficient delivery of healthcare, and, uh, it's so much more efficient to just have public institutions to serve public purposes. And that's a debate we need to reclaim, we need to have the debate and we need to, uh, we need to win the debate. Right.
Speaker 2 00:54:04 Well, I hope by the way that, uh, the American prospect, which Bob Cutner is one of the founders of, and one of the editors of, uh, that you will have more articles that do that, that, that, uh, I think you and I first encountered each other when you were editing, working papers for a new society, which was a journal that was entirely devoted to alternative, uh, imagination and, and, uh, happenings. And we need that back very much. Now, if we, if we have the political space to actually imagine that these, these imaginings can come into being, but you, you've made a great contribution with the magazine and all the work that you've done, uh, to awakening our awarenesses and this particular article we've been highlighting today called, uh, capitalism versus Liberty. And we haven't even discussed that particular, uh, theme that much, but we, we, we are running out of time right now. I we're gonna post the article on our Facebook page, uh, so people can get, uh, access to it. Uh, and you even have a little bibliography embedded in that article, which was kind of useful of recent books. More, more than even we've just discussed. There's a growing little literature of socialism. Now you might say, and it's all very pertinent to what we are trying to do here on the podcast. I have any final words Draka, before we be good goodbye to our comrade,
Speaker 3 00:55:37 Just that as we are speaking, I'm on the prospect.org website where I'm joining at the politics level, uh, to get, uh, access to it and home delivery. It's a great deal. So, um, shameless plug, um, it is a very great, very good read. One of the, I think one of the best, uh, political journals, uh, in, in the world and certainly in the United States. So thanks a lot. So
Speaker 2 00:56:02 You get the last word, Bob Cutner, uh, we're very glad that you've been with us.
Speaker 1 00:56:08 Well, just thanks for having me. I mean, on the capitalism and Liberty point, um, capitalism is the enemy of Liberty, right? Capitalism constrains the ability of working people to earn a decent living. And, uh, capitalism is balkanizing science by, by having non-disclosure agreements required of people who are doing science based on, on public subsidy. And it's constraining our liberties, uh, via what Hanzo is called surveillance capitalism, which is the whole business model of the platform monopolies. And we can do a whole other session of this podcast on all the ways that capitalism, not socialism, it constrains liberties and all the way socialism enhances the these. So I think that's a good note to end done. And thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4 00:56:56 I've seen my brothers working throughout this mighty land. I prayed we'd get together and together, make a stand. Then we might own those Marvel with a God, and we would share those folds of that. We have sweated for.
