Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is deep background the show
Speaker 1: where we explored the stories behind the stories in the news.
Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. Tonight we renew our resolve that America
Speaker 1: will never be a socialist country. That's President Donald Trump
Speaker 1: to a huge round of applause at the State of
Speaker 1: the Union address, And that got me thinking, in a
Speaker 1: world where Bernie Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist, and
Speaker 1: so does Alexandriocazio Cortez, and so to a whole raft
Speaker 1: of young and active new progressives, what is socialism? What's
Speaker 1: a socialist? Doesn't matter? Is there any really good reason
Speaker 1: that we can't have socialism in the United States? Or
Speaker 1: is it truly the case that we can never have
Speaker 1: a socialist country? And maybe above all, how close is
Speaker 1: today's brand of socialism to the real thing. To discuss
Speaker 1: socialism and what it means today, we have with us
Speaker 1: probably the person in best position to talk about that
Speaker 1: in the entire United States, and that's Professor Sean Willance
Speaker 1: of Princeton, who's thought incredibly deeply and written extremely broadly
Speaker 1: about the history of labor, of unionism, of politics, and
Speaker 1: if the terms that talk about those things in the
Speaker 1: United States from the very dawn of the American Republic
Speaker 1: right up until the present. Sean, I'm thrilled that you're
Speaker 1: able to join us. Thank you for coming, well, thank
Speaker 1: you not for that lovely introduction. So let me start
Speaker 1: with the question that is frankly plaguing me in the
Speaker 1: aftermath of Donald Trump's proclamation and the new Democratic Socialists
Speaker 1: in their rise, and that is, at the most basic level,
Speaker 1: what is socialism? Well, in America, there have been a
Speaker 1: lot of different answers to that question, actually, because I've
Speaker 1: been different strains of socialism. Very importantly, for the first
Speaker 1: thing to do is to talk about what is socialism?
Speaker 1: What is it not? It is not communism. Let's just
Speaker 1: get that from the very start. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: just the narcissism of just noticeable differences that socialists and
Speaker 1: communists despise each other, very different views on how you
Speaker 1: go about building a socialist you know, future completely at
Speaker 1: odds with each other. So let's just take away all
Speaker 1: of the Stalinists and all of the trots Kits and
Speaker 1: all of them, they're off to the side. Was that
Speaker 1: true right from the start? I mean, if you had
Speaker 1: Karl Marx in the chair here. Oh, Karl Marx is
Speaker 1: dead by the time of all of this is happening,
Speaker 1: or pretty much so. No, No, the history of American
Speaker 1: socialism begins in around the eighteen eighties eighteen nineties. There's
Speaker 1: a prehistory to that. The first great socialist figure is
Speaker 1: Eugene Debs, and Eugene Debs founds a tradition that goes
Speaker 1: through the Socialist Party. Socialist Party runs basically from Debs
Speaker 1: to Norman Thomas in the thirties, finally to Michael Harrington.
Speaker 1: So the first takeaway then, if I to try to
Speaker 1: sum it up, would be that when we talk about
Speaker 1: socialism in America, we're talking about American socialism correct, which
Speaker 1: is its own thing, and that may be very important
Speaker 1: for our conversation. Absolutely absolutely. Then there's another tradition which
Speaker 1: is more of an immigrant tradition. I mean, Debs was
Speaker 1: from the Midwest and Norman Thomas went to Princeton. After all,
Speaker 1: Michael's different. We can get to Michael in a sect,
Speaker 1: but that was a tradition that was very all American.
Speaker 1: That's all American socialism. So what's the definition of all
Speaker 1: American socialism for the socialists? It comes out of basically
Speaker 1: all American political traditions, very Christian. And then this Michael
Speaker 1: shared it because he was Catholic, was a Catholic Protestant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it has that kind of social gospel aspect to it.
Speaker 1: It's not exactly the same, but it comes out of that.
Speaker 1: The other stream is very different. The other stream is immigrant,
Speaker 1: much more Jewish. It's the New York tradians, people like
Speaker 1: David Dabinski, Sidney Hillman. They are a very important part
Speaker 1: of the socialist tradition, and if you're talking about the
Speaker 1: connection between socialism and the Democratic Party, they're absolutely crucial.
Speaker 1: So before we get into them, let's go back to
Speaker 1: the mainstream American socialism of Debs and of Norman Thomas. Yes,
Speaker 1: how did they think of socialism definitionally, Well, basically it
Speaker 1: meant it meant that there would be a social revolution
Speaker 1: in which the working class would take power in effect.
Speaker 1: And now what that means is complicated, but nevertheless, and
Speaker 1: own the mean and socialize the means of production. So
Speaker 1: let's clarify that too. Socialize the means of production means
Speaker 1: the government, such as it would be, would own anything
Speaker 1: that was a money making enterprise. Basically. I mean there
Speaker 1: would be different sectors agriculture, industry, et cetera, finance importantly,
Speaker 1: but yes, that it would be that socialism means a
Speaker 1: society that is run by society that is run by
Speaker 1: the class of society that is the universal class according
Speaker 1: to Marx, which is they say, the proletariat. So the
Speaker 1: workers own the means of production that is there, that
Speaker 1: is their It's all about without the thing that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is terrified by, correct, I mean, without the mesa production,
Speaker 1: Socialism in that form doesn't mean anything. So that is that.
Speaker 1: Now how democratic was this version of socialism? Did they
Speaker 1: think that it should come to power by people voting
Speaker 1: for it or were they open to the other kind
Speaker 1: of revolutions? Well, there were other kinds of you know,
Speaker 1: there were socialists and socialists. But you know Debs. Debs
Speaker 1: is running for president does a socialist party. He's getting
Speaker 1: getting votes. I mean, he's going out in campaigning it's
Speaker 1: democratic socialism. From the beginning. He didn't pretty a couple
Speaker 1: of times, didn't he. They did well once in nineteen
Speaker 1: twelve he got six percent of the vote, the highest,
Speaker 1: but it's a lot, you know. So these are socialists
Speaker 1: who believe that the people will rise up, but they
Speaker 1: won't do it violently. Correct. They will run for office, correct,
Speaker 1: and they will democratically pass laws. Correct. The takeover ownership
Speaker 1: of the businesses of America and agriculture and so forth.
Speaker 1: It's very very simply yes, um, you know. But but
Speaker 1: coming off of that, there are lots of other ways
Speaker 1: in which socialism developed. That is to say, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a ranch of socialism called sewer socialism. This is
Speaker 1: very big in the Midwest, in places like Milwaukee. German
Speaker 1: socialists for the most part associated with debs, but distinct
Speaker 1: and they got very interested in municipal It was about
Speaker 1: all about cities and municipal services, trying to socialize, you know,
Speaker 1: socialism in one city if you will, so literally the
Speaker 1: sewers of the city should be owned by the city
Speaker 1: rather than a private exactly exactly. You taken out of
Speaker 1: the prime hands of the private exploitters, and you put
Speaker 1: in the hands of a just government, and you'll get
Speaker 1: things done better. And that seems to have worked pretty well.
Speaker 1: I mean, depending on what you think of your sewers.
Speaker 1: In most of America today, isn't it the case that
Speaker 1: municipalities they may not run the sewers on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: but they own them, don't they better or worse? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so sewer socialism kind of work. Well, I mean though,
Speaker 1: I mean I pay my I don't pay the city
Speaker 1: for my electric bill. I don't pay the city for
Speaker 1: a lot of utilities. I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things that are not the case. But the MTA, for
Speaker 1: better or worse, is run by the government, run by
Speaker 1: elected officials, with a public private aspect to it. It's
Speaker 1: never completely outside of it. But that comes in part
Speaker 1: out of the socialist tradition. Yes, you can see that
Speaker 1: very clearly. So why did sewer socialism do as well
Speaker 1: as it did do when other forms of socialism ran
Speaker 1: into problem Well because, I mean, look at the local level,
Speaker 1: you can organize and in the Midwest, in western cities,
Speaker 1: it was very powerful. It has a political base. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can get somewhere at that local level. It's much
Speaker 1: harder to do that at the state level at the
Speaker 1: national level. So these municipalities, they would elect people to Congress.
Speaker 1: Victor Berger was a socialist in Congress for a while.
Speaker 1: You see this repeatedly, in fact, you see it today.
Speaker 1: In fact, what do you see with the Kazio Cortez,
Speaker 1: for example, Congressman Kazio Cortez, you know she has a
Speaker 1: following in a particular district, they can elect you to Congress.
Speaker 1: That's locally based. Socialism can get pretty far politically. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about Alexandreo Kazio Cortez and Bernie Sanders and
Speaker 1: the new Democratic socialist and let's focus on a specific thing.
Speaker 1: And I want to ask you if it's a kind
Speaker 1: of stewart socialism, and that is the policy they're pushing
Speaker 1: of medicare for all. Right, many of the Democratic candidates
Speaker 1: in the primary are either opting for that or saying
Speaker 1: that they think it's a good idea in principlescuarly being
Speaker 1: pushed from that direction. And President Trump says Medicare for
Speaker 1: all sounds like socialized medicine to sounds like socialized medicine.
Speaker 1: To me, that is a form of socialism. And presumably
Speaker 1: the Democrats who aren't self identified as democratic socialists would say,
Speaker 1: come on, there's nothing socialist about that at all. It's
Speaker 1: just an opportunity for a healthcare to be paid for.
Speaker 1: So let me sort of ask you the point blank question,
Speaker 1: is socializing medicine sort of like socializing the sewers. Is
Speaker 1: its socialism? No? Why not? Well, look, the idea of
Speaker 1: universal healthcare is at the center of the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: since Harry Truman, since nineteen forty six forty seven. So
Speaker 1: this has been a traditional idea that healthcare is indeed
Speaker 1: a right amount of privilege and the government ought to
Speaker 1: be able to provide or help provide healthcare to everybody.
Speaker 1: That's not a particularly position. There are many ways to
Speaker 1: get there, however, and that's where I think the Democrats
Speaker 1: will divide and medicare for role as a single payer system,
Speaker 1: as you know, which is very distinct from the kind
Speaker 1: of system we have now. It gets rid of a
Speaker 1: private insurance company. Right. That's one version of how you
Speaker 1: get there, But there are other versions as well. It's
Speaker 1: not so much that we have a socialist versus non
Speaker 1: socialist version of this. There are different versions of a
Speaker 1: democratic what has been a Democratic Party position forever. There
Speaker 1: are different versions of how to get there. So I'm
Speaker 1: now trying to channel Donald Trump running for office against
Speaker 1: this policy. And let's imagine a Donald Trump, if it's
Speaker 1: possible to imagine such a person who's taken your course
Speaker 1: and has learned about Sewer socialism yes, and says, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: there are different kinds of programs. Some involve the private sector,
Speaker 1: but some say the government should take it over completely. Correct,
Speaker 1: Medicare for all, it's a single payer system. It really implies,
Speaker 1: perhaps that the government should take over healthcare completely, as
Speaker 1: opposed to universal healthcare of the Obamacare type where the
Speaker 1: government repays private Insuran and he says, I think I
Speaker 1: get an A on the test. President likes to get
Speaker 1: on tests, or it likes to believe he's gotten a
Speaker 1: on tests, because I call this genuinely a social system. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know he get a C from the course.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's not completely wrong in all
Speaker 1: of that, but the image that's given of of of
Speaker 1: of a government run healthcare system is maybe closer to
Speaker 1: the NHS, where the NHS could be in Britain, the
Speaker 1: National Health System, the National Health System Britain UM and
Speaker 1: people's fears that the government's going to tell you you know,
Speaker 1: who your doctor is going to have to be, and
Speaker 1: when you can get the so called death panels that
Speaker 1: Sarah Palin was talking about. You know, all of these
Speaker 1: things out there that I have nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the system per se. So the image of it being
Speaker 1: socialist is not actually the reality. The reality, however, does
Speaker 1: in part come out of Yeah, I mean socialism is
Speaker 1: a part of what has been American liberalism for a
Speaker 1: very long time. I mean socialist characters. And I was
Speaker 1: mentioning before people like Sidney Hillman, and to basically was
Speaker 1: a certain example. Hilman above all had a lot to
Speaker 1: do with the New Deal. A little bit about him, Well,
Speaker 1: Hillman's the head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union in
Speaker 1: the United States, and um, he actually started off with
Speaker 1: a little closer to the communists, but then he very
Speaker 1: very very much you denounces them and gets rid of
Speaker 1: the communists in the labor movement as best he can.
Speaker 1: But he is very tight with Roosevelt. I'm sorry, he's
Speaker 1: very tight with Franklin Roosevelt. And you know, he has
Speaker 1: a lot to do with putting together and not just Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: but all of the New Deal people, so people like
Speaker 1: Senator Robert Wagner in New York, people like Francis Perkins,
Speaker 1: Secretary of Labor. He's very close to all these people.
Speaker 1: And Hillman had a great deal to do with getting
Speaker 1: the you know, the Wagner Act, the nineteen thirty five
Speaker 1: of the landmark act of collective bargaining in American history.
Speaker 1: Hillman had a lot to do with shaping that um
Speaker 1: the Fair Labor Labor Standards Act from nineteen thirty eight. Again,
Speaker 1: Hillman had a lot to do with all of that.
Speaker 1: So then, in that view, the core accomplishments of FDR's
Speaker 1: New Deal owed something to conversation and interaction with leading
Speaker 1: labor unions, labor unionists like Hillman, who were avowedly socialist,
Speaker 1: and that was normal at the time. So that leads
Speaker 1: me to the following question about FDR himself and about
Speaker 1: the New Deal. Broadly, critics of the New Deal at
Speaker 1: the time. You've pointed this out called it socialist. Yes,
Speaker 1: FDR said politely, hell no. So what was FDR's response
Speaker 1: to the charge that he was a socialist? No, he
Speaker 1: said he was a liberal. He said he was a Christian,
Speaker 1: a Democrat, and a liberal, I think in that order.
Speaker 1: And what did liberal mean in the Roosevelt era? It
Speaker 1: meant coming out of the progressive era, from the earlier
Speaker 1: part of FDR's life, from when his cousin was president.
Speaker 1: It meant seeing the federal government as having a very
Speaker 1: very large role to play in improving social welfare, taking
Speaker 1: the constitutions, you know, preamble very seriously, that the in
Speaker 1: a very positive way. So, borrowing a phrase from Bill Clinton,
Speaker 1: could we say that liberalism meant capitalism mend it, don't
Speaker 1: end it. Yeah, you could put it that way. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean it does not believe in the socialization of
Speaker 1: the means of production, that's for sure. It understands that
Speaker 1: capitalism has been the greatest wealth generating system the world
Speaker 1: has ever known. It takes all of that into account.
Speaker 1: But the point is capitalism has to be protected from
Speaker 1: the capitalists. Left to their own devices, the capitalists will
Speaker 1: rain down, rack and ruin not just on the working
Speaker 1: people of America, but on the entire system, as we saw,
Speaker 1: for example in nineteen twenty nine, nineteen thirty two. So
Speaker 1: then the New Deal's version of liberalism says, let's redistribute
Speaker 1: some wealth so that the poorest people have a safety net,
Speaker 1: and let's put some restrictions on what owners and employers
Speaker 1: can do in the context of blocking labor unions. That
Speaker 1: gives you the National Labor Relations laws. Yeah, and then last,
Speaker 1: but not least, let's have a Securities and Exchange Commission
Speaker 1: and laws that regulate the financial markets so that they
Speaker 1: don't play dirty. And in the process of at the
Speaker 1: same time, all of these things are meant to shore up,
Speaker 1: to prop up capitalism, yes, so that it doesn't collapse
Speaker 1: in the wake of the Great Depression. It's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why Norman Thomas, the great socialist leader of
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, when asked if FDR he carried out
Speaker 1: the socialist program, he said, yeah, he carried it out.
Speaker 1: He carried out on a stretcher because he took all
Speaker 1: of those ideas and took them away from the socialist essentials,
Speaker 1: means of production, all of that, and save capitalism with
Speaker 1: some ideas of socialism. So in that sense you could
Speaker 1: imagine the view that liberalism is almost the enemy of
Speaker 1: socialism because it takes the best ideas that socialists have,
Speaker 1: it implements them, and then it has the effect of
Speaker 1: preserving capitalism rather than allowing people to become so miserable
Speaker 1: and unhappy that they say capitalism is fundamentally broken. We
Speaker 1: want to take over the government, we want to do
Speaker 1: things differently, and we want to have socialism. You can
Speaker 1: look at it that way if you were a sectarian socialist,
Speaker 1: but people like Hillman and others, and above all maybe
Speaker 1: the greatest labor leader of the twentieth century, you know,
Speaker 1: is Walter Ruther in Detroit. I mean what they saw is, look,
Speaker 1: we're not going to have a revolution, but if we
Speaker 1: can get enough of our stuff through, who cares whether
Speaker 1: it's socialist, liberal, what have you. We're making life better
Speaker 1: for ordinary people. We're making we're expanding the social welfare.
Speaker 1: That's what we're here to do. What they saw their
Speaker 1: role as being is not an antagonism to the liberals,
Speaker 1: not trying to overthrow the liberals, not saying the liberals
Speaker 1: a role running dog imperialists, et cetera. No, they said
Speaker 1: we can see a role for ourselves in trying to
Speaker 1: push and pull from within. So that brings us to
Speaker 1: the current democratic socialists. And the first question I have
Speaker 1: about them is are they really socialists? Well, it depends.
Speaker 1: I mean, when I hear, you know, Senator Sanders, for example,
Speaker 1: talk about define socialism, as he did at some point
Speaker 1: during the campaign at Georgetown, effect, he says he's an
Speaker 1: FDR liberal right, So I don't know if that's socialism,
Speaker 1: then socialism has changed. I mean, even they calling them
Speaker 1: some socialists. I've been doing a little informal poll of
Speaker 1: twenty some things. I know, yeah, and I have a hypothesis.
Speaker 1: I'd like to hear it because I have no idea.
Speaker 1: I wonder what your students think about this too. So
Speaker 1: my very informal, unscientific poll was that people said, of
Speaker 1: course that the Democratic Socialists do not favor nationalizing the
Speaker 1: means of production in the country. They don't want the
Speaker 1: businesses to be taken over by the government. But they're
Speaker 1: sick and tired of the term liberal right. They're sick
Speaker 1: and tired of the term progressive right. They think, and
Speaker 1: you've written this that Hillary Clinton took the term progressive
Speaker 1: and you know, muddied it essentially by being not left enough.
Speaker 1: And the word socialism sounds cool. Yeah, it sounds like
Speaker 1: I want to change things, I want to do things differently.
Speaker 1: And that's a big part of Bernie Sanders appeal a
Speaker 1: cooint to this theory. And then when you take away
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders and you put in Alexandro Alexandro Ocasio Cortez,
Speaker 1: now it's younger, it's hipper, it's more with it. So
Speaker 1: what do you think about that? Well, I think that's right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that that liberalism had a crisis
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies. Democratic Party out
Speaker 1: of crisis as well, coming out of Vietnam and all
Speaker 1: the rest of it, and um, the Reagan Revolution put
Speaker 1: the Democratic liberals on the defensive and they had to
Speaker 1: figure out of political strategy for themselves. And the Democrats
Speaker 1: had done themselves no good either by changing their party
Speaker 1: around into a kind of conjuries of special interests. They
Speaker 1: took away the party bosses, they ceased to be a
Speaker 1: party in the traditional sense. So coming out of all
Speaker 1: of that, yeah, the Democrats had a bob and weave
Speaker 1: and triangulate, if you will, in order to just survive. Now,
Speaker 1: coming out of that, the Clintons were trying, i think,
Speaker 1: to give the Democratic Party a substance again, you know,
Speaker 1: seeing them as very much as liberals, pushing forward, trying
Speaker 1: to expand you know, social welfare, all the rest of it,
Speaker 1: the kinds of things with some socialism sort of in there.
Speaker 1: People don't realize all of that, but it was the
Speaker 1: people they were talking about, you see. But they always
Speaker 1: do that they'll call anything socialism because they know it's
Speaker 1: a scare tactic. That's a scare word. But you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it was sca It's interesting, we'll come back to
Speaker 1: that about whether it's blood he had to tag politically.
Speaker 1: It was about politics. That's what pople don't understand about
Speaker 1: what the Clintons were about and where things were going. Now,
Speaker 1: things changed after that, change changed dramatically, particularly after two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, after the economic collapse,
Speaker 1: which I think has a lot to do with the
Speaker 1: students young people you're talking about, So people who grew
Speaker 1: up in the who have no memory of Ronald Reagan,
Speaker 1: who have no memory of what politics used to be,
Speaker 1: like what Reagan did to politics, and then who came
Speaker 1: of age in the aftermath of two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine. I've gone of a very different
Speaker 1: view of all of these words and what they mean
Speaker 1: than the likes of me who grew up in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. So let's talk about words then. Yes, you've
Speaker 1: written in Democracy Journal very powerfully. I would say that
Speaker 1: we should call things what they really are. Yes, and
Speaker 1: that the Democrats made a big mistake when they stopped
Speaker 1: calling themselves liberals and started calling themselves progressive. And it's
Speaker 1: really the Clinton era where that happened. Yes, why what
Speaker 1: was wrong with that? Well, liberal had been demonized successfully
Speaker 1: by the right wing Republicans. You remember in nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: when George H. W. Bush was running for president, he
Speaker 1: talked about the L word. He made it sound, you know,
Speaker 1: like manure. He made it sound like something, you know,
Speaker 1: so execrable that it was really excrement. That was before
Speaker 1: the TV show the L word made it sound somewhat better.
Speaker 1: But well that's another story. But you know, but this
Speaker 1: is way back in nineteen eighty eight, ancient history. But
Speaker 1: the word liberal was demonized. Nobody wanted to be known
Speaker 1: as the liberal right, and so the Democrats, chow happened
Speaker 1: on the word progressive as a subside for all of that. Now,
Speaker 1: progressive had been a left wing word that was very
Speaker 1: very anti liberal, if you will. That was where the
Speaker 1: left kind of gravitated to after the Communists had been
Speaker 1: you know, disgraced and so forth, in the aftermath of McCarthy,
Speaker 1: in the mathmath of fifty six, full of that um so.
Speaker 1: But the Democrats took this all left wing word and
Speaker 1: made it into a kind of euphemism for liberal. They
Speaker 1: repurposed it yet exactly now you know, that's okay. But
Speaker 1: what happened was that when by the time you got
Speaker 1: to say, the twenty sixteen election, here was Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 1: who had this background of having to you know, having
Speaker 1: to fight through the nineties and having to go through
Speaker 1: all of those politics, but it understood that times had changed.
Speaker 1: So she comes up with a very liberal, that is
Speaker 1: to say, leftish liberal platform. If you read her platform,
Speaker 1: it's it's much to the left of where she was
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, for sure, But she was
Speaker 1: presumably pushed there very hard by Bernie Sanders in the
Speaker 1: prime No, I disagree it was that was true before
Speaker 1: the primaries ever began. He then began to push her,
Speaker 1: not so much with anything dramatically different. But you know,
Speaker 1: if she came out for a twelve dollar minimum wage,
Speaker 1: he would come out for a fifteen dollars minimum wage.
Speaker 1: He would rail against the billionaire class. That's not her politics.
Speaker 1: He brought up all of this old you know stuff,
Speaker 1: and she looked she had no way to argue against it,
Speaker 1: and she ran calling herself a progressive. He's going to
Speaker 1: progressive her any day. And so you think the mistake
Speaker 1: was where was the excuse me, He's going to do
Speaker 1: that rhetorically. You know, whether he's going to be able
Speaker 1: to deliver on it's another matter. So the mistake, I
Speaker 1: think is that, Look, the idea of liberalism, which was
Speaker 1: when I was growing up, is a very powerful one.
Speaker 1: It means up, meant Walter Ruther, it meant people like
Speaker 1: that God de Nature got lost. Um. It's a word
Speaker 1: which I think is an honorable one. It's an honorable tradition.
Speaker 1: Now what I like to go back to the word
Speaker 1: using the word liberal, No, because I don't think that
Speaker 1: it's going to um, you know, on its own, it's
Speaker 1: going to matter. But I do think that people calling
Speaker 1: themselves liberal progressives, for example, as opposed to the socialist
Speaker 1: progressives who want to hold on to that word, there
Speaker 1: could be a fruitful, you know, exchange about all of that.
Speaker 1: Something tells me that Kamala Harris is not going to
Speaker 1: say the difference between me and Bernie Sanders is that
Speaker 1: he's a socialist and I'm a liberal. She's gonna say
Speaker 1: something else. Maybe she's gonna chase he's a progressive liberal
Speaker 1: doesn't seem quite ripe yet, Okay, brought to life. That
Speaker 1: may be true. And I'm not a political you know,
Speaker 1: putnent or neither am I an operative, So I don't
Speaker 1: really know these things. I'm sure it pulls terrible So
Speaker 1: it's not a great idea. But let's not talk about
Speaker 1: let's just started what we're saying in public or on
Speaker 1: the stump. Let's think about our own thoughts about all
Speaker 1: of this, how we conceive all of this. And I
Speaker 1: think there is a difference between people who understand what
Speaker 1: the liberal tradition, it's richness, what it was about. Don't
Speaker 1: trash it as just you know, neoliberal corporate blah blah. No,
Speaker 1: that's not what it is. That was the way that
Speaker 1: people referred to Hillary Clinton. She is not that she's
Speaker 1: not Margaret Thatcher to try and reown that, but to
Speaker 1: do so in a spirit that, you know, these things
Speaker 1: don't have to be in conflict. So if that's the case,
Speaker 1: then how do you feel about the democratic socialists doing
Speaker 1: their own bit of repurposing right. If we're right that
Speaker 1: they don't believe in the old version of right, even
Speaker 1: the classic deb's version of socialists, then they're using shows
Speaker 1: lists simply to say, well, we're to the left of
Speaker 1: people who call themselves progressive. What do you make of that?
Speaker 1: Do you think that's good? Do you think it's harmless?
Speaker 1: Do you think it's desirable? I think it's vaguely demogogic.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think it means a whole lot um,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, why is the demogogic? To me?
Speaker 1: Just to be provocative, What seems demogogic is Donald Trump
Speaker 1: saying well, we will never be a socialist country. I mean,
Speaker 1: they may be walking into the demogogue, but they're being demogrague.
Speaker 1: There's there's more than one way to be demogogic, you
Speaker 1: know that. Look, And so let's take the case of
Speaker 1: another person on the left of the Democratic Party, Elizabeth Warren.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren says that she's capitalist to her marrow or something,
Speaker 1: but she's also talking about the kinds of things that
Speaker 1: Walter Ruther was talking about. If anybody comes close interest
Speaker 1: in the middle class, no putting workers on boards of corporations.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a very Rutherian socialist idea. Now
Speaker 1: she's not calling herself a socialist, but you know, the
Speaker 1: proof of the pudding. It's in the program, is what
Speaker 1: she's talking about. She's thinking more imaginatively, I think than
Speaker 1: any of the other candidates along the kinds of lines
Speaker 1: that I think of as new deal liberalism. So if
Speaker 1: that's the case, then I don't know if you would
Speaker 1: agree with this, But maybe the takeaway should be that
Speaker 1: the terms don't matter that much. Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: probably right. That it's all the policies and it's all
Speaker 1: very well and good to try to figure out where
Speaker 1: they come from. And we could try to figure out
Speaker 1: this one comes from here, and this one comes from there,
Speaker 1: and Stewards are a little bit socialist and putting members
Speaker 1: of companies on boards a little bit socialist, but in
Speaker 1: the end they're not genuine socialism. So, you know, if
Speaker 1: someone says, who cares about this terminology? Why are you
Speaker 1: guys even talking about it? What would you tell them?
Speaker 1: I would say that you have to be careful though,
Speaker 1: because it can very easily get weaponized. And let's talk
Speaker 1: about weaponizing that should I think what happened in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know Bernie Sanders, who is not a Democrat,
Speaker 1: who comes out of a you know, the left wing
Speaker 1: of Vermont politics that he helped invent. Right, attacked at
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton as a goon of Wall Street, attacked her
Speaker 1: in sectarian terms, which damaged her terribly going to the election.
Speaker 1: Many of the things that he said about her, Trump's
Speaker 1: said about her, Yes, making her out to be a
Speaker 1: slave of Wall Street. That's weaponizing socialism. That's turning socialism
Speaker 1: into a weapon that's trying to destroy That's another idea.
Speaker 1: It's actually from the perspective of a Clintonite liberal, and
Speaker 1: I think that's a perfectly fine perspective to hold. Right.
Speaker 1: You can see how that's weaponizing in a bad way, yes,
Speaker 1: But from the perspective of a critic of Clintonite liberalism,
Speaker 1: it would be weaponizing in a good sense. Right. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's if you want to destroy liberalism. But if the point,
Speaker 1: if the point of socialisms destroy liberalism, then I think
Speaker 1: we're going down a very dangerous road, a very dangerous
Speaker 1: because socialism might succeed in destroying liberalism because because socialism
Speaker 1: is not going to be just supplanned liberalism as the
Speaker 1: alternative to the Donald Trump. So then the danger, so
Speaker 1: I understand correctly, is sort of what happened in your
Speaker 1: interpretation between Sanders and Clinton. By criticizing Hillary Clinton from
Speaker 1: the left, by weaponizing socialism, as you put it, Sanders
Speaker 1: weakened Clinton, yes, helping Trump to win. Correct, that's the account.
Speaker 1: And on that view, the Democratic socialists can do that again.
Speaker 1: They can defeat whoever is the Democratic candidate in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty by weakening that person, and then that can actually
Speaker 1: plan to Trump's head exactly. Now, look, criticizing from the
Speaker 1: left is perfectly legitimate. I don't have any problems with
Speaker 1: people saying that Hillary Clinton is not was not. You know,
Speaker 1: she should have pointed to her program more. Actually, I
Speaker 1: think then she would have shown people that she was
Speaker 1: not the neoliberal hobgoblin that she was being made out
Speaker 1: to be. That was a tactical mistake, indeed a strategic
Speaker 1: mistake on her part. But that's put that to the side.
Speaker 1: Criticism on the left is healthy, it's great. We want that.
Speaker 1: When you weaponize it, however, you're being destructive. So how
Speaker 1: do we draw the line. We're entering a presidential season.
Speaker 1: We've got umpteen number of presidential candidates who've already declared right.
Speaker 1: None thus far is running to the right of where
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton ran the last time around. I guess that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe there will be someone who emerges that way. Right.
Speaker 1: Mike Bloomberg has said he's not running, and that's partly,
Speaker 1: I think because he's a rational person and he could
Speaker 1: only have run for the right of where Hilly Clinton
Speaker 1: was and he doesn't see a path to the presidency
Speaker 1: through that, correct. So let's talk in practical terms. Yes,
Speaker 1: what would it mean for Bernie Sanders for the other
Speaker 1: Democratic Socialists to criticize legitimately from the left, in your view,
Speaker 1: and what would it mean for them to dangerously weaponize
Speaker 1: in very practical terms, what's what's kosher according to a
Speaker 1: lens and what's not kosher? Yeah, I mean, it's like pornography.
Speaker 1: I know when I see it. You know what, when
Speaker 1: you see it, when you're calling someone a name, a
Speaker 1: Wall Street goon or whatever whatever the language was, that's
Speaker 1: a polemic, that's that's an attack, that's destructive. If you say, Mike,
Speaker 1: my my advers my opponent, and I disagree. I would
Speaker 1: like to see this happen rather than that happen for
Speaker 1: this reason. But I think that. But I think they're
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of listeners or I hope. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of listeners who instinctively respond to that
Speaker 1: by saying, but wait a minute, Hillary Clinton was cheek
Speaker 1: by jowl in close relationship, absolutely with plenty of liberals.
Speaker 1: To be fair, yes, on Wall Street. Yeah, there really
Speaker 1: were lots of Goldman Sachs partners making donations. Because it's
Speaker 1: perfectly reasonable, and if you could have a reasonable conversation
Speaker 1: about that, I believe that she could actually convince many
Speaker 1: of the people who opposed her for why that's not
Speaker 1: a terrible thing. But you could not have that conversation.
Speaker 1: She couldn't have that conversation. It was terribly embarrassing. It
Speaker 1: was terribly difficult given the political setting, which in fact,
Speaker 1: in part the left help set up. Why can't the
Speaker 1: radical vision just when? I mean, we have had moments
Speaker 1: in American history where radical visions of conservatism have come
Speaker 1: very close to winning definitively. Think about the Reagan era,
Speaker 1: where there were some significant pushbacks. Why and maybe you
Speaker 1: could argue, well known, actually more pragmatized, that did what
Speaker 1: did he do? He didn't get rid of Social Security,
Speaker 1: he didn't get rid of all of the New Deal.
Speaker 1: I mean, Laala Reagan was an interesting character but he
Speaker 1: was a pragmatist on the right, you know, as par excellence.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at what we've got today. Now, okay,
Speaker 1: you want to see you want to see the radicals
Speaker 1: taking over. There's the Republican Party. It's become a movement,
Speaker 1: not a party. Okay, so good. So you have a
Speaker 1: radical movement that claims to have a chance of taking over.
Speaker 1: And after all, Republicans do control the Senator, and they
Speaker 1: control the Presidency. And as you say, Republican conservatism is
Speaker 1: a movement, not just a political party, and many of
Speaker 1: its leading figures are not pragmatists. So just to push
Speaker 1: the question, why can't the same thing happen on the left,
Speaker 1: you have to recognize first of all, that all America
Speaker 1: is not Brooklyn. All America is not Cambridge. All America
Speaker 1: is not Berkeley. That's number one. I mean, my daughter,
Speaker 1: I love her, she's great, she lives in Brooklyn. You know,
Speaker 1: you'd think that you're in the people's Republic of Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: Now it's great, but it's not the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: That's number one. So whereas I think a person on
Speaker 1: the right could you would have a lot more to
Speaker 1: go on in terms of what America is like America
Speaker 1: is a much more conservative country. Thank you very much,
Speaker 1: great to be here, very good. Sewer socialism. That's a
Speaker 1: phrase I admit I had never heard before Sean Willens
Speaker 1: described it to us, and it's really remarkable to me
Speaker 1: because it seems to capture in the most fundamental way
Speaker 1: something about socialism that has never come up in the
Speaker 1: course of our big debate about whether America could ever
Speaker 1: be a socialist country and whether the Democratic Socialists or
Speaker 1: onto something brand new. It's the idea that socialism has always,
Speaker 1: in fact been with us here in the United States,
Speaker 1: every time we make a choice about whether something should
Speaker 1: be done by the government or whether that thing should
Speaker 1: be done by the private sector. So maybe it is
Speaker 1: socialist to say that we should have medicare for all,
Speaker 1: But so what, maybe that's just as socialist as saying
Speaker 1: that the sewers should be run by the government instead
Speaker 1: of buy a private, for profit company. Going deep into
Speaker 1: the history of socialism in America and into the question
Speaker 1: of the terms that we use taught me to realize
Speaker 1: that there's more to our tradition than meets the eye.
Speaker 1: Deep background is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our
Speaker 1: producer is Lydia Genecott, with engineering by Jason Gambrel and
Speaker 1: Jason Roskowski. Our showrunner is Sophie mckibbon. Our theme music
Speaker 1: is composed by Luis Gera special thanks to the Pushkin Brass,
Speaker 1: Malcolm Gladwell, Jacob Weisberg and Mia Lobel. I'm Noah Feldman.
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Twitter at Noah R Feldman.
Speaker 1: This is deep background