Being called the United States of socialism being published but a lot has changed since then and built and set probably a fairly obvious answer but love good looks up and publish about socialism in response to whats changed the last five years and they all have a bit of a different on it and emphasize different points, so why the United States of socialism, why you write this book . Guest i noticed that there been a fort of books on socialism. Thats no surprise because socialism has come into the american mainstream for the first time in our countrys history. There has been socialist candidates in the past, eugene debs, norman thomas, but they were never in the mainstream. But now in fact, and temperament of us that socialism had collapse of in its 20th century, suddenly in the 21st century its back and back with a vengeance. Im not surprised theres a lot of books that try to take stock of this. Theres a unifying theme to these books and by large it is an appeal to his super its idea that socialism has never worked before concerning enough alike of being tried. It was tried in really the majority of the world, the largest country in the world, russia, china, india all swung in the social direction. The issue isnt the socialism didnt work before so its not going to work now. The verdict of history argument. The problem with that argument is the socialist left young people dont know the history so doesnt really get them. The second part of it is even those who do say listen, we are trying a new of socialism, number one. Its not authoritarianism socialism. Its democratic socialism. Number two, our model is not lenin or mao. It is scandinavia. We like the way people live in norway and sweden. Those are not horrible countries so why not the scandinavian model . It works right there. You can see it. And three, with new types of socialism. Our socialism isnt just about class grievances, it includes racial grievances and gender grievances and transgender grievances so in other words, the left is putting forward this kind of new socialism if you will and insisting this time it actually can and will work. Host lets start there may be. Gating straight what areas were talking about. When you write a book about socialism what is socialism youre talking about . In the classic since it meant something the marks to lynn, the most early socialists and there was an early economic concept. Some form of collective ownership of the means of production abolishing private property. That form of socialism isnt very common today, least in large scale. What is it that you mean when you say socialism in this context . Guest the new socialism is not i would call a classic socialism. Socialism has evolved over the last century and have. Originally this is socialism before marx. It meant voluntary communities of people who would come together on their own, share all the possessions. There was usually a free love component but the state was not involved. Marx came along and proposed is socialism which essentially was the revolt of the proletariat and the working class that would presumably overthrow the capitalist class and take over. Take over the means of production and ultimately take over the whole community. That prediction of marks have never come through. Even to this day in your in the world, theres never been that kind of a work or revolt ever. In the early and late 20th century socialism meant for many countries nationalization i grew up in india. The income took over the banks, took over the airlines, controlled the farming industry. Socialism and practice met state ownership of massive Major Industries and critical industries. The left today is not interested in any of this, per se. The new socialism has an economic component and has all of these ideas like the Green New Deal, medicare for everybody, free college. You can see these ideas are not embraced by the mainstream of the Democratic Party but it also includes, this is important, a cultural component. I write some in this book outline why say the typical socialist today is not a union guy demanding higher wages. Its sort of an feminist and marches and black lives matter or in peaceful rallies and throws cement blocks after political opponents. Thats that a character that marks could have foreseen and it reflects the fact we are dealing here with an interesting hybrid of cultural and economic issues. A lot of socialist today care more about abortion than the minimum wage. They care more about the transgender bathroom than they care about the universal basic income. Theres a cultural component the sometimes overtakes the economic component. Host lets work our way through those. Economic component leading to these cultural components. I found it amusing at one point you defined hardcore socialists, quasisocialists and socialism light, like a bud light passage may be. What mean by those terms . What falls into those categories . Guest a good way to think about this is to compare biden against for example, Bernie Sanders. Bernie sanders is an explicit socialist. He sounds like an oldtime socialist. Theres a comic element, he honeymoons in the soviet union, bread lines are a good thing. This is a bit too much. I dont think that this is socialism you can get sold in the United States. The democrats have opted for i would call socialism light preps more accurately biden. Biden for example, opposed free college but now hes for it. Why . Because the pool and the Democratic Party is toward the left and saw a good way to think about socialism now its not so much as a defined thing but to think of the free market on one end of the spectrum and socialism on the other end and ask this question. Which democrat is pulling in the free market direction and which democrat is pulling in the socialist direction . Simple answer is they are all pulling in the socialist direction without exception. Its a matter of whether theyre pulling hard or pulling softly. The democrats to decide lets go with reaping socialism. Its more marketable than bernies socialism and thats why they picked biden over bernie. Host i think the right to talk about this as being on a spectrum. Even in defining a narrow version of socialism of nationalizing the means of production there are varying degrees of that for socialism and present. Soviet union during communism or mao during complete nationalization. They are still overwhelmingly socialist at the same for countries like us that a more on the capitalist and of the spectrum and maybe running in the opposite way. One is a singlepayer health care or some the nationalized healthcare that some socialists would like. That fits into the traditional definition of socialism a little bit better. Guest yeah, it does and, of course, there are welfare states in europe that have National Control of healthcare. Part of it is to start you captivate about being honest about them the know what youre talking about. When i listened to people like Elizabeth Warren talk about medicare for all or single payer healthcare they begin by using a kind of rhetoric that has to be unpacked. They will say we want to take healthcare away from the Greedy Pharmaceutical Companies and turn over to the people. That we want the people to be in control of their health care and the way their health care is administered. And ask the obvious question, what role do or will the people having any of this . Lets look at other government institutions, the post office. What control do you cry have a controlling the post office . None. What controlled ribbon running the dmv . None. What control does the ordinary british i have over the British NationalHealth Service . None. So the people here all of it ever will. The people not running anything. Elizabeth warren is. Right away we realize socialism offers something to the socialist class that is proposing it. Its not just the pharmaceutical companies but theres a third player, the politicians who have great deal of power to gain and power that is alternately convertible into money. Thats a very important component of socialists in america get very rich. People are able to parlay their positions ultimately into vast amounts of cash, its happened to the bidens, the clintons, obamas, al gore. How do people go from zero to 100 million on the government salary . They do it by cashing in on the public positions. Thats the first point i want to make is that the people are not in charge in fact. The real question is who is going to an healthcare . Failed coup industry including the insurance industry, or the Political Class . That makes it more of the actual choice they face. Host i think youre on point you in this is true of socialist revolutions everywhere that are done in the name of the people at the end of the benefiting the nomenclature or in the case of orwell some are more equal than others. One thing it will throughout as part of this Economic Policy is they do say treating everybody more equally. The universal basic income. We are going to guarantee a minimum income to all americans as part of this so they can be free from the oppression of want. How do you respond to different proposals on that . Guest this is where weve seen a bit of a preview of, a nasty preview of socialism under coronavirus where we said some form, a miniature universal basic income. For the left this is almost a recipe. They almost want to say to the American People hey, youve been sitting on your couch for munster how would you like keep doing it . Why do you want to put on an outfit and she then go to work and punch a time clock to listen to your employer rate and grant . How about if we give you 10042000 a month and a month and essentially make you a permanent slug . I have to admit to some of it in human nature that says wow, thats fantastic. Who wants to get off the couch . This appeal to all of us and ultimately it points to the type of socialism by the way the democrats are selling. Marx wouldve been disgusted by this. Marx admired the worker who was sweating and putting in the long day. Marx only point is your putting too much of the load on this guy. At some point his back is going to break and at some point you have enough. Hes dripping with sweat as it is. Marx was workers of the world unite, and not as been . Have it now, freeloaders of the world unite. Democrats did it would seem prefer that we dont work. Aoc made a video where she goes we are not going back to work, dont keep telling us to go back to work. We are trying to make, tried to make this temporary condition permanent. Another way to put it is the same shortages, limits on purchases, things im familiar with in india under indian socialism, so under coronavirus with god temporary case case of what socialism would feel like on a permanent basis and we should also forget the attack on civil liberties. Thats the key part of what socialists do. Its not just economic confrontation with its also no religious liberty, no freedom of assembly, no freedom of speech, no guns. Host its funny when you pay people not to work you dont get production, and we seen some of that in these recent months. Another window bring up and this doesnt fit with the traditional marxist view but free college. I dont see college soon as the opacity class, the free college for everybody or forgiveness of student debt as part of the package. Guest i was watching 60 minutes and i see the fellow whose name is joel, studying to be a doctor and he goes man, i would be such a better doctor if i didnt have to worry about paying for medical school. It would be so great if his education was free, i could put all my attention into being an outstanding doctor. And heres leslie stahl nodding with appreciative idiocy. Im waiting to ask the key question which is hey, joel, e. G. What other people, other guys to pay for your education, once you become a doctor, are you willing to work for free . The answer is obviously not. He wants the bmw lifestyle. He wants the pool in the backyard. He wants to have a big house and someone. Heres my point. He wants the privileges and perks but he wants some poor plumber or from and to pay for his education. The shamelessness of this is i think a little shocking, and i dont think again that marks have any sympathy for the sky. He would consider a part of the bourgeoisie, part of the class actually be thrown on his back when the working class became angry enough the problem with the working class of course today in america is about they are less likely be found at the union revolt than they are to be found at a truck rally. The left has lost the working class. Host the working class rather than being marxian theory has been wildly prosperous over the last 150 years. Change this whole game to define their constituency. One of the new policies that is being proposed by them, on the face environmentalism, but really has a lot of socials components underneath. Why is the Green New Deal a red new deal . Guest if you look at the Green New Deal, a number of its remedies have nothing to do with climate change. I also believe many of the politicians pushing the Green New Deal neither know nor care whether the arctic is getting colder or how to express it exact the same as when they were kids. This is ultimately a pretext and arrears. Why do need for a ruse at all . You touched on it a emoticon wn you said the working class is not going to deliver what the socialists want. An economist about 100 years ago raise the question, why has socialism not become mainstream in america . All socialist utopias have come for roast beef and apple pie. In other words, the working guy is living to welcome he wants to join the capitalist class come not to sort of violently fling it to the ground. The left figure this out. They realize we need to have it. We need new types of ways to get to socialism without the kind of revolt that marx predicted that would happen. Now they rely on the politics of fear. Fdr learn in the new deal that fear is a great way to get things done that you could do otherwise. Since then i would say since the 70s when i first came to america in my teens from india i had been hearing this. In the 70s \70{l1}s{l0}\70{} the world was running out of food. In the 80s there was nuclear apocalypse. In the 90s the ozone layer was apparently dissipating. Last 20 years its been climate change, the oceans are rising, the glaciers are melting, the penguins are coughing, then lately coronavirus fixate think it in every case the idea is to create panic and to try to get people to do in a stampede in a crab mentality but it would not do if they thought about it enacted in a in a calm and deliberative manner. That has become key to the strategy of the left, hence the importance of climate change. Host you moved us in that direction, you identified this time of fear early in the 1930s as canada america began its transition to socialism. In the presidency of fdr and policies he was putting in place. Would you elaborate on that traffic i like to highlight to the elements of fdr that are neither all that well known. One of them of course is that fdr actually favored, this is almost comic to say today, 100 tax rate. He thought he made over a certain amount of money the government should take everything. At one point even said, why should any american make over 25,000 per year . Obviously at this time it did mean 25,000 in our purchasing power but nevertheless, a statement is revealing. Wanted a limit of what americans could earn. The other thing fdr did was he introduced the politics of demonizing the rich, which is been very critical to the politics of the american left. Not just the socialist but the Democratic Party in general. This is worth noting because its not necessarily a characteristic of the socialist countries. Look at scandinavia. In the scandinavian countries you will never see people demonizing a guy who is running nokia or demonizing the guy who runs erickson. Hes a bad guy, were going to make him pay. The politics of dividing society not just one may but other ways. We are all in this together to be contrasted with what can be called division socialism which is critical to the politics of the left today. Look at the racial divide. They seized upon it because it is part of their socialist strategy. A couple years ago, in socialism sucks, two economist travel the unfree world, finished up by going to the big socialist conference, i went to socialism 2018 and talked to young people, nobody in our age range, they were in their 70s, they were 35 and under. Do they mean by socialism. It i heard it from some hardcore. And climate issues. And across the spectrum. I dont see that in marks anywhere. I was surprised by that. I have sympathies with the issues they point out but solutions always seem wrongheaded. I call it identity socialism. Would you like to elaborate . This is one of the signal contributions of my book like i identify and try to diagnose the new type of socialism. That the marriage of classic socialism and identity politics. Think of classic socialism as a strategy of marxian division between the rich and the poor loosely speaking. For the modern american socialist left the divided society is that but not just that but a race divide, black against white, gender divide mail against female, Sexual Orientation divide straight against gay and immigration divide, legal against illegal. With marxist dividing society to two groups, the destroying to slice American Society to many different, why are they doing this . Because they think if they decide society in eight ways that we can assemble a Majority Coalition of aggrieved Victim Groups that can come together. And and this is what they call democratic socialism, a form of gangsterism. It is not a whole lot of difference. If i had a could going to school with 10 marbles in my pocket with one guy jumps me and forcibly seizes my marbles, and 10, the other 9 jumped me and take my marbles, either way i am robbed. What about the banner socialism, with very individual issues that dont necessarily stick together. What pools them together . Socialists are unified by hatred, hatred of capitalism but more broadly a hatred of what can be called the infrastructure of western society that has made capitalism flourish within it. They dont just paint the market or the insurance company, they also hate the family. They hate the idea of a judeochristian structure of morality, these churches which are a vehicle for people to express their freedom of cons