Bush administration and later jared cohen set the precedent due to the deaths of their predecessors. Enjoy book tv now and over the weekend on cspan2. Starting out on book tv World AffairsInstitute Distinguished fellow joshua project discusses the views of socialism. Thanks to jeff and charles for the hospitality. And as alluded to, this is quite an august group including im afraid a number of people who know as much about the subject asi do. Im going to do my best to leave plenty of time for giveandtake around thetable. The book, socialism is in the airright now. The book is first of all a history and im going to quickly set the history and then spend some minutes on whats happening today and then we will have a backandforth or around the table. So the term socialism was coined in the 1820s and 30s by the followers of a small group of thinkers, british and french who were not out to overthrow governments but had ideas of a Better Society of sharing and also had the quite good idea that the way to get there was to demonstrate the validity of their ideas. And they created, they, their followers created over a period through the mid 1800s some 40 to 50 of these experimental communities, mostly in the United States even though these visionaries were europeans. Why in the United States . It seems to be on land and because the social mores were much more fluid and in fact their ideas were taken tremendously seriously. Perhaps the most important was robert owen and he announced he was coming to the United States to create a community that would demonstrate the validity of his ideas and he was taken tremendouslyseriously. On his way, he commissioned an architect to produce a scale model of the ideal socialist community envisioned and it was put on display in the white house for several months in conjunction with his arrival and then a joint session of congress was convened to hear him present his ideas and not only did the congressman and senators sit to listen but also members of the Supreme Court and outgoing president munro, incoming president elect adams spent hours listening to this presentation and the Community Set up was called new harmony. It was in indiana and it almost instantly collapsed in disharmony. And what happened with, new harmony turned out to be exactly representative of the whole group of these experiments. Historians of communes say that their median lifespan was 2 years for they went away of new harmony. And it might have been in an alternative and Imaginary History that the whole idea of socialism would have ended right there. Been there, tried that, didnt work but then it was taken up and given a much more powerful life by this remarkable tagteam of political activists and philosophers of great power. Marx and engels and they pulled off what i think has to be one of the great intellectual cons of all time. They were well aware of the results of these experimental communes. Engels in england participated in the group and wrote about it. Went to their meetings. Marx and engels said that doesnt matter. All utopia and any attempt to create socialism by acts of human will are utopian and what is important is that ive discovered the laws of history scientific socialism and these laws prove that socialism is coming. The reason i call it a con is what is science . The heart of science is experimentation. On and their followers had this idea of a Better Society and they went and conducted experiments to demonstrate the validity which sadly was not demonstrated but in any event, they were real scientific socialist red marks and engels they experimentation is no good. Weve seen the future and they offered sheer prophecy but they did it in the name of science. The prophecy though was very compelling. People found it convincing all through the second half of the 19th century, socialist parties grew up mostly of marxists strike or at least heavily under the influence of marxism and became major forces in countries all over europe. But there was a problem. 50 years after the communist manifesto, marks and engels leading the intellectual disciples, the air, Edward Bernstein observed that the prophecy wasntcoming true. The core of the loss of history is that the workers were going to grow constantly more miserable until they would be compelled to create the revolution that would usher in the new age but there had been no revolution now 50 years later. There was no sign of revolution and bernstein said well, theres been no revolution because the prediction was wrong. The situation with the workers as itsgotten worse, its gotten better. Its steadily improved. He may have been better positioned to register that because unlike marx and engels and most other socialist leaders bernstein actually was aproletarian family. He was probably much more attuned to changes in their standard of living. So bernstein basically gave up on socialism or what he said exactly is the final goal of Socialism Means nothing to me that the Movement Means everything. What did he mean by that . Socialism had come to a kind of fork in the road. The prediction that the workers would make the revolution had not been confirmed and thus you could eitherstick with the workers or stick with the revolution but you couldnt have both. Bernstein said ill stick with the workers so movement is everything meant he would continue to work for legislation, for shorter hours, better pay, what have you but forget about this image of creating the new society. The opposite choice was made by lenin. Lenin was in siberia. He ranbernstein. He was free oriented lenin was always infuriated by something that wasnt his frame of mind that he was infuriated but he didnt disagree with the premise of bernstein. He said it through the workers art making the revolution, theyre not going to make the revolution but then nevermind workers, we must have the revolution and we will have someone make it in their name, a military organization. And he insisted that this would somehow still embody the workers but this is purely mystical but despite its illogic, it succeeded. It succeeded at least in taking power in russia at a time when russia was falling apart and lenin said power was lying in the street and i just picked it up but that changed everything because suddenly, despite the predictive failure of what the workers wanted to do, suddenly the marks engels prophecy seemed to be confirmed in the most dramatic way. Socialism was now in power in a big important country. Russia at that point was Something Like six or seven percent of the population of the world and the sense that history, of the teleology, that history had a direction it was moving from the old system of capitalism to this new shiny future seemed to be confirmed and the result was that socialism was really put on the map of the world politically like it hadnt been to that moment. For one thing there were communist parties and that grew up virtually in every corner of the world trying to emulate lenin. Mostly they came from split from existing socialist parties socialist parties even though they lost some members to the communists were themselves energized and invigorated by the conviction that this, that they were the future or as they often put it, the future is going to be socialism, now you have a choice. You could pick the bad part socialism of lenin or the benignsocialism that we have to offer but you dont have any other choice. And then there was even fascism which was an offshoot of socialism in both its italian andgerman varieties. And but fascism quickly brought about the Second World War and essentially spelled the end of fascism but in the aftermath of the Second World War, the other forms of socialism were, grew even more socialism spread around the world. First of all, communism thanks to the red army was imposed in Eastern Europe and north korea. But there were also some indigenous communist movements that took power in yugoslavia, albania a few years later, most importantly china. Much of indochina, and so its ultimately about a third of the human race was living under or just under a third under communist regimes but also the democratic socialists were achieved success after, in the decades after world war ii but they never achieved before. They were able to form governments on their own with no Coalition Partners or minor Coalition Partners and attempt to pursue their path to socialism and then there was a whole new branch of the socialist tree that grew up in the aftermath of world war ii and was in the new nations that were born through decolonization so there was african socialism, arab socialism, broadly put under the rubric of third world socialism and in fact almost all of these new nations race some kind of socialism. It tended to be a melange of social democracy, communism, fascism, sometimes just strongmen wanting power and this was the way to go or the way to describe themselves so by the time we get to the mid70s, we find a situation in which the teleology of marx and engels seems right. Upwards of 60 percent of the population of the world was living under governments of one kind or another calling themselves socialists. But then the pendulum began to swing back for reasons i can think of some that were important but its not very clear why. But through the70s , we had first of all the change in portugal which i think was a significant moment. Even though the communists were affairs brett from taking power they were defeated. The forces that defeated them were led by the socialist party of portugal so it wasnt exactly a defeat for socialism but it was kind of a trigger to the third wave of democratization which in itself greatly weakened the force of communism around the world. And then in 78 we had a third plenum of the communistparty of china. With the rise of Deng Xiaoping and his second revolution which although the communist party clung to power as it stilldoes to this day , a shift in the economics of china from a socialist to a free market economics. And then a year later elected in england with a platform that she was out to kill socialism as he put it and then in the 80s gorbachev and the end of the soviet union and then also in the 80s really taking on board of the lessons of the four tigers or for dragons of east asia that were flourishing while all the rest of third world had stagnated for about 20 years under state led planning for Economic Growth and so there was a turn also in the third world away from socialism. So at that point i wrote the First Edition of this book and it was kind of an appetite. The story was over. Socialism had been tried everywhere in every conceivable way and had either failed or some of the social democrats in europe wouldnt say failed but they pulled back fromsocialism and contented themselves with creating awelfare state. That was a rat. And then this thing somehow phoenix like has risen from the grave before our eyes. My first thought as i wrote this was of marx comments on napoleon that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce and but venezuela where this Rising Phoenix first appeared, with the election of chavez in 1998 turned out to be both a tragedy and a farce. And the country has been destroyed by this Chavez Maduro regime. It was at first chavez was revolutionary antiamerican, didnt declare himself a socialist but my 05 he said we in cuba are pursuing the same revolution and in 06 he coined the slogan socialism or death which turned out not to be an either or. And we see now the results of that but even this tragic farcical repeat of so much of the history of communism and third world socialism, we see eyes in britain and america gazing upon this in rapture. It reminds me of that scene in midsummer nights dream where the enchanted person looks upon the bottom with the head of an. [bleep] andsays its beautiful. And so we see both the rise of warren and of sanders to let me spend a few words on each of them. Its funny that some of the many at this moment of the apologists for the new socialism say dont harness us with venezuela, were not talking about venezuela or at least set aside sanders for a moment, corbin wax eloquent about the great contributions of chavez and at least for a time he was in bed with maduro to on this Television Show and in venezuela as a guest. And maduro and also aoc and her colleagues in that wing of the house have been very resistant even now to criticizing maduro although theyre not and or sing him. They changed the conversation to what trump is doing or shouldnt do and cant bring themselves to give a clear condemnation of maduro area corbin has been, has gotten heat mostly for his antisemitism. All the viewers know who Bernie Sanders is, many will know who corbin is but some may not read would you say who corbin is . Jeremy corbin is now the leader of the British Labour party and with the conservative party essentially in disarray over brexit, its entirely possible the labour party will win an election and then he would become Prime Minister. Hes taken a lot of heat for his antisemitism which is all to the good but its really only part and its all to the good not bnsf is about the but its really only part of the story and on the antisemitism, there was a time when it was possible for a fairminded observer to say well, hes just very passionately antiisrael, antizionist but hes not really antijews but now we had one thing and then another and now a third that make that an untenable explanation. The one thing was his endorsement of the mural showing jewish bankers playing monopoly on the backs of enslaved dark skinned whatever, workers, slaves and then we had the clip of his saying although they live among us for a long time they dont get british irony. And of course his camp said he was referring to zionists but who have lived among us for a long time left mark linguistically, it doesnt work. He wastalking about jews. And then just now it was just recently someone found that he had written an extremely laudatory blurb to gloss the reissue of hoskins imperialism which treats imperialism as a jewish conspiracy led by the house of rothschild so its just, its too many instances to just say well, hes against zionism but theres Something Else here is he is, he is immersed in a world of stalinism. Theres, when i use that term i dont mean he was a member of the communist party but he was a columnist for the communist Party Newspaper or the daily worker of england changing its name to the morningstar back in the 60s and 70s but continued to be funded from moscow at that time. Thats his newspaper and he surrounded himself with shamus milner and Andrew Murray and others who not only come from the communist world but actually the communists were divided in britain between the communist party of britain and the communist party of great britain. These were two rival factions read the point being that one faction was eventually probe gorbachev and before that pro euro communist and the other faction were hardliners who really most presented chris jobs disavowal of stalin. This was called the straight left room and corbins circle of advisers comes from this hardline calmness group. Father communists called them thetaxis. Attendees meeting that they supported the soviet invasion of hungary in 56 and prodding 68 and supported the tax going in. Thats corbins million so the prospect of corbin, never mind whether he will create socialism but if he becomes Prime Minister of england, its certainly going to be something very painful for jews but also its impossible to see for me how the us British Security cooperation can continue if he were to become the Prime Minister of england and then we have Bernie Sanders who is not the same thing as corbin, who calls himself a democratic socialist which is what i and others around the table used to call ourselves but is he . You can see on Youtube Sanders in the 1980s really waxing eloquent at length about the wonders of the sandinista regime in nicaragua and just regurgitating sandinista propaganda claim for claim, line for line with great assertiveness and indignation at anyone who would disagree and then doing much the same for the claims accomplishments of castro in cuba and even going to honeymoon in the soviet union and coming back and getting a press conference in which he didnt wax as eloquent as he did about nicaragua but in which the thrust of what he had to say was a great things he had seen in the soviet union in terms of public transport and especially in terms of their cultural programs that they made available to the people at a very low price. He would hasten to say and yet you may have seen that in the New York Times yesterday a reporter was asking him about this and said is there anything you said about the soviet union or latin america back in the 1980s that you think differently about today andhe said no. So what kind of socialism he actually believes in seems to me is way up in the air. Lastpoint , sometimes he says well, its scandinavia. More often its apologists for sanders. I noticed their calling oped columns in recent weeks. Not only in the United States, some dont reallyneed. These people sanders and cortez are so inarticulate they cant explain themselves but let me help, they dont really mean socialism at all, they mean social democracy like in scandinavia. But aside from the fact that these people are so inarticulate but whats wrong with that line of argument is that there is a scandinavian model and it involves a much bigger Public Sector than we have in the us but that Public Sector rests on a thriving capitalist