WEBVTT - How Socialism Was Weaponized 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:21.756 Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is deep background the show 0:00:21.796 --> 0:00:24.796 where we explored the stories behind the stories in the news. 0:00:25.236 --> 0:00:32.156 I'm Noah Feldman. Tonight we renew our resolve that America 0:00:32.196 --> 0:00:43.636 will never be a socialist country. That's President Donald Trump 0:00:43.756 --> 0:00:45.876 to a huge round of applause at the State of 0:00:45.876 --> 0:00:48.796 the Union address, And that got me thinking, in a 0:00:48.836 --> 0:00:52.156 world where Bernie Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist, and 0:00:52.196 --> 0:00:55.476 so does Alexandriocazio Cortez, and so to a whole raft 0:00:55.556 --> 0:01:01.316 of young and active new progressives, what is socialism? What's 0:01:01.316 --> 0:01:05.476 a socialist? Doesn't matter? Is there any really good reason 0:01:05.836 --> 0:01:08.556 that we can't have socialism in the United States? Or 0:01:09.196 --> 0:01:10.836 is it truly the case that we can never have 0:01:10.876 --> 0:01:14.356 a socialist country? And maybe above all, how close is 0:01:14.396 --> 0:01:17.796 today's brand of socialism to the real thing. To discuss 0:01:17.956 --> 0:01:21.236 socialism and what it means today, we have with us 0:01:21.276 --> 0:01:23.516 probably the person in best position to talk about that 0:01:23.636 --> 0:01:27.196 in the entire United States, and that's Professor Sean Willance 0:01:27.436 --> 0:01:31.436 of Princeton, who's thought incredibly deeply and written extremely broadly 0:01:31.636 --> 0:01:35.596 about the history of labor, of unionism, of politics, and 0:01:35.636 --> 0:01:37.396 if the terms that talk about those things in the 0:01:37.476 --> 0:01:40.236 United States from the very dawn of the American Republic 0:01:40.636 --> 0:01:42.996 right up until the present. Sean, I'm thrilled that you're 0:01:43.036 --> 0:01:45.076 able to join us. Thank you for coming, well, thank 0:01:45.116 --> 0:01:48.076 you not for that lovely introduction. So let me start 0:01:48.076 --> 0:01:51.076 with the question that is frankly plaguing me in the 0:01:51.116 --> 0:01:55.516 aftermath of Donald Trump's proclamation and the new Democratic Socialists 0:01:55.516 --> 0:01:58.076 in their rise, and that is, at the most basic level, 0:01:58.596 --> 0:02:02.596 what is socialism? Well, in America, there have been a 0:02:02.596 --> 0:02:05.276 lot of different answers to that question, actually, because I've 0:02:05.316 --> 0:02:09.636 been different strains of socialism. Very importantly, for the first 0:02:09.676 --> 0:02:11.636 thing to do is to talk about what is socialism? 0:02:11.636 --> 0:02:14.876 What is it not? It is not communism. Let's just 0:02:14.996 --> 0:02:18.516 get that from the very start. You know, it's not 0:02:18.556 --> 0:02:21.636 just the narcissism of just noticeable differences that socialists and 0:02:21.716 --> 0:02:25.996 communists despise each other, very different views on how you 0:02:26.036 --> 0:02:30.476 go about building a socialist you know, future completely at 0:02:30.476 --> 0:02:32.916 odds with each other. So let's just take away all 0:02:32.956 --> 0:02:34.756 of the Stalinists and all of the trots Kits and 0:02:34.796 --> 0:02:36.876 all of them, they're off to the side. Was that 0:02:36.916 --> 0:02:38.756 true right from the start? I mean, if you had 0:02:38.876 --> 0:02:41.516 Karl Marx in the chair here. Oh, Karl Marx is 0:02:42.276 --> 0:02:43.956 dead by the time of all of this is happening, 0:02:43.996 --> 0:02:46.276 or pretty much so. No, No, the history of American 0:02:46.316 --> 0:02:49.956 socialism begins in around the eighteen eighties eighteen nineties. There's 0:02:49.956 --> 0:02:53.156 a prehistory to that. The first great socialist figure is 0:02:53.156 --> 0:02:56.476 Eugene Debs, and Eugene Debs founds a tradition that goes 0:02:56.516 --> 0:03:01.556 through the Socialist Party. Socialist Party runs basically from Debs 0:03:02.476 --> 0:03:06.596 to Norman Thomas in the thirties, finally to Michael Harrington. 0:03:06.836 --> 0:03:09.516 So the first takeaway then, if I to try to 0:03:09.556 --> 0:03:11.516 sum it up, would be that when we talk about 0:03:11.556 --> 0:03:14.476 socialism in America, we're talking about American socialism correct, which 0:03:14.516 --> 0:03:16.076 is its own thing, and that may be very important 0:03:16.076 --> 0:03:19.436 for our conversation. Absolutely absolutely. Then there's another tradition which 0:03:19.476 --> 0:03:21.396 is more of an immigrant tradition. I mean, Debs was 0:03:21.436 --> 0:03:25.116 from the Midwest and Norman Thomas went to Princeton. After all, 0:03:26.636 --> 0:03:28.676 Michael's different. We can get to Michael in a sect, 0:03:28.756 --> 0:03:31.636 but that was a tradition that was very all American. 0:03:31.716 --> 0:03:34.156 That's all American socialism. So what's the definition of all 0:03:34.156 --> 0:03:38.396 American socialism for the socialists? It comes out of basically 0:03:38.436 --> 0:03:42.596 all American political traditions, very Christian. And then this Michael 0:03:42.716 --> 0:03:45.836 shared it because he was Catholic, was a Catholic Protestant. Yeah, 0:03:45.876 --> 0:03:49.756 but it has that kind of social gospel aspect to it. 0:03:49.756 --> 0:03:52.556 It's not exactly the same, but it comes out of that. 0:03:52.876 --> 0:03:56.396 The other stream is very different. The other stream is immigrant, 0:03:57.436 --> 0:04:00.956 much more Jewish. It's the New York tradians, people like 0:04:01.076 --> 0:04:05.276 David Dabinski, Sidney Hillman. They are a very important part 0:04:05.716 --> 0:04:08.676 of the socialist tradition, and if you're talking about the 0:04:08.756 --> 0:04:12.076 connection between socialism and the Democratic Party, they're absolutely crucial. 0:04:12.356 --> 0:04:15.276 So before we get into them, let's go back to 0:04:15.516 --> 0:04:19.076 the mainstream American socialism of Debs and of Norman Thomas. Yes, 0:04:19.476 --> 0:04:23.436 how did they think of socialism definitionally, Well, basically it 0:04:23.556 --> 0:04:26.916 meant it meant that there would be a social revolution 0:04:27.316 --> 0:04:31.036 in which the working class would take power in effect. 0:04:31.436 --> 0:04:34.836 And now what that means is complicated, but nevertheless, and 0:04:35.116 --> 0:04:37.356 own the mean and socialize the means of production. So 0:04:37.436 --> 0:04:40.316 let's clarify that too. Socialize the means of production means 0:04:40.356 --> 0:04:43.596 the government, such as it would be, would own anything 0:04:43.636 --> 0:04:45.836 that was a money making enterprise. Basically. I mean there 0:04:45.836 --> 0:04:49.476 would be different sectors agriculture, industry, et cetera, finance importantly, 0:04:49.476 --> 0:04:54.596 but yes, that it would be that socialism means a 0:04:54.676 --> 0:04:57.076 society that is run by society that is run by 0:04:57.076 --> 0:05:01.876 the class of society that is the universal class according 0:05:01.916 --> 0:05:04.476 to Marx, which is they say, the proletariat. So the 0:05:04.516 --> 0:05:07.156 workers own the means of production that is there, that 0:05:07.276 --> 0:05:09.796 is their It's all about without the thing that Donald 0:05:09.796 --> 0:05:12.636 Trump is terrified by, correct, I mean, without the mesa production, 0:05:12.796 --> 0:05:17.076 Socialism in that form doesn't mean anything. So that is that. 0:05:17.356 --> 0:05:19.916 Now how democratic was this version of socialism? Did they 0:05:19.916 --> 0:05:22.676 think that it should come to power by people voting 0:05:22.676 --> 0:05:24.676 for it or were they open to the other kind 0:05:24.676 --> 0:05:26.276 of revolutions? Well, there were other kinds of you know, 0:05:26.436 --> 0:05:28.916 there were socialists and socialists. But you know Debs. Debs 0:05:28.956 --> 0:05:31.156 is running for president does a socialist party. He's getting 0:05:31.476 --> 0:05:33.916 getting votes. I mean, he's going out in campaigning it's 0:05:33.956 --> 0:05:36.676 democratic socialism. From the beginning. He didn't pretty a couple 0:05:36.676 --> 0:05:38.676 of times, didn't he. They did well once in nineteen 0:05:38.756 --> 0:05:40.876 twelve he got six percent of the vote, the highest, 0:05:40.916 --> 0:05:45.276 but it's a lot, you know. So these are socialists 0:05:45.316 --> 0:05:48.396 who believe that the people will rise up, but they 0:05:48.436 --> 0:05:51.956 won't do it violently. Correct. They will run for office, correct, 0:05:51.956 --> 0:05:55.996 and they will democratically pass laws. Correct. The takeover ownership 0:05:56.116 --> 0:05:58.836 of the businesses of America and agriculture and so forth. 0:05:58.716 --> 0:06:02.236 It's very very simply yes, um, you know. But but 0:06:02.316 --> 0:06:04.516 coming off of that, there are lots of other ways 0:06:04.516 --> 0:06:08.676 in which socialism developed. That is to say, there's a 0:06:08.756 --> 0:06:12.076 there's a ranch of socialism called sewer socialism. This is 0:06:12.196 --> 0:06:15.396 very big in the Midwest, in places like Milwaukee. German 0:06:15.476 --> 0:06:18.956 socialists for the most part associated with debs, but distinct 0:06:19.436 --> 0:06:22.396 and they got very interested in municipal It was about 0:06:22.436 --> 0:06:27.876 all about cities and municipal services, trying to socialize, you know, 0:06:27.996 --> 0:06:30.436 socialism in one city if you will, so literally the 0:06:30.476 --> 0:06:33.316 sewers of the city should be owned by the city 0:06:33.396 --> 0:06:35.396 rather than a private exactly exactly. You taken out of 0:06:35.436 --> 0:06:37.356 the prime hands of the private exploitters, and you put 0:06:37.356 --> 0:06:39.716 in the hands of a just government, and you'll get 0:06:39.716 --> 0:06:41.716 things done better. And that seems to have worked pretty well. 0:06:41.756 --> 0:06:43.196 I mean, depending on what you think of your sewers. 0:06:44.036 --> 0:06:46.476 In most of America today, isn't it the case that 0:06:46.796 --> 0:06:49.716 municipalities they may not run the sewers on a daily basis, 0:06:49.716 --> 0:06:52.276 but they own them, don't they better or worse? Yeah, 0:06:52.276 --> 0:06:55.316 so sewer socialism kind of work. Well, I mean though, 0:06:55.356 --> 0:06:57.076 I mean I pay my I don't pay the city 0:06:57.116 --> 0:06:59.476 for my electric bill. I don't pay the city for 0:06:59.516 --> 0:07:00.996 a lot of utilities. I mean, there's a lot of 0:07:00.996 --> 0:07:02.916 things that are not the case. But the MTA, for 0:07:02.996 --> 0:07:06.476 better or worse, is run by the government, run by 0:07:06.516 --> 0:07:09.956 elected officials, with a public private aspect to it. It's 0:07:09.956 --> 0:07:12.556 never completely outside of it. But that comes in part 0:07:12.596 --> 0:07:16.316 out of the socialist tradition. Yes, you can see that 0:07:16.436 --> 0:07:19.516 very clearly. So why did sewer socialism do as well 0:07:19.556 --> 0:07:21.876 as it did do when other forms of socialism ran 0:07:21.956 --> 0:07:24.436 into problem Well because, I mean, look at the local level, 0:07:24.476 --> 0:07:27.396 you can organize and in the Midwest, in western cities, 0:07:27.436 --> 0:07:30.116 it was very powerful. It has a political base. I mean, 0:07:30.116 --> 0:07:32.356 you can get somewhere at that local level. It's much 0:07:32.396 --> 0:07:34.156 harder to do that at the state level at the 0:07:34.236 --> 0:07:38.076 national level. So these municipalities, they would elect people to Congress. 0:07:38.596 --> 0:07:41.716 Victor Berger was a socialist in Congress for a while. 0:07:42.236 --> 0:07:44.836 You see this repeatedly, in fact, you see it today. 0:07:44.916 --> 0:07:46.556 In fact, what do you see with the Kazio Cortez, 0:07:46.636 --> 0:07:49.876 for example, Congressman Kazio Cortez, you know she has a 0:07:49.916 --> 0:07:52.996 following in a particular district, they can elect you to Congress. 0:07:53.116 --> 0:07:56.996 That's locally based. Socialism can get pretty far politically. So 0:07:57.076 --> 0:08:00.876 let's talk about Alexandreo Kazio Cortez and Bernie Sanders and 0:08:00.916 --> 0:08:04.156 the new Democratic socialist and let's focus on a specific thing. 0:08:04.156 --> 0:08:05.516 And I want to ask you if it's a kind 0:08:05.516 --> 0:08:08.196 of stewart socialism, and that is the policy they're pushing 0:08:08.636 --> 0:08:12.316 of medicare for all. Right, many of the Democratic candidates 0:08:12.716 --> 0:08:15.356 in the primary are either opting for that or saying 0:08:15.356 --> 0:08:17.636 that they think it's a good idea in principlescuarly being 0:08:17.636 --> 0:08:21.516 pushed from that direction. And President Trump says Medicare for 0:08:21.556 --> 0:08:26.036 all sounds like socialized medicine to sounds like socialized medicine. 0:08:26.036 --> 0:08:28.996 To me, that is a form of socialism. And presumably 0:08:29.236 --> 0:08:33.316 the Democrats who aren't self identified as democratic socialists would say, 0:08:33.716 --> 0:08:36.436 come on, there's nothing socialist about that at all. It's 0:08:36.476 --> 0:08:39.276 just an opportunity for a healthcare to be paid for. 0:08:39.556 --> 0:08:42.636 So let me sort of ask you the point blank question, 0:08:43.316 --> 0:08:48.556 is socializing medicine sort of like socializing the sewers. Is 0:08:48.556 --> 0:08:51.956 its socialism? No? Why not? Well, look, the idea of 0:08:52.036 --> 0:08:54.516 universal healthcare is at the center of the Democratic Party 0:08:54.556 --> 0:08:57.876 since Harry Truman, since nineteen forty six forty seven. So 0:08:58.276 --> 0:09:01.996 this has been a traditional idea that healthcare is indeed 0:09:02.036 --> 0:09:04.436 a right amount of privilege and the government ought to 0:09:04.476 --> 0:09:07.236 be able to provide or help provide healthcare to everybody. 0:09:07.756 --> 0:09:11.476 That's not a particularly position. There are many ways to 0:09:11.516 --> 0:09:14.276 get there, however, and that's where I think the Democrats 0:09:14.316 --> 0:09:17.276 will divide and medicare for role as a single payer system, 0:09:17.316 --> 0:09:19.716 as you know, which is very distinct from the kind 0:09:19.716 --> 0:09:21.156 of system we have now. It gets rid of a 0:09:21.236 --> 0:09:24.476 private insurance company. Right. That's one version of how you 0:09:24.516 --> 0:09:27.476 get there, But there are other versions as well. It's 0:09:27.476 --> 0:09:29.636 not so much that we have a socialist versus non 0:09:29.676 --> 0:09:32.516 socialist version of this. There are different versions of a 0:09:32.556 --> 0:09:37.316 democratic what has been a Democratic Party position forever. There 0:09:37.356 --> 0:09:39.276 are different versions of how to get there. So I'm 0:09:39.276 --> 0:09:42.276 now trying to channel Donald Trump running for office against 0:09:42.276 --> 0:09:45.316 this policy. And let's imagine a Donald Trump, if it's 0:09:45.356 --> 0:09:48.036 possible to imagine such a person who's taken your course 0:09:48.076 --> 0:09:51.236 and has learned about Sewer socialism yes, and says, well, yeah, 0:09:51.236 --> 0:09:54.236 there are different kinds of programs. Some involve the private sector, 0:09:54.836 --> 0:09:57.476 but some say the government should take it over completely. Correct, 0:09:57.596 --> 0:10:00.676 Medicare for all, it's a single payer system. It really implies, 0:10:01.276 --> 0:10:04.756 perhaps that the government should take over healthcare completely, as 0:10:04.796 --> 0:10:07.836 opposed to universal healthcare of the Obamacare type where the 0:10:07.836 --> 0:10:10.876 government repays private Insuran and he says, I think I 0:10:10.956 --> 0:10:12.996 get an A on the test. President likes to get 0:10:13.276 --> 0:10:14.596 on tests, or it likes to believe he's gotten a 0:10:14.756 --> 0:10:19.476 on tests, because I call this genuinely a social system. Well, 0:10:19.756 --> 0:10:22.996 I mean, you know he get a C from the course. 0:10:23.036 --> 0:10:25.836 I mean it's it's it's not completely wrong in all 0:10:25.876 --> 0:10:28.876 of that, but the image that's given of of of 0:10:28.596 --> 0:10:32.036 of a government run healthcare system is maybe closer to 0:10:32.076 --> 0:10:34.356 the NHS, where the NHS could be in Britain, the 0:10:34.476 --> 0:10:37.996 National Health System, the National Health System Britain UM and 0:10:38.596 --> 0:10:41.236 people's fears that the government's going to tell you you know, 0:10:41.316 --> 0:10:43.476 who your doctor is going to have to be, and 0:10:44.076 --> 0:10:46.796 when you can get the so called death panels that 0:10:46.876 --> 0:10:49.196 Sarah Palin was talking about. You know, all of these 0:10:49.236 --> 0:10:50.756 things out there that I have nothing to do with 0:10:50.796 --> 0:10:53.356 the system per se. So the image of it being 0:10:53.396 --> 0:10:56.756 socialist is not actually the reality. The reality, however, does 0:10:56.796 --> 0:10:59.716 in part come out of Yeah, I mean socialism is 0:10:59.716 --> 0:11:02.556 a part of what has been American liberalism for a 0:11:02.636 --> 0:11:05.556 very long time. I mean socialist characters. And I was 0:11:05.596 --> 0:11:09.196 mentioning before people like Sidney Hillman, and to basically was 0:11:09.196 --> 0:11:11.596 a certain example. Hilman above all had a lot to 0:11:11.636 --> 0:11:14.716 do with the New Deal. A little bit about him, Well, 0:11:14.756 --> 0:11:17.956 Hillman's the head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union in 0:11:18.196 --> 0:11:20.996 the United States, and um, he actually started off with 0:11:21.316 --> 0:11:23.796 a little closer to the communists, but then he very 0:11:24.036 --> 0:11:28.316 very very much you denounces them and gets rid of 0:11:28.356 --> 0:11:30.836 the communists in the labor movement as best he can. 0:11:30.956 --> 0:11:35.116 But he is very tight with Roosevelt. I'm sorry, he's 0:11:35.196 --> 0:11:38.636 very tight with Franklin Roosevelt. And you know, he has 0:11:38.676 --> 0:11:42.076 a lot to do with putting together and not just Roosevelt, 0:11:42.116 --> 0:11:44.436 but all of the New Deal people, so people like 0:11:44.796 --> 0:11:47.596 Senator Robert Wagner in New York, people like Francis Perkins, 0:11:47.636 --> 0:11:49.836 Secretary of Labor. He's very close to all these people. 0:11:50.396 --> 0:11:52.276 And Hillman had a great deal to do with getting 0:11:52.316 --> 0:11:54.956 the you know, the Wagner Act, the nineteen thirty five 0:11:55.076 --> 0:11:58.796 of the landmark act of collective bargaining in American history. 0:11:59.156 --> 0:12:01.836 Hillman had a lot to do with shaping that um 0:12:01.956 --> 0:12:05.316 the Fair Labor Labor Standards Act from nineteen thirty eight. Again, 0:12:05.596 --> 0:12:07.156 Hillman had a lot to do with all of that. 0:12:07.516 --> 0:12:12.516 So then, in that view, the core accomplishments of FDR's 0:12:12.556 --> 0:12:17.876 New Deal owed something to conversation and interaction with leading 0:12:17.916 --> 0:12:22.476 labor unions, labor unionists like Hillman, who were avowedly socialist, 0:12:22.876 --> 0:12:25.916 and that was normal at the time. So that leads 0:12:25.916 --> 0:12:28.596 me to the following question about FDR himself and about 0:12:28.596 --> 0:12:31.796 the New Deal. Broadly, critics of the New Deal at 0:12:31.796 --> 0:12:35.116 the time. You've pointed this out called it socialist. Yes, 0:12:35.516 --> 0:12:41.316 FDR said politely, hell no. So what was FDR's response 0:12:41.476 --> 0:12:43.916 to the charge that he was a socialist? No, he 0:12:43.956 --> 0:12:45.836 said he was a liberal. He said he was a Christian, 0:12:46.036 --> 0:12:48.756 a Democrat, and a liberal, I think in that order. 0:12:48.836 --> 0:12:51.916 And what did liberal mean in the Roosevelt era? It 0:12:51.956 --> 0:12:55.156 meant coming out of the progressive era, from the earlier 0:12:55.316 --> 0:12:58.116 part of FDR's life, from when his cousin was president. 0:12:58.356 --> 0:13:00.996 It meant seeing the federal government as having a very 0:13:01.076 --> 0:13:05.556 very large role to play in improving social welfare, taking 0:13:05.836 --> 0:13:09.316 the constitutions, you know, preamble very seriously, that the in 0:13:09.316 --> 0:13:12.236 a very positive way. So, borrowing a phrase from Bill Clinton, 0:13:12.236 --> 0:13:16.236 could we say that liberalism meant capitalism mend it, don't 0:13:16.356 --> 0:13:18.076 end it. Yeah, you could put it that way. Yes, 0:13:18.156 --> 0:13:20.356 I mean it does not believe in the socialization of 0:13:20.356 --> 0:13:22.836 the means of production, that's for sure. It understands that 0:13:22.876 --> 0:13:25.916 capitalism has been the greatest wealth generating system the world 0:13:25.956 --> 0:13:28.356 has ever known. It takes all of that into account. 0:13:28.356 --> 0:13:31.636 But the point is capitalism has to be protected from 0:13:31.636 --> 0:13:35.156 the capitalists. Left to their own devices, the capitalists will 0:13:36.036 --> 0:13:38.676 rain down, rack and ruin not just on the working 0:13:38.676 --> 0:13:41.156 people of America, but on the entire system, as we saw, 0:13:41.276 --> 0:13:44.036 for example in nineteen twenty nine, nineteen thirty two. So 0:13:44.076 --> 0:13:48.236 then the New Deal's version of liberalism says, let's redistribute 0:13:48.276 --> 0:13:50.476 some wealth so that the poorest people have a safety net, 0:13:50.916 --> 0:13:55.116 and let's put some restrictions on what owners and employers 0:13:55.156 --> 0:13:57.436 can do in the context of blocking labor unions. That 0:13:57.516 --> 0:13:59.876 gives you the National Labor Relations laws. Yeah, and then last, 0:13:59.876 --> 0:14:02.556 but not least, let's have a Securities and Exchange Commission 0:14:02.676 --> 0:14:05.756 and laws that regulate the financial markets so that they 0:14:05.796 --> 0:14:09.316 don't play dirty. And in the process of at the 0:14:09.316 --> 0:14:11.996 same time, all of these things are meant to shore up, 0:14:12.316 --> 0:14:15.036 to prop up capitalism, yes, so that it doesn't collapse 0:14:15.076 --> 0:14:16.476 in the wake of the Great Depression. It's one of 0:14:16.516 --> 0:14:18.956 the reasons why Norman Thomas, the great socialist leader of 0:14:18.956 --> 0:14:22.156 the nineteen thirties, when asked if FDR he carried out 0:14:22.196 --> 0:14:24.436 the socialist program, he said, yeah, he carried it out. 0:14:24.476 --> 0:14:27.996 He carried out on a stretcher because he took all 0:14:27.996 --> 0:14:32.276 of those ideas and took them away from the socialist essentials, 0:14:32.916 --> 0:14:35.956 means of production, all of that, and save capitalism with 0:14:36.276 --> 0:14:38.676 some ideas of socialism. So in that sense you could 0:14:38.676 --> 0:14:41.756 imagine the view that liberalism is almost the enemy of 0:14:41.796 --> 0:14:44.636 socialism because it takes the best ideas that socialists have, 0:14:44.996 --> 0:14:47.396 it implements them, and then it has the effect of 0:14:47.436 --> 0:14:51.836 preserving capitalism rather than allowing people to become so miserable 0:14:51.836 --> 0:14:54.516 and unhappy that they say capitalism is fundamentally broken. We 0:14:54.516 --> 0:14:55.916 want to take over the government, we want to do 0:14:55.956 --> 0:14:57.836 things differently, and we want to have socialism. You can 0:14:57.916 --> 0:15:00.036 look at it that way if you were a sectarian socialist, 0:15:00.236 --> 0:15:03.836 but people like Hillman and others, and above all maybe 0:15:03.876 --> 0:15:06.076 the greatest labor leader of the twentieth century, you know, 0:15:06.156 --> 0:15:10.516 is Walter Ruther in Detroit. I mean what they saw is, look, 0:15:11.436 --> 0:15:14.356 we're not going to have a revolution, but if we 0:15:14.436 --> 0:15:17.716 can get enough of our stuff through, who cares whether 0:15:17.756 --> 0:15:20.996 it's socialist, liberal, what have you. We're making life better 0:15:21.036 --> 0:15:24.276 for ordinary people. We're making we're expanding the social welfare. 0:15:24.476 --> 0:15:26.836 That's what we're here to do. What they saw their 0:15:26.916 --> 0:15:30.796 role as being is not an antagonism to the liberals, 0:15:30.876 --> 0:15:33.236 not trying to overthrow the liberals, not saying the liberals 0:15:33.276 --> 0:15:36.796 a role running dog imperialists, et cetera. No, they said 0:15:37.036 --> 0:15:39.156 we can see a role for ourselves in trying to 0:15:39.196 --> 0:15:42.716 push and pull from within. So that brings us to 0:15:43.236 --> 0:15:46.636 the current democratic socialists. And the first question I have 0:15:46.676 --> 0:15:51.796 about them is are they really socialists? Well, it depends. 0:15:51.836 --> 0:15:54.516 I mean, when I hear, you know, Senator Sanders, for example, 0:15:55.236 --> 0:15:58.436 talk about define socialism, as he did at some point 0:15:58.516 --> 0:16:01.356 during the campaign at Georgetown, effect, he says he's an 0:16:01.396 --> 0:16:05.156 FDR liberal right, So I don't know if that's socialism, 0:16:05.236 --> 0:16:09.596 then socialism has changed. I mean, even they calling them 0:16:09.636 --> 0:16:11.956 some socialists. I've been doing a little informal poll of 0:16:12.076 --> 0:16:15.036 twenty some things. I know, yeah, and I have a hypothesis. 0:16:15.356 --> 0:16:16.956 I'd like to hear it because I have no idea. 0:16:17.076 --> 0:16:18.796 I wonder what your students think about this too. So 0:16:19.116 --> 0:16:23.156 my very informal, unscientific poll was that people said, of 0:16:23.156 --> 0:16:27.276 course that the Democratic Socialists do not favor nationalizing the 0:16:27.316 --> 0:16:29.156 means of production in the country. They don't want the 0:16:29.156 --> 0:16:31.956 businesses to be taken over by the government. But they're 0:16:32.156 --> 0:16:35.756 sick and tired of the term liberal right. They're sick 0:16:35.796 --> 0:16:38.756 and tired of the term progressive right. They think, and 0:16:38.796 --> 0:16:41.556 you've written this that Hillary Clinton took the term progressive 0:16:41.596 --> 0:16:44.476 and you know, muddied it essentially by being not left enough. 0:16:45.156 --> 0:16:48.756 And the word socialism sounds cool. Yeah, it sounds like 0:16:48.796 --> 0:16:50.956 I want to change things, I want to do things differently. 0:16:51.116 --> 0:16:53.036 And that's a big part of Bernie Sanders appeal a 0:16:53.076 --> 0:16:54.836 cooint to this theory. And then when you take away 0:16:54.836 --> 0:16:58.196 Bernie Sanders and you put in Alexandro Alexandro Ocasio Cortez, 0:16:58.316 --> 0:17:00.596 now it's younger, it's hipper, it's more with it. So 0:17:00.636 --> 0:17:02.236 what do you think about that? Well, I think that's right. 0:17:02.276 --> 0:17:04.796 I mean, I think that that liberalism had a crisis 0:17:04.796 --> 0:17:07.076 in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies. Democratic Party out 0:17:07.116 --> 0:17:09.916 of crisis as well, coming out of Vietnam and all 0:17:09.956 --> 0:17:13.116 the rest of it, and um, the Reagan Revolution put 0:17:13.196 --> 0:17:15.796 the Democratic liberals on the defensive and they had to 0:17:15.836 --> 0:17:19.476 figure out of political strategy for themselves. And the Democrats 0:17:19.476 --> 0:17:21.836 had done themselves no good either by changing their party 0:17:21.876 --> 0:17:24.516 around into a kind of conjuries of special interests. They 0:17:24.556 --> 0:17:26.396 took away the party bosses, they ceased to be a 0:17:26.396 --> 0:17:29.436 party in the traditional sense. So coming out of all 0:17:29.436 --> 0:17:31.676 of that, yeah, the Democrats had a bob and weave 0:17:31.756 --> 0:17:35.436 and triangulate, if you will, in order to just survive. Now, 0:17:35.556 --> 0:17:39.116 coming out of that, the Clintons were trying, i think, 0:17:39.196 --> 0:17:43.316 to give the Democratic Party a substance again, you know, 0:17:43.396 --> 0:17:46.796 seeing them as very much as liberals, pushing forward, trying 0:17:46.796 --> 0:17:49.516 to expand you know, social welfare, all the rest of it, 0:17:49.556 --> 0:17:52.476 the kinds of things with some socialism sort of in there. 0:17:52.516 --> 0:17:54.396 People don't realize all of that, but it was the 0:17:54.396 --> 0:17:58.916 people they were talking about, you see. But they always 0:17:58.956 --> 0:18:01.316 do that they'll call anything socialism because they know it's 0:18:01.316 --> 0:18:03.796 a scare tactic. That's a scare word. But you know, 0:18:03.876 --> 0:18:05.836 maybe it was sca It's interesting, we'll come back to 0:18:05.876 --> 0:18:07.636 that about whether it's blood he had to tag politically. 0:18:07.636 --> 0:18:10.156 It was about politics. That's what pople don't understand about 0:18:10.156 --> 0:18:13.436 what the Clintons were about and where things were going. Now, 0:18:14.476 --> 0:18:17.836 things changed after that, change changed dramatically, particularly after two 0:18:17.876 --> 0:18:20.396 thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, after the economic collapse, 0:18:20.516 --> 0:18:21.996 which I think has a lot to do with the 0:18:22.036 --> 0:18:25.156 students young people you're talking about, So people who grew 0:18:25.196 --> 0:18:27.716 up in the who have no memory of Ronald Reagan, 0:18:27.916 --> 0:18:30.076 who have no memory of what politics used to be, 0:18:30.196 --> 0:18:33.036 like what Reagan did to politics, and then who came 0:18:33.036 --> 0:18:34.796 of age in the aftermath of two thousand and eight 0:18:34.836 --> 0:18:36.396 two thousand and nine. I've gone of a very different 0:18:36.476 --> 0:18:38.556 view of all of these words and what they mean 0:18:38.956 --> 0:18:40.756 than the likes of me who grew up in the 0:18:40.796 --> 0:18:43.796 nineteen sixties. So let's talk about words then. Yes, you've 0:18:43.796 --> 0:18:48.556 written in Democracy Journal very powerfully. I would say that 0:18:48.596 --> 0:18:50.556 we should call things what they really are. Yes, and 0:18:50.556 --> 0:18:52.596 that the Democrats made a big mistake when they stopped 0:18:52.596 --> 0:18:55.996 calling themselves liberals and started calling themselves progressive. And it's 0:18:55.996 --> 0:18:59.036 really the Clinton era where that happened. Yes, why what 0:18:59.196 --> 0:19:02.436 was wrong with that? Well, liberal had been demonized successfully 0:19:02.116 --> 0:19:05.116 by the right wing Republicans. You remember in nineteen eighty eight, 0:19:05.116 --> 0:19:08.036 when George H. W. Bush was running for president, he 0:19:08.156 --> 0:19:10.476 talked about the L word. He made it sound, you know, 0:19:10.556 --> 0:19:12.836 like manure. He made it sound like something, you know, 0:19:12.876 --> 0:19:15.356 so execrable that it was really excrement. That was before 0:19:15.436 --> 0:19:17.396 the TV show the L word made it sound somewhat better. 0:19:17.396 --> 0:19:19.076 But well that's another story. But you know, but this 0:19:19.156 --> 0:19:21.676 is way back in nineteen eighty eight, ancient history. But 0:19:21.756 --> 0:19:24.316 the word liberal was demonized. Nobody wanted to be known 0:19:24.356 --> 0:19:28.316 as the liberal right, and so the Democrats, chow happened 0:19:28.316 --> 0:19:31.156 on the word progressive as a subside for all of that. Now, 0:19:31.356 --> 0:19:34.276 progressive had been a left wing word that was very 0:19:34.436 --> 0:19:37.116 very anti liberal, if you will. That was where the 0:19:37.196 --> 0:19:39.996 left kind of gravitated to after the Communists had been 0:19:40.356 --> 0:19:43.996 you know, disgraced and so forth, in the aftermath of McCarthy, 0:19:43.996 --> 0:19:48.556 in the mathmath of fifty six, full of that um so. 0:19:48.596 --> 0:19:50.676 But the Democrats took this all left wing word and 0:19:50.756 --> 0:19:53.116 made it into a kind of euphemism for liberal. They 0:19:53.116 --> 0:19:57.636 repurposed it yet exactly now you know, that's okay. But 0:19:57.876 --> 0:20:00.916 what happened was that when by the time you got 0:20:00.956 --> 0:20:06.676 to say, the twenty sixteen election, here was Hillary Clinton, 0:20:08.556 --> 0:20:10.676 who had this background of having to you know, having 0:20:10.676 --> 0:20:12.756 to fight through the nineties and having to go through 0:20:12.796 --> 0:20:16.436 all of those politics, but it understood that times had changed. 0:20:16.876 --> 0:20:19.396 So she comes up with a very liberal, that is 0:20:19.436 --> 0:20:23.076 to say, leftish liberal platform. If you read her platform, 0:20:24.116 --> 0:20:27.236 it's it's much to the left of where she was 0:20:27.276 --> 0:20:28.836 in two thousand and eight, for sure, But she was 0:20:28.876 --> 0:20:31.276 presumably pushed there very hard by Bernie Sanders in the 0:20:31.276 --> 0:20:34.036 prime No, I disagree it was that was true before 0:20:34.076 --> 0:20:37.036 the primaries ever began. He then began to push her, 0:20:37.276 --> 0:20:40.356 not so much with anything dramatically different. But you know, 0:20:40.516 --> 0:20:42.636 if she came out for a twelve dollar minimum wage, 0:20:42.676 --> 0:20:45.236 he would come out for a fifteen dollars minimum wage. 0:20:45.316 --> 0:20:49.356 He would rail against the billionaire class. That's not her politics. 0:20:49.716 --> 0:20:52.036 He brought up all of this old you know stuff, 0:20:52.676 --> 0:20:55.836 and she looked she had no way to argue against it, 0:20:56.116 --> 0:20:58.396 and she ran calling herself a progressive. He's going to 0:20:58.556 --> 0:21:00.996 progressive her any day. And so you think the mistake 0:21:01.196 --> 0:21:03.116