Jackson bookstore. Good evening everyone. Thank you for coming out tonight to 1611 jackson looks at the seaport. We are happy you came out and tonight we are c celebrating the release of me on the future democratic socialism american style. We are excited to have with us kate aronoff and michael the del smith. Witnessing the current resurgence of the democratic socialism in the United States is exemplified by the growing membership democratic socialists of america and the popularity of politicians like Bernie Sanders and the aoc committee explore how this energy might be channeled to achieve a future that is more democratic, egalitarian, inclusive and environmentally sustainable. In the age of trump and beyond. So let me introduce our guest tonight, journalist kate aronoff postlight writing has appeared in the guardiancombination of dissent, jacqueline and the New York Times and she is a coeditor othecoeditor of we one democratic socialism american style with peter dreier and she lives in brooklyn. Michael denzel smith is the author of the New York Times bestseller invisible man the whole world watching and nicola with the national institute. Hes written for the New York Times, the atlantic complex, the paris review, harpers, the new republic, the cardigan and the root and hes been a future commentator on npr bbc radio, cnn, msnbc and huffingtonpost and he also lives in brooklyn and so now, let me hand over the microphone and the words to the guest. And i want to just say that after a the discussion, there will be some words by Michael Bennett who is here from the tsa. Later there will bewi a qanda and after that, there will be a book signing. When the qanda happens i will come back up here and hand over theok a microphone to whoever ha question so that cspan, who is filming tonight, well actually be able to record the questions. Thank you so much. [applause]e] good evening. Hello, kate. High. So, capitalism. I take it youre not a fan. For sure, no. Told me why. So, the big question that people have written many books about. What we argue in the book, and which i happen to think is that capitalism has deeply failed us on many fronts, so theres a sort of logic of domination that is built into a lot of sort of western thoughts and what capitalism does is an organizer i was talking to recently put it it just extracts and gives very little back. So for centuries now, the Economic System lands to fuel this profit making apparatus as we argue in the book there is a lot of the comes after capitalism and what you do to transcend capitalism, ajit adjective or adverb to get around them and we ourselves as coauthors, we come to different conclusions about that personally. Our contributors come to different ideas aboutthat, but with a sort of all agreed on is that we have to replace capitalism. It needs to prioritize the accumulation of profit as the driving goal of society which it has been for a long time and theres been interruptions on this and a constant pushback for as long as we have had capitalism from labor and the social movement. There is always been the terms of how much counsel can do and what we give to his its time for history to score the flip that implant firmly on the side in order to build a society that is basically any climate scientist writing out there so the book spends time thinking about the different ways to do that. We were coming up with different ideas and we wrote out a list of Different Things many of which are needed in the book. Thinking of what does it look likeke to have socialism and health care under the democratic socialism. We ask people to think about it through the lens of their expertise and so what does it look like to build a society through this one and talk about the how we were happy to see the overlap between that and coalescing around because capitalism has been such a holistic system of and theyve gotten rid of the political economy of politics and its been hard to think about what those connections over. But i hope comes out from the rellection of these essays is that its hard to move on any of these for months without giving them all of them effectively. And having a real vision which i think is the socialism has been good at historically is the vision where we are going and that is where we try to communicate. Theres a couple of things i will pick up on a little bit later but i want to ask you are honing in on the idea of democratic socialism at the very least in the past decade or a little over a decade this has been the resurgence of a critique that is grounded in the democratic socialist tradition. But im curious why socialism in particular as opposed to other traditionss. One points out of a long history in the United States socialism so people who in early america were inspired by people like the socialists in the uk and people that were inspired by marx and virtually any kind of system that has people who think of themselves in the tradition reaching from people like w. E. B. Du boise two a. Philip randolph to the movement, that has been in american history. Sometimes more ultimately than others. Esd of course organizers are always sort of waiting around. And so, ivi think that we see tt coming up at this moment when people who are our age or older dont have the same hangups that the people that lived through this dude or tha bid or that lih the. Where it was illegal or you could be deported for picking a communist or socialist has a profound effect in terms of how we were to socialism. So yes, it is just a tiny, tiny influence on the left. So, now that we are past that moment thankfully, no one eagles are very comfortable with the term. We have people like Bernie Sanders who have been socialist for a long time winning the vote under 35 by double digits in this last election. So it is a thing that keeps coming up and i think since 2008, the period in which we are kind of living right now is a post2008 moment you saw the emergence in the movement from occupy wall street in 2015, 2014 and onward into the way that the strikes in chicago. At these moments kicked off innocent people that are involved in these organizing traditions have their roots in many cases organized labor and unions for both the socialists and maybe they were perched at some point to all these things and so there is a comparison for this sort of managing to cool down and people want an alternative. Its not easy to say we want this or that. With socialism d does is activey cedar something we are working towards. I think the other thing that is what is idiosyncratic is that for many of those reasons weve never had the parties in meaningful ways and so we dont have the same thing that is inflicted so theres a different kind of resonance. You know, then it isnt an country where the socialists are the ones who implement the tuition hikesle or cut your benefits or cuts to Public Services in any number of ways so you dont have the hang of either living with the socialist party. And so, that puts us in a unique position to figure out what is an American Democratic socialism looking like . Did you ever consider calling the collection of socialism . [laughter] that never came up. You also mentioned in the introduction you deliberately dont offer a definition of socialism. You dont ask any of the contributors to do so either. Can you walk us through the reasoning for that . I think part of it comes at least for me from reporting a lot on the socialist resurgence in the u. S. And hes enlisted things from the uk which variants comes out of a different version of socialism. So, i think that it would be a little dishonest on b our hearts to essentially perform the essays to sort of process the authoritative definition of socialism. It is a probabilistic movement at this point. They are selfconsciously muffling into the kind of sectarian trap of having five different little groups fighting with each other. Theres the commitment to having the vehicle which then is stored together in the fights and debates and real sport of battles within it, but there is a commitment to having some sort of a forum. And people identify for a lot of Different Reasons and that means a lot of Different Things to people. So, we could be in this collection of people in part because we were curious what do people make of this question and how do they read that through what weve been writing about and thinking about for a long time. I think that people in this collection range from social democrats to people who were libertarian socialists and kind of have anarchists. There is a wide range and that is in some ways representative of what socialism in america today. Entity wide range of topics. You hit on some of the notes are expected likthat are expected le talking about the workers rights and about corporate greed and democracy. We are talking about things that are immediately attributed or associated with the socialist intellectual tradition and organizing tradition. But, theres also the section that is the right to the good life. And its touching on the ideas of the art g looks like in the socialism Convention Like sports. And eventually, i think just a life looks like and things that we do with one another, things that bring us joy and imagining those under the socialist organizing principles. Whats important to you about theorizing what that life looks like . I think i certainly fell into that and there is a sort of tendency in this struggle in a certain way to think about it we are always going up against our boss or the corporation and you know, the state or whatever it is. They are always sort of been a constant battle. And theres a lot of critique. The way that we dont want things to be. But i think some of the most inspired moments and social history have been when it is possible to imagine some thing else sort of the same way of organizing society that people do not just exist in the workplace. They do not just exist in relationships to corporations. We have all these other things that filll our time and those have been taken over by many things. And i think this gets to the question of just how capitalism has managed to sort of proves itself into this thing that should be fun but isnt anymore. Unfortunately, for most of the people. [inaudible] that i can appreciate it. We also have to think not just about the parts of life that are the hardest, but what does it look like to have a good life, the latin american tradition, and really think through that in a holistic way just because we are not only sort of existing out of that relationship work, xiwhich i think is rightfully talked about a lot, but there are other things to do when im out. In particular though, things that are touched on our reimagining things that will bring us joy and trying to assess what that looks like a as a non exploited undertaking. There is another part of this. We are talking about a total restructuring of the society. Like we are reorienting ourselves ideally the words different modes of interacting with one another and engaging in governing and economics in all these sort of things that are listed in healthcare and and so on. So, we are i think that i am trying to get out is that we have a politics now that roessentially promises people tt nothing will change. Like that isil the idea. Though it for me because he will be comfortable in exactly the way that few understand comfort now. So, in this collection of things, there is a whole different addition your life will change. How honest do we have to be then about what gets lost . I think about those questions a lot around climate. Because of that has always been framed as an issue of sacrifice as long as they talk about things that matter in the u. S. Inarguably and other places. There is a sort of notional idea that things will be better at some point in the future, but in the meantime, you have to giveea up your cars and its a matter of sacrifice, sort of like a quality to it. Where if you, you know, our chaste and is basically in your Consumer Habits that he will manifest a. Maybe in spite of less religious terms. But i think that the idea that we cant have this has been the most talked about. Thats the thing, the idea that things will never get better. They can never get better. Its are Greg Thatcher said that they cant. Its effective. Its powerful. A powerful narrative to think that your conditions can change, theres nothing in the world that can make a society be organized any differently than it is now and its the story of rewriting because we know that humans have organized themselves in a different way is and do organize results in different ways in different places. In the history of humanity and the earth and also to put it in that way. Another way. So much damage. [laughter] we have managed to make it applicable. Its very productive. Unless you are a fossil fuel and executive who will speak [inaudible] off from the original point, that is the alternative and we can beat this. In addition to having the vision, there is sort of a commitment to say i think counter a lot of liberal or progressive thought that there is us or them, there are certain people that we may not know very well and the majority of people this was the sort of enduring wall street with a 99 versus 1 . The society for whom things are working out and for most people, its not. So come and organizing sort of collectively as the way to change that. Hello, everyone. Im actually here tonight as the chair of the democratic socialism America Funding board which is a five o. One c. Three Sister Organization devoted to the democratic socialist education. And we are happy to be here represented tonight to support this project officially throughu the fund, and though i dont speak for dsa, i was having a meeting with the National Director and sweeping the solidarity but. Because they are building a series of educational events around the buck and making Copies Available to the members because the book we own the future is part of the democratic socialist process which is the collective process so its great that we could so many people back to this movement through thinking and writing about what youve done. The book brings together if of offers from various points of view that weve talked about already as american socialists tnd the people promoting the corporate collective, so you have the new price, you have the dsa funds and most importantly the editors and the authors. It the collective to make things happen, and one of the most important things i think that this book can do is make that clear that this is an Intersection Movement to bring together people of a variety of background experiences, and i would especially like to say its important in this moment for us to recognize a though they have more Financial Resources than we do, we do have people power. Its building the People Powered ii hope can bring together the multitendency democratic ivement in the face of the neofascism of the republican party, and the neoliberalism seems to have captured the Democratic Party in the mainstream. P, we have to use them as people power together. So that we can indeed own the future. Thank you again to everyone that is involved in this event and in this project. And all of you that came here tonight. Lets now open up for qanda and please, remember to speak into the microphone. I will be happy to hand over to anyone that would like to ask a question. Thank you. I wanted to ask about the role of grace. Historicallyro in terms of what im most interested is hearing your thoughts on the tension between the two distinct inspiring things which on the one hand for the coming together of the working class to understand themselves as a class versus very specific projects and things that are articulated that can be articulated that are not a necessarily articulated. That was the one question. Does that make sense . Yes. [inaudible] what we try to argue in the book is that it has to look different than it has elsewhere for two verybu specific reasons of landn the body, so first of the indigenous and they were survived here and so these two things are foundational to how american capitalism is built. And not only that, but i think that is one thing. I think also a what we have seen over time is that there is a strategy which is to divide the 99 that gets leveraged again and again and again at the cost sf the progress of progress and when it has been transcended their insights that have overcome that, but any sort of battle were even the universal rights come up against this persistent sort of racism in the american society. I think that the new deal itself is a good example of this is a tradeoff with other democrats. Two win some level of Political Support and the idea to be exclusionary and things like redlining out of that, so either in the sort of great things we can point to. And reparations but then to make people hold in a way that has never been done. So that is one prong why democratic socialism we take examples we are not any of those countries. And those of the oil well. This is a uniquely american product and we are grappling with that and with a raise the the way racism has been used throughout history to be beaten back to what we are talking about here. The second prong of that is the climate crisis. That you have existing social societies and in the campaign for president Jesse Jackson tried to but but there are a lot of challenges and those to make that happen are with black lives and to figure out what this looks like. Hi. Im interested in hearing your thoughtsm about anybody who has been involved over the last amount of time will see that they seem like they hate each other. And to look at the anarchist those social democrats together. So how does the democratic socialist future, how do we have all of this energy with these factions and to mobilize in a way that was productive. How do you see democratic socialism. How do you see a more productive way to operate other than people writing angry articles at each other . [laughter] so the short answer is organizing. And the tendency when they are moving very slowly for those internal fights to level out and so yes, its interesting like the Bernie Sanders campaign and for medicare for all or four sanders and then to disabuse you and then different people have a different set of concerns. And to shape that psyche and thats the best way to take phone calls and then to engage in politics and the anecdotal the anger and internal division of politics. What about the socialism and to have that potential and the direct assembly and democracy and to be very local and and then to take over different offices. And with the democratic and socialism do you think . Yes. And then in milwaukee for 60 years. And it is mostly german immigrants. And it turns off quite some pride that this is very well. And then to manage and supervise people good. But in some ways city governments make a lot of sense and it is a very difficult task and again it is very difficult so for these smaller levels of power it is not original or unique. But the difficulty of that is there is backlash talking about the mayor that ran the platform at the start of the industrialization and just got total pushback from the city itself. The majorf industry field. And to talk about industrialization but he goes through and then in new york city in the seventies. And glancing at social democracy. And with no level of politics. And that worked in at the nsinstitutional level in looking at projects were there is a limited rangeed of things but there is power at the national level. Le and those things can work together. And that social government and then to be symbiotic. And the other things that you can do. Im just wondering with a democratic socialism for what we are talking about thats probably one of the reasons you ask people to define what it means that it evolves while people bill that so is that in the book over design and that aspect . Th yes. With all of these democratic socialist i would say. But yes, that the basic level what has to be right . With the oneparty state it isnt lack of democracy. It has to be because in big moments with the bottomup democracy and topdown that it just keep on it just keeps coming back that on the one hand there are these big things that need to happen which is triple the amount of activity and the electric grid and Public Housing and mass transit so imagine doing that in the democratic way is very difficult every community had to come together and the color of the seat on the train and what that would be. That would never happen. So there is a balance between direct democracy and then to occupy wall street they will tell you maybe thats not the best form for democratic decisionmaking but that is striking a balance of how you guarantee. And to have a say what affects our lives that may not be contingent. And there is some interesting history but the italian reforms that we are not the product of democratic votes. The Supreme Court decision but we were not voted on. After the film wasm is democracy, but yeah there are a lot of people who might not want that for the majority of people in the country. And what do you do about that . 51 percent of the country does not want that then what do you do . Its a constant struggle to be worked out. Hunger games style. One more question. What are your thoughts of the continue dissent of democratic socialism in a twoparty system that we have here . I think we will see a lot in the next couple months including on monday. [laughter]in talking about Bernie Sanders they are already seeing people starting to lose their minds a little bit with the process. Democratic socialist is winning. The first two primary states we will see it is this crazy moment the Democratic Party is not socialist there have been efforts that have been brutally shut down it helps to realign periodically throughout histor history, but i know. I know what will happen if Bernie Sanders wins that nomination but personally im very excited for it. L nebut even if Elizabeth Warren would win that is a sign for that institutional structure but that said, there is a tendency to treat thehe Democratic Party more as a coherent monster than it is it is a coalition where people live for power of the different interests and Critical Mass of people committed but thats not to say it is and permeable with that collective backlash if bernie wins iowa thats the furthest that project has advanced in the twoparty system but im not a historian. Thats not my goal. My favorite form of essay. No. You dont want him. Nt [laughter] it is impossible. Thank you. [applause] thank you for the hospitality this is quite an Impressive Group anybody who knows much about the subject as i do i will do my best