WEBVTT - How Socialism Works 0:00:00.960 --> 0:00:04.160 Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:12.560 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:17.840 Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant and hold 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:25.440 your pause. Jerry Roland socialist and me socialist. It's so funny, 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:30.960 it's it's a dirty word. Yeah, people love Colin politicians 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:35.559 socialist these days they're just a socialist. Yeah. It's weird that, 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:37.920 you know the fact that that is a dirty words 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.919 because we stand in a moment in history where it's 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.680 been drugging through the mud for a hundred years. But 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.480 the tenets of it, the basis of it is the same. 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:51.800 It's virtually unchanged, and it's still it's kind of sensible 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:54.080 in some ways. Well, I mean I looked at there's 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:56.120 been various we're going to talk about these, but various 0:00:56.200 --> 0:01:00.000 experiments socialist experiments throughout the years, and some work pretty 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:02.080 well for a little while. But it kind of dawned 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.720 on me at one point. You can't account for laziness. Yeah, 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.920 that's a huge that's when it all comes crumbling down. 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.319 Everyone had that same work ethic, it could thrive, but 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.360 as soon as that one dude, it's like, I don't 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.679 feel like working. Yeah, and I'm a sucker because if 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:21.679 I do, because I get the same junk that you do, 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:25.000 then it's just that's the beginning of the end. If 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.080 everybody had the work ethic of the people depicted in 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:32.360 w p A murals and post offices, we'll be fine, 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:37.440 which do look uncannily similar to Soviet era depictions of 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:42.160 workers too. Yeah, you know, because they're related. So we're 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:49.640 talking socialism today, which is a huge, enormous, sweeping topic. Um. 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.840 But we're gonna try to explain it and as best 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.800 the terms as we possibly can. Um. And it's really 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.960 tough to talk about socialism without talking about capital as 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:05.360 them too, because they're antithetical pretty much. But they're both 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:13.320 based on the same idea that from your economy springs 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:17.680 forth everything else. Like Karl Marx, Joseph Engels, the guys 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:22.359 who got together and wrote the Communist Manifesto. Um, they 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:27.760 basically said, it's the economy stupid. Yeah, what was that from? 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:31.079 That's James Carville? Was that Carville? I thought there was 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:33.880 some No, I was thinking of something else you're thinking 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:36.440 of I'm with stupid or no, I know what you're 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:40.920 thinking of. Lose weight, now ask me how what I 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:45.480 can do this all day? Where's the beef? What else? Uh? 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.160 Can't they get any other ad? Ever? I don't want 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:50.200 to grow up. No, there was one stupid that was 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:56.119 oil or gas commercial. It's the economy, bunch old gouts 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.320 sitting on the porch. Oh yeah, it sounds like a 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:02.519 fracking com. But I don't think they're saying like it's 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:05.400 the economy stupid. They're they're saying, just sit there and 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.959 shut up stupid. Probably that's that's more the kid. Let's 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:11.280 just go back to James Cargle. So he said it's 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:13.360 the economy stupid. It was one of the three main 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:18.120 talking points for Clinton campaign. So Carl Marks didn't say that. 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:23.520 But the idea was that you have this economy, and 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:26.280 depending on what you do with it, you can either 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:32.880 have a uh completely literally utopian society where everyone's equal, 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.520 nobody wants, everyone's taken care of, and there is no 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.800 class stratification. Or you can go the opposite way and 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:45.320 let this economy run on its own devices and step 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.200 out of the way, and what you have is capitalism. 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:52.800 And the marks an angle's opinion that was basically the 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:58.640 most inherently evil thing a state or government institution could do. 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.160 Is it just let an accou onomy run rampant, right, 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:07.040 because you have something called classes, you have stratification, you 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:11.080 have um wealth gap. Yeah, and basically the exploitation of 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.200 the very people who are producing the the goods in 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:18.160 a society, the workers. Yeah, the workers, uh, stay poor 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.479 and the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. And 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:25.680 like you said, it was based on this word utopia. Um. 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.680 A British writer named Thomas Moore in fifteen coined that term. 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:31.640 He wrote a book called Utopia about a fictional island 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:35.479 in the Atlantic Ocean. And Um, there was no private property, 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.919 there were no locks on the doors houses. You rotated 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.080 houses every ten years. So even if your free house 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.280 you thought your neighbors was better, ten years, you're gonna 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:48.599 get in that same house. Don't worry about it. I 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:51.159 just hope your neighbor doesn't trasted. In the meantime, exactly, 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:53.080 they had all were the same clothes. There were no 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:58.280 fancy clothes, six hour work days, free healthcare, state endorsed euthanasia, 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.240 which in fifteen fifteen was pretty radical. Yeah, there's a 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.000 lot of killing. Back then, divorce was okay. So this 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:08.000 was his version of utopia. And uh, one thing we'll 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:12.680 talk about is utopian socialism. That that word utopian was 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:15.800 tagged to it later on as like a majority of 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:20.160 kind of like there is no utopia, you naive nini. Yeah, 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:24.160 so your your socialism, your utopian socialism is not possible. 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:27.159 I see, you know, very clever. Sure, it's funny what 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:29.880 people can do with words to just completely tarnish the 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:34.320 concept because he can't account for laziness. So you've got 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:36.960 Thomas Moore writing in fifteen and he coins the term 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.960 utopia and it's not in and of itself socialism, but 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:43.320 it has a lot of the hallmarks of socialism, right, 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.840 Like there's no it's a classless society. Yeah, and um, 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:51.480 it's a it's a society that's operated and owned by 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:55.200 the people, very people who are producing goods. Yeah. And 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:57.080 we should have set up front there are dozens of 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:59.919 types of socialism. So this this could be like a 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.800 wealth part series and it will be. And this is 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:05.479 my god, now, well no, this this one. I was thinking, 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:09.279 this fits into what's become our socioeconomic suite. You know, 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.440 we have a death suite. We've done so much economic 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:16.560 stuff and socio economic stuff that I feel like we've 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:21.680 got a suite coming up that I'm gonna put together. Yeah. 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:24.279 So Thomas Moore comes up with utopia, but he's not 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:28.000 the first person to ever write about the concepts the 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:33.200 basic foundation or principles of um socialism. That award goes 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:38.000 to Plato, who described a place in his republic Um 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:42.279 that basically had two classes, the governed and those who governed, 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.839 and the government were completely subservient to those who governed, 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:50.120 but those who governed were just basically inherently perfect in 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:54.239 every way, shape or form. And aside from that there 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:59.040 the there, it was classless, right, everybody else was very 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.000 much equal in the over and where this hierarchy of 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:06.280 a blunted pyramid um, but they decided who was going 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:10.040 to make what and in what amounts. So you have 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:14.760 this hallmark, this other hallmark of socialism, which is complete 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:20.280 and utter government control of an economy, which constitutes a 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:25.520 planned economy. Yeah, and uh things, Uh, we're talking about 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:29.400 utopian works. Between seventeen hundred and eighteen fifty, these were 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:33.120 very popular because these themes were because there was a 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.520 lot of oppression going on in that hundred and fifty 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.560 years still is around the world, of course, but it 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:43.000 became a popular theme in books and novels to write 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.480 about these utopian societies like, man, it could be so 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:50.760 much better. No oppression of slavery, everyone is all boats 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:55.400 are rising. Um. And then a French revolutionary named Francois 0:07:55.520 --> 0:08:01.040 Noel Babouf is considered the first socialist because he is 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.840 the first one who um said, you know what, no 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:08.320 more private property. We should all be equal, and I'm 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.960 the first socialist. Yeah. He the reason he was no 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:15.640 and he had his head cut off by the French 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:20.840 Revolution at age thirty seven for his views where technically, um, 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:25.200 today he's referred to as a revolutionary communist. Yeah, UM 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:29.000 should go ahead and cover that. Yeah, because socialism was 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:31.280 the word was around when he was around, so he 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.040 was called a socialist, but his views were so militant, 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:38.720 um that he's now considered a revolutionary communist and that 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:42.560 that sort of communism is basically like socialism with guns. Yeah, 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:48.280 if you're a communist, socialism is a UM. It's a 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:53.199 transitional state between a capitalist society and a communist society. 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:58.480 So it's a temporary point in the glorious transition from 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:04.960 capitalism to communism because communists know from experience now that 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.120 you can't just go from capitalism to communism overnight. You're 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.319 going to completely cripple your economy. People are going to 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.240 starve to death. You just have huge problems, so you 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.760 have to go to socialism. So the difference between socialism 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:21.760 and communism is that in a socialist country, everybody's producing 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.840 for the general good, but what you receive is based 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:30.120 on your merit, whereas with communism, everyone's producing for the 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:35.160 general good and what you receive is based on your need. Yeah, 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:41.079 and communism is is a militant takeover and utopian socialism. 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:43.360 The main difference there is the idea is that everyone 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:45.600 is on board and just gives this stuff up. There's 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.240 no overthrow of the upper class because the upper class 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:52.640 is like, no, I'm on board, right, that's an utopian socialism. 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.240 But with communism, though, I think it's kind of gotten 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:01.560 the I I think in practice it's been uh at 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:05.160 the at the barrel of a gun. Basically, like mouse said, 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.520 power springs from the barrel of a gun. So the 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:13.560 idea that communism and militancy are associated has you know, 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:17.960 become kind of a thing. But I think theoretically they're 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:22.480 not necessarily related, right you know. Uh, And then a 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:26.079 few others. You have, um, market socialism, which Yugoslavia and 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:28.960 Hungary had a version of in the sixties and seventies, 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.920 and that is most people see that as as sort 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.320 of the bridge between socialism and capitalism, where the government 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.000 does own the resources, a lot of them at least, 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.920 but market forces determined production and demand, so there is 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:47.760 incentive and true socialism, there's no incentive to work harder. See, 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:50.040 I don't know that that's necessarily true. I think it's 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.400 communism and socialism you're still allowed to give incentive for 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:59.400 harder work. Well, which kind of socialism though? Um remember 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.960 our blimp episode. Remember the helium supply that the US 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:08.240 government controls. That's an example of market socialism. Yeah, that's 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:12.800 a good point. I think we're demonstrating just how hard 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:14.640 it is to define it because there are so many times. 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:17.880 Yeah we can you can talk about it in pure terms, 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.080 which we let's let's do that. And then I think 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:24.760 if you understand, you know, just the pure definition of socialism, 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.440 you can start to understand you can recognize it in 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:31.800 the real world. Right, So with socialism you have um, 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:37.160 no no classes. Everybody is told what to do, to 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:42.040 what to make, where to go to work, and the 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:46.160 production output is determined by a central planning committee in 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.679 most cases the government, and then that same committee takes 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:55.160 all these this production and distributes it according to who 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:59.920 needs what, and the economy is completely controlled and playing 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.360 end and uh, this plan is put into effect by 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:08.439 the workers and everybody's equal. And there's no private property. 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:11.560 And that's a tricky one too, because if you went 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:15.559 to Soviet Russia in the sixties, you go into somebody's 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:17.320 house and they had a TV set and that was 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.720 that family's TV set. So the distinction that I came 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:28.600 across for private property is there's in socialism people can 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:34.679 own TVs, but nobody owns the factory that makes the TVs. 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:38.040 So by the government controlling the factor that makes TVs, 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:42.920 theoretically you can make even more TVs and more people 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:48.000 can enjoy the fruits of the TV factories production. Does 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:51.840 that make sense? Okay? I think if you want to 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.560 explain something, do it, and by explaining it in terms 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.760 of TV and TVs. Jerry just she went to Cuba 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:02.079 this year, remember, and had an experience with the communism. 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:04.360 That was really interesting. We should do a podcast on 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.040 Cuba as a whole and have Jerry sit in and 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.199 not speak. You just write things down and we can 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:14.240 relay the message. And like I said, to understand socialism, 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:17.400 it's you have to also understand capitalism. And capitalism is 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:24.959 basically like the the supply and demand runs everything, and 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:28.800 the if somebody needs something, they're willing to pay a 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.480 higher price for it, which means the sector over here 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.640 will start to ramp up because they want to make 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:39.199 more money. There's no planned economy. It just changes based 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:43.200 on the needs of the individual. Yeah, and there's uh, 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:48.600 there's competition. It's encouraged in capitalism, not so much in socialism, 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:51.040 not at all in socialism, because competition is one of 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:56.760 the great evils of capitalism. And that it's right if 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:59.240 you make a bunch of money and we're in the 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:02.520 same industry. I'm not making a bunch of money and 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:06.360 I can go bankrupt and my family could starve, But 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:12.160 you're really rich. I like that. Yeah, imaging imagine if 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:14.280 the shoe on the other foot. I want us to 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:19.880 all be rich. What's that called socialism? Okay, alright, So 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:24.440 I was talking about Francois Babouf and uh. He was 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.120 credited with being one of the first socialists, but the idea, 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.120 the concept wasn't really popularized on a broad scale until 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.800 the seventeen hundreds thanks to something called the Industrial Revolution, 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:38.800 which is when as everyone knows, uh, Robert Baron's kind 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:42.840 of started opening factories and controlling the wealth and putting 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:46.400 people out of work or making people work for or 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:50.120 offering people work I should say, uh, for very little money. 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.040 And there was a big wealth gap. That was the 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.160 first big wealth gap. Um. The rich got richer in 0:14:56.200 --> 0:15:00.560 that case, and the poor got poor and people got um. 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:04.120 There's a lot of unrest because of the slave labor, 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:09.040 and the idea of socialism kind of became more popular 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:11.800 all of a sudden, right. It seems like any time 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:16.680 that um, business and industry has overstepped its exploitation of 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:19.920 the working class, socialism has kind of been there to 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.440 step up as a solution to that, and people have 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.080 been more prone to adopt it. Yeah, and and tough 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.320 times obviously, because that's one of the byproducts of socialism 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:33.000 of a group of the government controlling industry. That means 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.720 that the government also protects the workers from being screwed 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.680 over by industry because you're working for the government and 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.920 the government is not seeking to screw you over. Does 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.800 that make sense? Yeah, I feel like I'm not explaining 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.320 this correctly and striving me a little bonkers. Frankly, No, 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:53.680 you're doing great because of this. Um the Industrial Revolution, though, 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.440 there were these communes that started to pop up and 0:15:56.880 --> 0:16:00.640 all over the place that, uh, we're people. They were 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.680 kind of socialist experiments. One was called Brook Farm in 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.880 the eighteen forties just outside of Boston and West Roxbury, 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.720 and it was founded by a Uterian Unitarian minister and 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.480 his wife, George and Sophia Ripley, and they said, you 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:16.800 know what, you can choose your job, you can do 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.280 whatever you want to do. Um, everyone's gonna get equal pay. 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:22.960 We're gonna base our little society on a guy named 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.360 a Frenchman named Charles Furrier who just died a few 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.960 years ago. But he was super smart, we think, and 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:32.560 uh he actually coined the term feminism. So ladies are 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:36.600 going to be equal a huge thing. Because this was 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:39.280 the eight forties, that was way ahead of its time. 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.400 And uh, they had visions to build this big structure 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:45.840 called a Fallon story, and that was their undoing. It 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.520 seems like there's always this one thing that ruins these experiments, 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:53.760 and that was their's fire destroyed it and basically bankrupted 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:56.600 them by eighty seven. So that was the end of 0:16:56.600 --> 0:17:01.280 brook Farm. And that's just one example, yeah, one of many, because, 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:02.880 like you said, there are a lot of communes that 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:08.119 sprung up within larger capitalist systems, but that practiced their 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:12.680 own brand of socialism. There were Christian socialist communes, like 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:17.600 the Shakers were socialist community. Yeah. I was wondering about 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.199 the Amish, and I looked up like our Amish socialists, 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.040 and I think they have a hierarchy. Yeah, and they weren't. 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:25.320 I don't think they're thought of as true socialists, but 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:29.520 they have a lot of the same values. I think, 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.040 like we all worked together, we all work hard for 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:35.439 the good of all of us, and values are what 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.480 drove um all of these socialist experiments, including the Christian 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:43.080 socialist experiments, because basically they were saying, hey, you know what, 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:47.679 we don't think capitalism really jibes with Christian teachings. We 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:49.840 think socialism does a little more. So we're gonna go 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.040 off and try this and don't even try to persecute 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:55.119 us because religious freedom. Religious freedom. Yeah, you've seen the 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:59.320 bumper stickers. Jesus was a socialist. I haven't they're out there. 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:04.160 Last one I saw said easy does it? So check 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.960 your like you were saying, like this is brook Farm 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:10.520 wasn't didn't exist in a vacuum. There were a lot 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.520 of these socialist experiments going on everybody. There seemed to 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:16.639 be two types. There was one that just wanted to 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.320 just get away from the world. Just leave us alone. 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:21.359 We're doing our own thing. If you want to come 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:23.960 join us, awesome, but we're not trying to change the world. 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.520 We're just trying to change the world, our world. There 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:31.159 were other ones that sought to like basically perform this 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:36.439 experiment that demonstrated that this that socialism worked and in 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:39.040 the hopes that it would spread out to the rest 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:40.960 of the country or the rest of the continent or whatever. 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.480 And one of them was in Scotland, formed by a 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:50.200 guy named um Robert Owen who was a wealthy, wealthy, 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:54.600 wealthy capitalist who decided that capitalism was evil and then 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.520 he was going to use his wealth to try socialist experiments. 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:02.560 And the first one was in Scotland, in um New Lanark. Yeah, 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:07.040 in seventeen eighty six. Um. He he basically moved out there. 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:08.920 He bought um, like you said, he had a lot 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.360 of money. He's a big philanthropists, and he bought a 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:15.000 mill and said, you know what, this cotton mill. I'm 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:18.560 gonna base this cooperative society around this mill, and it's 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:21.159 gonna be our foundation. That's how we're gonna make our money. 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:25.760 And we're gonna divide up property among everyone, and everyone's 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:29.000 gonna work the same and get paid the same. And um, 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:32.760 it didn't work out, of course, but he was huge 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:39.480 in the early um progression of childcare basically, Yeah, he 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:43.480 was really big on protecting children. He raised minimum the 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:48.120 minimum age to ten. Yeah, the working age to ten 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:50.320 and uh not minimum age, like you have to have 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:53.399 a childless ten years old. If you're born under the 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:55.919 age of ten, you go to jail. But um, he 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.760 instituted infant childcare for the first time in Great Britain. 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:04.240 He h preschool, Yeah, first preschool, first public library. Uh, 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:07.080 first public school too, I think like free public school. 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:09.680 So he led a lot of reform but it didn't 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:13.520 work out in England, so he said I'm sorry Scotland. 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.120 I know, I think new Landark it's self worked out, 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.720 but it didn't catch on. And so he said, nuts 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:22.040 to you guys. I'm going over to America where they're 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:24.640 way more open minded. That's right. So he went over 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.639 and Um, there was some land in Indiana in a 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:32.360 place called Harmony. Uh it was actually that was already 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:37.960 a commune of sorts there. Um that lasted eleven years, 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:41.720 from eighteen fourteen to eighteen Yeah, but they were a 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.480 non socialist religious commune right now, they were totally socialists. 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.400 They were they were separatists from the German Lutheran Church 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:52.320 and they formed their own little socialist society there in 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:56.359 Harmony and succeeded for eleven years thanks to their German 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:58.159 work ethic. And then they decided they wanted to go 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:01.360 back to Pennsylvania. Yeah, they just left. And then um 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:03.520 Owens comes in says, hey, this land, I'd like to 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:05.920 buy it from me. I'll name it New Harmony and 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:08.359 I'll start my little experiment over here in the United 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:10.840 States and see how it works, and basically did the 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:14.400 same thing. Yeah, they said, thanks chump, but that lasted 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:19.639 just two years. Um. Yeah, this was not Owen's fault here. Well, 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:23.200 I mean from what I gathered that the main reason 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:25.760 that it didn't work out is that people liked it 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:28.000 so much. It was a bit chaotic, though, and they 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:32.400 started splintering off, forming their own communes, and all these 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:38.720 other communes started popping up, and it just couldn't survive anymore. Okay. Well, also, 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:42.160 his business partner for the commune took all the money 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:43.960 and left. Yeah. I didn't see that that was the 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:45.760 main reason, though. I think they were dead in the 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:48.080 water by that point. That might have been the nail 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:50.840 in the coffin, right, So you pulled the Mr Burns, 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:56.440 Yeah exactly. So, um there there, that's three there's that's 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:59.840 just three communities. Community he went back to and he 0:21:59.920 --> 0:22:02.160 was like, all right, yeah, I guess I'm out of here, 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:06.240 and he started but he um he really, I guess 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.520 got a lot of press and raised awareness for the 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:12.800 concept of labor reform and really helped set the stage 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:15.800 for the labor struggles that would take place in Europe 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:19.600 and the United States throughout the nineteenth century. And again, 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:22.159 this is the result of a couple of things, but 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:27.600 mostly the Industrial Revolution, because in the Industrial Revolution, business 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:33.040 owners were the income inequality gap was growing by leaps 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:35.520 and bounds because business owners could buy a machine that 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:38.520 could do the work of ten people for a tenth 0:22:38.520 --> 0:22:41.320 of the price. And so as a result of this 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:44.920 you have experiments and socialism. You also have another thing 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:47.800 grow up called um. Blood eye is UM. You know 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:52.000 the Ladites, they're supposedly afraid of technology. That's that's really 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:57.080 a misinterpretation. UM. The Loodites like to smash technology that 0:22:57.200 --> 0:23:00.240 took their jobs. They weren't afraid of the few future 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:03.040 or anything like that. They just wanted to keep their jobs. 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:06.399 So Leoodite sprang up at about the same time too, 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:09.840 so you have Loodite socialism. And in eighteen forty eight 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:12.560 there is what's called a revolutionary waves similar to the 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:15.879 Arab spring of what two thou twelve, two dozen thirteen, 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:21.679 where almost all of the monarchies in Europe faced challenges 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:25.800 from socialist revolutions, and most of the revolutions were crushed, 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:27.679 but some of them had lasting effects. Like you know 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:33.439 how Sweden is considered a UM partially socialist state. UM. 0:23:33.680 --> 0:23:37.480 Same with Denmark and all these other countries, France, all 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:40.680 of them had to do with these the socialist uprising 0:23:40.720 --> 0:23:44.160 in eighteen forty eight. They made an imprint and impact, 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:48.040 and when the when the revolutions themselves were crushed, they 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:50.080 started to move over here in the US, and that's 0:23:50.080 --> 0:23:53.600 when you saw a lot of these socialist experiments pop up. Yeah, 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:56.399 and every country still has a lot of socialist programs, 0:23:56.520 --> 0:23:58.879 um that you could label a socialists for sure. So 0:23:58.920 --> 0:24:01.320 we'll talk more about social salism in the United States 0:24:01.440 --> 0:24:08.399 right after this, so choke, we're talking about socialism in 0:24:08.400 --> 0:24:10.600 the US, which people are like, what are you talking 0:24:10.600 --> 0:24:14.040 about the US as a capitalist society. Well, there's actually 0:24:14.080 --> 0:24:17.560 been a lot of socialism throughout the history of the US. 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:22.480 There's been, um, the Socialist Party. Milwaukee has had some 0:24:22.520 --> 0:24:25.600 socialist mayors. Uh. If you live in Vermont, one of 0:24:25.600 --> 0:24:28.919 your senators as a socialist, Bernie Sanders. And there's this 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:33.160 kind of long storied history springing out of workers rights movements, 0:24:33.240 --> 0:24:36.359 labor movements in the United States that were supported by 0:24:36.400 --> 0:24:41.000 socialists and actually gave rise to UM, the Socialist Party 0:24:41.160 --> 0:24:44.000 here in the US. Yeah. In eighteen seventy six, the 0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:46.760 Workingmen's Party was formed and then a year later changed 0:24:46.840 --> 0:24:50.399 their name to the Socialist Labor Party and uh, of 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:55.119