New york city. Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for coming out tonight to Mcnally Jackson books here at the seaport. Were really happy you came out and tonight, we are celebrating the release of we own the future democratic socialism american style. Were excited to have with us kate aronoff and michael smith, failing the working class, particularly people of color on marginalized. And exemplified by the growing members of democratic socialists of america and the popularity of politicians like Bernie Sanders and alexandria ocasiocortez. They explore how this energy might be channelled to a future that might be more inclusive. Eagletainer beyond the age of trump and beyond. Let me introduce our guests tonight. Journalist kate aronoffs writing in the guardian, jacobian, new york times, shes the coeditor of we own the future, democratic socialism american style, and she lives in brooklyn. Michael denzel smith, the author of invisible man got the whole word watching and he has written for the new york times, atlantic complex, paris review, harpers, the new republic, the guardian and the root and he has been a featured commentator, npr, cnn, cnbc, and lives in brooklyn. Now let me hand over the mic and a word to our guests, i want to say that after the discussion there will be some words by michael bennett, who is here from the dsa. And later on, there will be a q a and after that, there will be a book signing and when the q a happens, ill come back up here and hand the mic to whoever has a question so cspan, who is filming tonight, will actually be able to record your questions. All right. Thank you so much. [applaus [applause]. Good evening. Hi, kate. Hi. So capitalism, i take it youre not a fan . For sure, no. Tell me why. Its a good, big question that people have written many books about. What we argue in the book and what i happen to think, is that capitalism has sort of uniquely failed us on many fronts. So theres a sort of logic which is built in to a lot of sort of western thought. What capitalism does is sort of, i was talking to recently put it, it just extracts, it extracts, it extracts and it gives very little back, right . And so for centuries now the Economic System we happen to live within has extracted lapped, its extracted labor, and in order to heal the sort of massive profit making apparatus in the most, you know, basic sense. And so what we argue in the book is theres a lot of theories, right, about what comes after capitalism, what you do to sort of transcend capitalism or whatever, you know adjective or add verb adverb how you want to get around that. We as coauthors or as coeditors come to different conclusions about that personally. Our contributors to come to different sort of ideas about that, but what we sort of all agree on, sort of common ground, is that we have to replace capitalism as societys operating system. What does that mean . To do that, it means to prioritize something other than the volumous accumulation of profits in society and theres been a pushback, for as long as weve had capitolism, from labor, socialist movement. Theres push and pull what capitalism can do. We think that its time for history to sort of flip that and prioritizing people, and prioritizing the planet in order to build a society which is basically sustainable, which this one clearly isnt if were to believe any climate scientists writing out there. So the book spends time thinking about the different ways it can do that and so, initially when we were coming up with sort of ideas where well begin at, we wrote a list of 50 Different Things many of which that didnt make it in there and that made it in the book. Rather than thinking about what does it look like to have sports under democratic system and what does it look like to have health care under democratic socialism, we really ask people to think about it through the lens of their expertise, so not saying focus on this issue and thats it, but what is it what does it like to develop a society through this, and ask people to talk about what they want to talk about. I was very happy to see a lot of kind of overlap between that and people sort of coalescing around that. Because capitalism is such is holistic system, and you know, sort of smartly has gotten rid of the idea of political economy, the idea that the economy in politics and society are things that are intimately bound off one another, its hard to think about what those connections are, and thinking about silos, and what i hope comes out from the sort of collection much these essays is that its really hard to move on any of these fronts without moving on all of them effectively and having a real vision, which i think is what socialism has been good at historically, a vision where were going, and thats what we try to communicate. A couple of things that you said that im going to pick up on a little later. But i want to ask, you are sort of honing in on the idea of socialism, democratic socialism, which is at the very least in the past, i dont know, decade or a little over a decade, theres been a resurgence of an interest or like a critique that is grounded in a democratic socialist tradition. But im curious, why socialism in particular as anticapitalist, as opposed to other traditional anticapitalist . I would hone in on two things, i think that one is, as the collection points out a long, long history in the United States of socialism. So, you know, people who in early america were inspired by folks like robert owen, kind of utopian socialist out of the uk. And people inspired by marx and virtually everyone who thinks of themselves in that tradition reaching from people wb deboise, to a. Philip randolph and the antiwar movement, thats been American History. Sometimes more openly than others of course, organizers in the 50s and 60s were not always waving socialist flags around. So i think we see that sort of coming up at this moment when, you know, people who are our age or even a little bit older dont have the same kind of hangups that are baked into people who lived through, you know, this period where it was illegal or you could be deported for being a communist or a socialist. I think that had a profound affect on the american left or how you relate to the word socialism, a tiny, tiny influence on the left. So now that we are past that moment thankfully, millennials and not just millennials, but are comfortable with that term. We have people like Bernie Sanders who is identified for a democratic socialist for long time winning sort of the vote under 35 by double digits in, you know, this election and the past election or polls for this election. And so its a thing that keeps coming up. And the period in which were living in is sort of like a post2008 moment. You saw emergence of these by occupy wall street in 2011. Black lives in 2013 and 2014 and onward and the rights movement, sort of 2015. Wave of teachers strikes starting in chicago. These moments sort of kick off, but are coming from different places, right, so people who are involved in all of these movements come from organizing traditions which are much, much older and have their roots in many cases in organized labor and unions built by socialists and maybe purged at some point, but socialist roots sort of all of these things. So i think there is this real sort of that pops up again once this sort of manages to cool down and people want an alternative and its not enough to say we dont want this, dont want that. Socialism is to say that theres something were working toward like i said before. Something idiosyncratic to the u. S. Weve never had for many of those reasons we are talking about, weve never had a democratic socialist party. Weve had socialist party, but we have not contested for power in meaningful way. We dont have like france, which is austerity and so theres a different kind of resonance to socialism here thats a little more novel and fun than it is in a country where, you know, the socialists were the ones who cut your or you know, implemented tuition hikes or cut your Welfare Benefits or cut Public Services in any number of ways, so you dont have that hangup either of living with like a socialist party. And what to figure out what does an american socialist. Did you ever consider calling it american socialism is a little more fun . [laughter] you said in the introduction that you deliberately dont offer a definition of socialism and you dont ask any of the contributors to really do so either. Can you walk us through the reasoning for that . Yeah, i think part of this comes from, at least for me, from reporting a lot on this resurgence, in the u. S. , for dsa, and you know, hes enlisted things from the labor party in u. K. That comes out of british socialism, but i think it would be a little dishonest, honestly on our parts, especially for a collection of essays, to sort of posit authoritative definition of socialism when we see its really a pluralistic movement at this point, right. Even dsa is sort of self consciously pluralistic not falling into the sectarian trap of having five different little groups all fighting with each other. You know, theres a commitment to having this vehicle, which men have to Work Together and fights and debates and real sort of battles in it, but theres a commitment to having some kind of institutional forum. And people identify with socialism for a lot of Different Reasons and it means a lot of Different Things to a lot of people. So, you know, we convene this collection of people, i think, in part, because we were curious. What do people make of this, and how do they read that through the stuff that theyve been writing about and thinking about for a very long time and land in different places. People in the collection range from sort of, you know, one identifies as social democrats or people who are libertarian socialists, maybe kind of have things theres a wide range in some way reference, i dont know, of Socialism Means in america today. Theres a wide range of topics and i think it you hit some of the notes that are pretty expected talking about workers rights and were talking about, you know, corporate greed, were talking about, you know, democracy, were talking about things that immediately attribute or associate with a socialist intellectual tradition and organizing tradition. But theres also the right to a good life and its touching on ideas of what art looks like under socialism, like you mentioned, like sports. Essentially, i think, what life looks like with things that we do with one another, things that bring us joy and imagining those under a socialist organizing principle, whats important to you about like theorizing what that life looks like . Yeah, yeah, i think, you know, i have been doing activism, well, since college. I think i certainly fell into it climate and i think theres a sort of tendency to sort of struggle in a certain way and think about like were always, you know going up against, whether its the boss, the corporation or, you know, the state or whatever it is, were always sort of in constant battle. And theres a lot of critique, a lot of saying the way we dont want things to be. I think some of the most inspired moments in social history is when its possible to imagine something else, a new way of organizing society that is not just people just do not exist in the workplace, do not just exist in corporations. We have all of these other things that fill our time and that those two have been really taken over by profit motive, by many things and i think, you know, this gets at the question of sports really well and just how capitalism has managed to sort of brew itself into this thing that should be fun, but isnt anymore, unfortunately, for most the people who play, play sports and any sort of like even semi professional capacity. To watch. Well, to watch i dont really. Im not really a sports person about you i can appreciate it. But, yeah, but we also have to, you know, be thinking not just about the parts of life that are hardest, but what does it look like to have a good life, it comes from the tradition and thinking about it in a holistic way, were not just sort of outside of our relationship to work. Can get is rightfully talked about a lot, but there are other things to throw in there. I do think so in particular, things that are touched on in the book are reimagining things that will bring us joy, trying to see what that looks like as a nonexploitive thing, whatever. Theres another part of this, were talking about a total restructuring of a society. Were reorienting ourselves like ideally toward different modes of interacting with one another, different modes of engaging in governing and economics and all of the things that are listed, health care, so forth and so on. So, we are theres i think what im trying to get at is like we have a politics now that essentially promises people that nothing will change. Thats the idea is that i can vote for me because you will be comfortable in exactly the way that you are you understand comfort now, right . And so youre in this collection is saying, theres a whole different vision, right. So your life will change. How honest do we have to be then about what gets lost . Yeah, i mean, i think about this question a lot around climate, right . Because that has always been showing sacrifice, for as long as we talk about the environment in the u. S. And arguably and many other places. Theres a sort of notional idea that things will be better in the future, but in the meantime, you have to give up your cars, your hamburgers, you know, its a matter of sacrifice and its sort of like a quality where youre chased enough, basically, in your Consumer Habits that you will manifest a glorious future. Maybe in like slightly less religious terms, but its just, you know, i think that the idea that we cant have other life has been of the most successful project, thats the thing like the idea that things will never get better, that they cant ever get better. As Margaret Thatcher said, there is no alternative, that has been really effective. Its really powerful. Its a powerful narrative to think that, you know, your conditions cant changes, that our conditions cant change and that theres nothing, nothing in this world that could make that make society be organized any differently than it is now and its a sort of like rewriting of history almost, right . Because we know that humans organized themselves in very different ways and do organize themselves in different ways in different places and throughout history, right . Capitalism is a blip of roughly speaking on in the history of humanity and the history of the earth and to think about it, i think its helpful to put it so much damage. Yeah, in 30 years we have threatened to make the planet unlivable. Yeah, were capitalism is very productive. Never tell you that capitalism hasnt done things, because it really has theyre not good for you unless youre be dead by 2050. Exactly. So, no, i think i might have wandered off from the original point, but i think that is what socialism does, it says that there is alternative and there are many alternative and we can beat this and i think in an i digs to having a vision that sort of is a commitment to fighting for it, right, a commitment to saying, i think contra a lot of even liberal or progressive thought that theres a us and theres a them. There are certain people who have made out very well, the majority of people have not, right, this is the most sort of enduring occupy wall street with 99 versus the 1 . Theres a small strat tum of society that things are working out and for most its not. And organizing collectively is the way to change that. Hi, everyone. Though i am a member of dsa im actually a member as the chair of 501, 3c devoted to socialist education and we are happy to be here represented tonight to support this project foshl through the dsa fund though i dont speak for dsa i was having a meeting with the National Director at dsa and she sends greetings of solidarity. Because together dsa and dsa fund are around the book making Copies Available to our member. Because the book, we are the future, is part of the socialistic process, a collective process, its great we could bring so many people to this movement through thinking and writing about what youve done. The book brings together a lot of authors from various points of view talking about an array of issues important to democratic socialists and people promoting the book are part of a collective, you have the new press, you have Mcnally Jackson, dsa, dsa fund, most importantly the editors and authors in our events here tonight, dissent magazine. It takes a collective to make things happen and one of the most important things i think that this book can do is make that clear this is an intersectional movement that brings together people of a variety of differences and experiences and id especially like to say that its important in this moment for us to recognize that while the other side may have a lot more Financial Resources than we do, we have people power. And its people power that i helped bring this together for a multitendency Democratic Socialist Movement in the face of neo fascism in the Republican Party and the democratic mainstream. We have to bring that together so we can indeed own the future. Thank you for everyone involved in this event and this project, and all of you who came here tonight. Lets now open up for a q a and please remember, speak into the mic so ill be happy to hand this over to anyone who would like to ask a question. Thank you. I wanted to ask about the role of race, historically in terms of why the u. S. Doesnt have a socialist party and thinking of the communist organizing of the south. And the tension between two distinct equally exciting things coming together for a multiracial working class, understand themselves as a class, versus very specific projects, like a black radical project and things that are articulated that, can be articulated, but arent necessarily for soccial does that make sense. Talking about when im speaking, yeah, what we sort of argue in the book is that any American Democratic socialism has to look different than it has elsewhere, socialism has elsewhere for two very specific reasons. So one is that this country is built on foundation of genocide and theft of land and of bodies, so first of indigenous slaughter when settlers first arrived here and second of slavery, right. And so these two things are foundational to how american capitalism is built and not only that, like i think that, you know, that is one thing. I think also what weve seen over time is that theres a strategy which is to divide the 99 against itself and it gets leveraged again and again and again at the cost of any progressive progress and there are moments there are sites that have overcome that, but any sort of battle, even any sort of universal rights come up against this persistent sort of racism in american society. I think the new deal itself is a great example of this, right, just trade off with other democrats to win, you know, some level of clinical support and say, these programs will be exclusionary, when we get things like redlining. Right, so, even in these sort of great things we can point to, you know, there are plenty of lessons to take from the new deal, but was, you know, one of many things throughout American History that has been torpedoed in some ways, because weve not really grappled with legacy. We look in the book at this head on. Authors who argue for a reconstruction. And hamilton for what he calls the threelegged stool for racial and economic justice, of federal job guarantee, of reparations, and to really sort of look at what it would look like to not sort of reckon with history, but to redress theft and to really make people whole in a way thats never been done historically. So thats, you know, the one prong of why democratic socialism, while we can certainly take examples from sweden, from norway, from existing social democracies, were not any of those countries, right . Were not a country of five million white People Living on oil wells. And we do live on oil wells in some ways, but that, you know, this a uniquely american product and doing that means really grappling with that and recognized ways that racism has been used sort of throughout our history to beat back any sort of reform that were talking about here and sort of revolutionary things we might hope for and the second prong of that, which overwhelming domination is the climate crisis, and certainly had to grapple with that and weve had existing social society with the planet and that means this project has to look different than it has before and its been tough to build multiracial movements, right . I think you know, Jesse Jackson did some of the most interesting work on this, i think, in his campaign for president. I think Bernie Sanders is trying to, but there are a lot of challenges, right, to doing this work and i think, you know, ive been by folks making that happen coming from trying to figure out what this looks like because its just what we have to do. Any more questions. Hi, id actually, im interested in hearing your thoughts about, you know, as anybody who has been involved with the left for any amount of time youll see that different factions on the left sometimes seem like they hate each other more than they hate capitalists. [laughte [laughter]. If you get like, i dont know, mls anarchists, socialist democrats together in a room and say like syria, for instance, it can get pretty ugly. So i guess my question is, like how do how does this democratic socialist future, how can we harness all of this leftist energy into like if all of these factions of leftists actually came together and mobilized in a way that was productive. Like how do you see democratic socialism working within that . I mean, whats a how do you see like a more productive way for anticapitalist furor operate other than writing angry articles at each other in commune versus jackvin. [laughter] yeah, the short answer is organizing, right . And i think that in like not that i am any great organizer, but in the organizations ive been involved in theres attendana tendency when theres nothing really happening for those fights to bubble up faster, sometimes legitimate ones, sometime silly ones just sort of and so, yeah, i think i mean, its interesting to think about this in like the perspective of Something Like the Sanders Campaign when i think like, actually, the people going out and knocking doors for anything, whether thats for medicare for all for sanders, or whatever it is, like really meps seems to disabuse you of things talking with 12 friends who agree with you, talking to everyday people who have a different set of concerns. I think that ive just personally found that helpful to sort of shake out of, you know, my own, whatever like psyche, but i think that, yeah, actually hitting doors is one of the best. The best way of making phone calls and texts, and occasional work in politics, a nice adeck anecdote to sort of like, politics. Yeah, i wanted to ask about the municipal socialism and communalism that i think has a lot of potential and there are Different Things to that, but one is the idea of kind of the direct assembly, direct democracy and what came out of the occupy movement and yeah, lets talk and deal with stuff. And kind of like towns and cities and states and how you create, and what could have been done here and other places in taking over different offices that kind of from a micro level upwards and do those two intersect within the book and kind of contemporary democratic socialism, do you think . Yeah, its a good question. So in their essay they talk about a lot of american socialism and the socialist party proper which has its roots in milwaukee which had a socialist government for 60 years i want to say. Starting with people like vick burger, and you know, a wave of like mostly german immigrants in wisconsin. And so they, you know, had socialism which was i think it started off ar a pejorative and then became a point of pride, saying we will ride Municipal Services really well and we will ride a functional city and manage to provides peoples goods. And i think, and bill fletchers essay actually gets at some of this, which is that in some ways, you know, city governments, state governments make a lot of sense for a place to start, right, because its local. Like mounting for senate is a difficult task, as weve seen again and again in new york, its very difficult, for things like governor. And so, contesting for these smaller levels of power, theres a trajectory there thats not particularly like original or unique to see you run for something small, you run for something bigger and work your way up. But i mean, what those essays really points out and the difficulty of that, theres dak backlash, right . He talks about gary, indiana which had a mayor who man on a progressive platform and wanted to turn the city around at the start of industrialization and just got total pushback, basically capital strikes from the city itself. The major industry steel left, basically. We need to talk about how much of that would be industrialization, how much was politically motivated, who can tell, but he goes through example after example of less projects, city and state level being new york city, right, in the 1907 1907s 1970s, it was sort of glimpsing of democracy and the crisis happened and wiped out and you can find books about the city really tells the story very well, but its like no level of politics, its sort of immune from that kind of backlash and i think thats tough to grapple with especially sort of worked in institutional level where you have very limited municipal power in some place, i mean, looking at projects like where there is just a very limited range of things that they can do and theres very exciting things they manage to do, but there is power at the national level. That, unless you have that, you cant. So i think those two things can really Work Together and i guess, you know, well see how much, socialist government managed to sort of be symbiotic with the municipalists, but i think theres a really delicate balance and limited things you can do in the name of government, but things can really improve peoples lives. Get a couple more questions in here. Im wondering if you say more about democrat ic party and the democratish socialism. And people think about marxism and thats why you didnt ask people to define what it is because its basically what people defined while theyre building it. I wondered how that played in the book and the design and what people had to say. Yeah, we have a small democratic socialists, i would say, i am certainly. And, yeah, i mean, i think on the, you know, on the most basic level have to be democratic and in the future its not a one party state. Its sort of not a lack of democracy. And you know, i think that has to be core because i think, you know, in big in big moments of transformationally changes between the bottom up democracy and you know, sort of top down, top down action. I think, you know, from perspective it keeps coming back to where happens, this is a real attention because on the one hand and this is true of basically anything, on one hand there are big things that need to happen quickly to electrify, triple the amount of activity which takes place, the electricity grid, try basically everything, build out mass transit, public housing, any number of things which is just to imagine doing that in a directly democratic way, its very difficult, burgeoning on impossible. If Everyone Community had to come together and sort of decide which, what the color of seat on the train is going to come to your town is going to be. Like, it would never happen. And so i think theres a balance between direct democracy like anyone who participated in a general assembly, occupy wall street and probably tell you thats not maybe the best forum or democratic decision making, but what does democracy mean, i think is striking that balance is how do you actually guarantee rights to people and you know, some sort of say in the decision that affects their lives while not making that contention. I think, you know, in the u. S. Theres an interesting history which is that some of the most egalitarian reforms are not and democratic votes were executive orders, Supreme Court decisions which were made sort of at the behalf of the social movement, but not voted on and probably would have been unpopular. After. Is democracy. Im not going to butcher it but yes i think there are a lot of people that might not look for the majority of people in the him what a do you do about tha . 51 to country does not want it, what do you do . I think its a constant thing to work out. The hunger game style. I think with time for one more. Im curious what your thoughts are on the democratic socialism and what it looks like in the traditionally twoparty system that we have here. I think we are going to see a lot in the next couple of mom is including on when monday. We are already starting to see people lose their mind a little bit. The democratic socialists running the first two primary states which is the hostility at this point. We will see. Its like this crazy unprecedented moment it hasnt been a party thereve been efforts to reform it that have been brutally shut down a hand of the realignment throughout history, but i dont know. I would be able to say that i know what will happen if democratic Bernie Sanders wins the nomination. It feels like the territory but im pretty excited for, but i think that even if someone like Elizabeth Warren were to blame, both of them are aware of the sort of institutional structure and i think there is a tendency to treat it more like the coherent monster that it is. Its a weird coalition where people just vie for power and theres different interests and Critical Mass of people committed to not changing very much but thats not to say that its not like a permeable wall and the sort of collective backlash if bernie wins iowa which is the furthest the project has advanced in the twoparty system may be ever. You dont want bernie to win. Its impossible. Tell me why Bernie Sanders camp cannot win. Thank thank you. [applause] weeknights this month were featuring tv programs showcasing whats available every weekend here on cspan2. Tonight our focus is the founding fathers. Watch booktv this week and every weekend here on cspan2. Cspan has roundtheclock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, and its all available on demand at cspan. Org coronavirus. Watch widest briefings, updates from governors and state officials, track the spread throughout the u. S. And the world with interactive maps. Watch ondemand anytime unfiltered at cspan. Org coronavirus. I am very delighted to welcome you to our event today. Its on a conservative case for class actions, a book written by professor fitzpatrick that galvanized this debate. We have three outstanding speakers, panelists i should say. Our first is the head of the class action practice here it gets indented coach rivera key has litigated in the fitted doubtless class actions including over 20 dismissals of class action cases. So you may have a sense of where his position is on that. He is a graduate of georgetown, undergraduate and the university of Virginia Law School where he was the long review and hes also the author of a chapter in the popular better guide series on 1702 and