[applause] >> good evening, everyone. welcome. i'm your events coordinator here and i'm very excited to see you all. before we get started, please silence your cellphone because we're being recorded by booktv, c-span. tonight i'm happy ocruise nathan robinson, founder and editor in chief for his new book, why you should be a social quest. he is in conversation with pete davis. please join me in welcoming pete davis and nathan robinson. [cheers and applause] >> thank you everyone for coming tonight. nathan arrived from new orleans, louisiana. did i pronounce louisiana rate. >> you died. >> how was the flight? >> every was unobjectionable and not noteworthy in and way. >> we're so glad to have you here, how many of you are already socialists? [applause] >> why are we here. >> made my day. >> convinces you of things. wasn't there an original cover where it was like a finger pointing at you? >> yeah. the problem is i think a lot of the audience for this book will be like people who want a book like why you are socialist about it's directed at the original title was, socialism for people who are extremely skeptical of it. hello. i don't know. >> and i wanted something you could give to the nonsocialists in your life in order to make them understand you as a socialist. >> for those who cheered tonight perhaps the book and what nathan says today will help give you things to say to other people. for whose shifting in your chairs and looking back and forth, perhaps this is a time to see what a great case for this system of government and politics. but i'd like to begin with thinking but they say philosophy is biography. what you're socialism origin story? >> social jim story. >> were you borne a socialist. >> i don't think anyone is born a socialist. it's a little impossible. >> tweeting in womb. >> so, basically i am originally from inland, moved to florida as a young person, the age of five, and probably the same as you, there comes a moment where a certain type of rebellious child personality looks around and discontented with things and finds the answers to them unsatisfactory, and i was an an unusually stubborn child. in particular my political -- to the extent i remember being politicized at all, the first moment i was political, it was looking at the racial segregation in my home town and finding it very, very weird and discomforting, and that didn't make me a socialist but made me someone who was profoundly uncomfortable with the institutions around me. weapon to a really good public school was nearly all white in a county that was not nearly all white, and that was really disturbing and no one talked about it. and they should have talked about it. so starting to think about things that are true in the world, that you see, that you think people give you rationalizations and i thought, simple questions that we have, like you open -- you open the "wall street journal's" real estate section, which i called mansion, and the front page -- >> is that true? >> yes, call mansion. and it will turn you. >> a class warrior. the other week the store how to move your 10 thundershower square -- 10,000 square foot house when the sea levels right. you can be fine so you don't have to worry about climate change. and these are the sorts of things if you see them, they are disturbing. if you see that sort of thing and then -- all you have to do is look around you. i live in new orleans right now, and i live in the french quarter, and in the french quarter you have homeless people sleeping in the stoop of these million dollar french -- beautiful french quarter old new orleans homes and its christian by, incredibly disturbing thing to see. so i remember being very disturbed. remember just being unsettled. i think i first encounters real socialist political thought in college, and i came to it in an unusual wail. took a class calls maskism verse anarchism. and it is an intrasocialist conflict. >> the two political parties in 2017. >> yeah. no. and they had -- all about the debate between marxist socialists and anarchist socialists, how power should be used, what it means to be free, whether the state can be turned towards good and these were the kinds of discussion is thought were so fascinating but were being had among people who all identified as socialists. so that is is where i thought i don't quite know where i come down on the marxist, anarchist divide, probably more toward the an naar kyes because they were skeptical of state power and there was a libertarian socialist tradition that was critical of violation of civil liberties if. i interview dsa members for research and when they started applying the term "socialist" to themselves and i think they and -- i was probably like 2015 put a lot of people were 2016-2017, bass bernie sanders made it so it was useful word to rally under. i idea to be a little skeptical. boast emergency i called myself an an anarchist but now embrace the term it's something that helps explain something useful to people. >> which cues up our second question. i asked nathan before we started, what would you like me to do with this q & a, and in questions, any boundaries and he said whatever you do, do not have your first question be, what is socialism. so it will be my second question. could you start by defining this. what is socialism. >> one of the ropes i think it's a frustrating question that the history of socialism is the history of an argument about what socialism means. socialists throughout the ages eave all said i'm a socialist and people who call themselves socialists are not socialists, and -- >> half what that marx did in his early write, all the 0 do. >> -- you you don't understand and you see this reformist verse revolutionary did and the rev news areas said the americans who were reforms weren't really socialists. the municipal socialists. >> so it's hard -- the rope it's hard to define is in part -- the five volume history of socialism that's a great history of socialism, begins by say i can hope to define socialism in this book because the same way like democracy is an argument over what democracy means or requires, but in doing this book, one of the thing is want to identify what sort of things do people who have historically rallied under this banner, what do they have in common some socially. is bates thought of as a political tradition will many different strands and i think they are united by a fun fundamentally a -- in order to be a socialist you have to have a strong sense that things, the existing economic and political arrangements of your society are wrong in some way, and the socialists have also -- all socialists have disliked the idea of having a small number of people who own many things and much larger number of people who work for a living and don't actually own things. so ruling class and working class is considered core to socialist analysis, and there is kind of -- i talk but the ethic of solidarity that socialists feel. so eugene demps had -- his most famous quote is, while there is a lower class i am in it. while there's a criminal element, i'm of it, and while there's a soul in i prison i am not free. it's a very radical quote if you think seriously what would require. while there is a soul in prison -- so until you get full prison abolition you cannot feel free, and i think what unites people in the dsa i talked to is a real sense of solidarity with people who are being exploited and mistreated at work, people who suffer and that sort of is where socialist could. from look at the world and discomforted by different injustices and there's an argument between socialist what then a socialist society would look like and what the role of the state is, and the degree to which coercion is legitimate and the anarchists say no coercion is legitimate and others say you have to break some eggs to have an omelet and the eggs are people, but i think it's important to recognize that, like that argue. they're having is the argument that is worth having. >> in that spirit, i would like to -- there are so many unuances and angles of this. decided to make a rapid-fire lightning round fame called is this socialist. >> is bernie sanders socialist? >> yeah. i say -- >> we can use that to explore different questions. >> so, bernie a socialist? i wrote a thing in 2015 saying bernie sanders doesn't know what socialist is or is lying. >> what do you mean by that. >> people who are not in -- >> if you define socialism by the historic kind of definition of, like, worker ownership of the means of product. wasn't in the bernie 2016 platform, therefore bernie is not a socialist. >> some in the bern 2020 platform. >> that's the thing, the workplace democracy plan gets closer to. that bernie has the socialist ethic. starts from the same place that -- you hear echos of eugene demps to speeches and when bernie talks about you have to effect for people who don't -- have problems you don't share, that is a -- the demps -- >> that's solidarity. >> right. so a lot of stuff. the operates went the socialist political tradition, whether you think -- in people say he's a social drop. some call him a class struggle social democrat. unclear what that is. >> you're parsing a phrase. >> i don't know. he certainly qualifies and has -- i think is in the social gist political tradition, and i'd say, like, the sewer socialists in the earl 1900s who took over city government. if they're socialists he is probably a socialist. >> are you of the mine as you're saying why you should be a socialist you're talking but the big tent. >> i'm a pretty big tent guy. most people who have arrested within the democratic socialist tradition. >> keep going lightning rounding, in florida recently built i open grocery store, a town in minnesota started checking its entrap, deprivatizing their own trash. is that socialist. >> deprivatizeing -- if common ownership is a really important part of socialism, then though like for example public libraries are not -- they don't restructure the economy. they don't make it so that there isn't a class divide, but they are things that are held in common. you can call the fire department a socialist institution because you can imagine an alternate fire department that is privatized. we have privatized firefighting companies and then firefighting insurance so firefighting operating on the model that medicine operates on in the united states we'd call that much less socialistic, and the nhs in britain was introduced by a party that called itself a socialist party as a socialist measure, because it was something that we all held in common, british people owned the nhs collectively. collective ownership of medicine. >> are unions socialis? why-socialists into unions. >> not necessarily there would be undemocratic unions and we talk but worker ownership and participation. the democratic part of democratic socialism is really important because the reason -- when socialists talk about workers and working class, talk about giving people a meaningful sense of participation and power and if a union is a top-down hierarchical ion in which people do not feel they have the a voice and the union is a company union allied with the boss, that's not -- doesn't follow socialist principles but historically being openly socialist unions and a lot of unions about taking power back. one reason i don't like this lightning round is i think identifying things as socialist or not in this kind of binary is one of the frustrating things we try to do, where what the better way to think about it is like what socialistic elements does this have and what doesn't it have and those kind of spectrum there and what people try to do a lot is classify other nodderric countries -- got that one your his, nordic countries socialist? i think it's the wrong question. what socialistic elements do the nordic countries have and to the extent they have those things they are more socialistic than we are and to the extent we don't have of the things we're more capitalistic, and unions could be the same. what is socialistic but them and what isn't? that's how i prefer to think about these things. >> whoa you have been able to make that point if we didn't have the lightning around. >> the lightning round has value. >> thank you. there are issues that are slightly less directly economic, antiwar, criminal legal reform, qur liberation, climate mitigation and yet socialis are working on that and it's not about workers opening the means of production. why do socialist work on other causes. >> that's why i start from the socialivity it thicks and the feeling of solidarity. i you've go to the very narrow definition of, like, worker ownership of the means of production you miss a ton of what the dhsa is working on, what con at the program socialists care about which is more than just worker ownership, but you can-if you think but the socialistic ethic, to which is solidarity with the underclass, then climate change makes a lot of sense as an issue to work on faults is a going to affect people profoundly differently on the basis of where they are in the class hierarchy of society. if you are at the bottom, have nothing, if you live in a coastal island you'll by dispossess he. climate refugees. so also why socialists care so much but immigration right you, look at immigration detention centers and why they are a bowlishing i.c.e. because they're horrified by what happens to people in these places, and it's not quite an economic argument. it's an argument from, like, you begin with human dignity and you begin with human free tom and you talk about how -- what kind of freedom people deserve and what would that actually mean. >> i have to ask the dreaded question. >> no. >> wasn't the soviet union and venezuela -- venezuela socialist? >> yeah. so,. >> but venezuela -- >> but venezuela. yeah. i think -- so, let me -- >> unpack the question. things that people call socialist on fox news and then they say they're failed experiments, they either say the grand one, which is we settled with the cold war and the more immediate one they tried it again in venezuela and that didn't work. >> think what they actually tried in venezuela. workplace academicracy? if so and then work place democracy failed you have a good argument against socialism. what is mismanagement of the economy. if you define socialism as mismanagement of the economy, then, yes, venezuela was a socialist country, but i think -- how they do it. if an economy done work, it's socialism, or if -- >> financial crisis, a small flynn. >> if the state is powerful it's socialism and anyone who is dictator is automatically a socialist. >> talk more into yourmember meek crow phone. >> okay. if you identify social jim as a powerful state. and i think one thing we need to do is not take countries' words for it, that they are socialist. so, just as a country that calls itself the democratic peoples public of korea is not necessarily democratic or a republic and we understand that, we should approach socialism the same way. the fact that a country brands itself socialist, because socialism is a principle people like because empowerment of working people is something that if you are a political actor, you want to brand yourself as being democratic and socialist. the real question is are they? are they actually doing this? or are -- is this hideous perversion of these ideals and the libertarian socialist have been ones who were very sensitive to perceived perversion of the ultimate ideals. >> final lightning round question. people who want to kind of get the shine of socialism enough that it's cool, 52% of people under 35 are for bernie sanders so it seems to be the policy of the future. you're saying care but works and fight back against the people who have the wealth. there are standard liberal progressive folks fighting for regulation, antitrust, higher minimum wage, even supporting unions, they're for a big social safety net. some people on twitter call them rad libs which is liberalism taken to -- we just want a lot of that. why is socialism different than just paul -- >> one of the reasons is because historic include what has often happened is socialists introduced a radical idea and then it has become much -- widely adopted. so in fact the sort of socialist moms in the early 1900 socialis complained they had pushed something and then all the democrats and the republicans said of course we support that. so, one important thing is that socialist of always the ones with the sort of -- the sharpened moral sensibility that pushes us where we're going to go next. so you'll see a bunch of the democratic candidates adopting all of the things that bernie talk about in 2016. they're doing that pause bernie talked them in 2016 and it's good to have more people, drag people in a socialistic direction. so, i think -- but the other thing is there is a big distinction between ultimately between socialism and liberalism, even in a sort of radical form, and that is socialism is always concerned itself very strongly with who owns what, who controls what, and the ultimate vision for a socialistic society is one in which there isn't an owning class and a working class, and liberalism done really talk in those terms. now, the socialists disagree whether that's a market socialism that consist of networks of federated worker co-ops or whether it's nationalized, big industry, but it is concerned with who owns things, and the critique that socialists make is that as long as you have a tiny powerful ruling elite with a lot of money, you are social democratic gains are going to be at risk because the privatizing those things will make someone a lot of money and they're always going to be under threat until you have a society where you don't have a massively skewed impanel -- imbalance of power because in people heave giants of money and capital. >> the lightning round is over. we move on to two final questions and then open up to the audience in the spirit of democracy. this question is for me because i love these characters of history. you pointed out all these wonderful historic socialists. albert einstein, socialist, helen keller-socialist. they've don't talk to you about that in elementary school. what she did after the movie. >> she said -- i may by bottom line and deaf but i'm not blind and deaf to the injustices of capitalist society. it was great. helen keller had a great conflict with "the new york times" and hate that people were watering down her radical politics, so mad at them because she thought people -- they loved publishing her when she was just an inspiring story and then they ignored her or attributed her politics to her disable and she was infuriated by that. she said when i start saying that the profit motive is corroding society, then "the new york times" isn't as interested in helen keller. >> able with the person who has her partner, able to say water and then the roll credit. >> water, water. >> next -- martin luther king, socialist. >> yes. >> any other historic socialists. >> demps is great and i have -- i have plenty of examples in the back of wonderful socialis throughout history. the black panther party. we have -- we have examples from around the world of models, and i also talk but the labor party in britain which was historic include a socialist party and it's important to pay attention to because the labor party that gave us -- british people the nhs was doing so explicitly in the name of socialist politics, and the nhs is radical and what it important people making makie same criticism before it was odues evidence ask they if -- like free college and medicare for all and saying it's going to be a disaster and it became very quickly the most beloved institution in britain because it changed everybody's lives to not have to think but money in regard to your health to be able to go to the doctor worth worrying about a pill, without having to pay any health insurance, have it taken care of through taxes and then free at the point of use. that was a socialist idea based on socialist principles. >> my final question issue began with a personal question and end with a permanent question. you have taken on a style and spirit in the world of whimsy, delight, and delight. you also in your 10,000 word rants you post to screens, you post to succeed -- >> skreed? >> diatribes. >> explore asia for idea -- exploration for ideas. >> very harsh on right wing people that are hoarding power, and so i'd be interested in your choice to -- and then some people on the left also are like we don't need to argue with these people. why are you taking time making rational arguments but you are committed to rational arguments-committed to -- i would describe it as a delightful esthetic. you want to bring your joyful man. but yet you keep the thief -- >> i have the teeth. >> how do you hold that and why choose that. >> there's -- it's interesting because i talk -- >> in a slightly more stern. >> one thing is we want to give you some joy, don't want political writing to feel like having to eat your vegetables. we want there to be jokes and surprises and fun but also, like as you say, it comes with teeth. i talk about in the book is the kind of emotional extremes that many socialists feel. so, we start from a position of real just serious anger at horrible things we see, and we also have this real love for the things we see slipping away, because -- i talk about for example one reason we're so mad that there's no paid parental leave in the out for so many people is that we understand much like what the sheer joy of spending time with a newborn child can be like and it's so outrageous to take that away from people. one of the reasons we -- placees come to love are demolished and gentrified, ear we're appearing gray because we knew that what place meant to people and have a very, very powerful love, and so i think -- i've tried to convey that a lot in current affairs and convey it in the books, this sense that socialism is not just pointing fingers and getting mad at things. it exists partly because so many of us love other people and we love having real communes and love public libraries and things human beings have been able to build together and one place that socialism starts is we don't look at whether things have gotten better, which is usually what the defense of capitalism is. we look at the gap between the actual and the possible, what we have -- what we have done and what we could do, and socialists often have this real -- i talk but utopia in the book. a powerful vision of what human beings could do together, and it's a really beautiful vision that animates a lot of people, and so -- and so that positive element is something i real where want to come across in my writing. >> i love that. i love the two sides of the coin. the love and joy you feel for what the good parts of life, and the anger you feel when it's denied to people. let open it up to questions on that note. does anyone have any questions for us? >> here we go. >> the blue shirt. >> thank you both for coming and thank you for the work you'll both do for current affairs. eye-opening to read and "of i know out socialism is from" current affairs. "it's very easy to see in domains how using ethical prim of socialism you can do a lot of good in the world and one area where i just haven't read as much is in terms of foreign policy. we know the u.s. needs -- shouldn't be nearly as imperialistic as it is but that leave the questioned when there are terrible injustices in the other parts of the world what is the role of someone with power and with the able to do something about it like the u.s.? >> a lot of people on the left who have pretty freely admitted that left foreign policy is a real weakness, needs to be develop -- >> let me restate the question. what is the role of foreign policy and socialism? >> if you want to think about where to start, we published an article in current affairs called towards a democratic socialist foreign policy. you start with the principle, if you don't want to support regimes that commit hideous atrocities abroad and want to ally with countries that are in fact genuinely democratic and positive, so one of the -- chomsky i asked this question goes, well, stop committing crimes and abetting crimes is thebe beginning for a more humane foreign policy because so many times where the united states has just prioritized its national interests over human beings. i've written -- i read a thing but the vietnam war and how so many of the atrocities of the vietnam war came about because the united states saw itself as pursuing its own interests and the interests of vietnamese people were nonexistent in the callus. other people were like aunts. they could be freely destroyed. their lives didn't matter. so the first place to start is to have a u.s. foreign policy that values nonu.s. lives, because that has been a significant part of why u.s. foreign policy has been so monstrous, this failure to consider other people as equals. so, there are -- there's a good article in n plus one on democratic -- on leftist foreign policy and a few -- we're just getting started in this and it's going to be difficult. >> nathan, call of heroes chairman is no chomsky. mine is ralph nader and -- we -- why did we have corporation perhaps globalization and not civic and in a 2000 speech, one aspect of socialist international project is also helping spread these democratic institutions to more places like having unions connect with each other, having worker cooperatives connect with each other help build up thieves kind of left wing models in more places. >> and use the u.s.' power to mandate good labor standards. right now we don't want good labor standards because that raises the cost of things but to use the amount of economic might that we have for good ends. some people are cynical whether that's possible. next question. >> back there. >> so, you have written a lot about the different ways you can decide how to make decisions in a society. one of your articled but anarchism, even the constitution was not an exclusive document. how do you thing about at the question? someone has to make the decision so at the end of this sort of long arc of socialized society, is there still a congress? is there still a federal government or how -- what point do you stop devolving. what is the end result there. >> i like the question. >> let me restate the question. it is the question is, in the end, even if there was more socialism, more socializing of more things people have to make decision about institutions, who makes the decisions under your nathan robinson view of socialism. >> so the article i wrote becauseot an naar tim and when you scatter questioning the legitimacy of things you fine things taken for granted can't really justify themself. the united states constitution, most of the country, women, black people, native people, were excluded from the drafting and ratification process. by any basic theory of democracy , the rules that result from something that excludes most of the population are not rules that have democratic legitimacy. we treat the constitution as a legitimate document. what happens when i point out is what happens when you start asking that, is you -- it's illegitimate, then that? what are we going to other? judges make decisions for political reasons and not because of their guided by the law, what a jump is just supposed to impose their personal -- be open about the fact they're just doing the thing they think is best? and my anxious is, no -- my answer is, no, because we have very clear set of principles on which to build our institutions we can say we need a new constitution that much more legitimate si, that people have been allowed to participate in meaningfully some think but thank you valve us that are good and things we want to improve, and it's hard because there's no -- not really much guidance on -- gets -- you start going near to the core of, like, where does morality come from, what is the good, how do we know what to do? and that's very scary which is one reason that we defer to approvals because you need something. but i don't think it's scary when you have a very strong democratic participatory -- we have written but what it would be like to have a randomly collected congress that works live jury duty where and it was ordinary people and you can get a letter that says you have been selected to serve in congress for two years, and whether that would be worse or better than what we have now and the web site way couple, probably be much better thankfully. and that -- is that fair or should people be able to choose their representatives and if they should be able to choose their representatives, how much should you incorporate minority prefer referses, political party that gets a% of the vote but only get 5% are zero representatives and a majority system, and how should you incorporate that segment of society's prefer repses? that's -- preferences. the questions what what democracy requires are difficult but the sort of thing that where we can start with a very clear and defined set of principles, we'll know whether our institutions are conforming to them or not. >> a question. yellow shirt. >> hey. >> hey. [inaudible question] >> i start from this principle of solidarity, of looking at judging a society by what happens to the worst off people in it, looking at the bottom. not just looking at the aggregate that says, like, are our average numbers going up over time, but breaking it down and looking at individual lives and saying do we really feel -- and a very important part of this is freedom. talk about the socialist meaning of freedom, which is are people able to do the things with their lives on earth that are the things they want to do are there real serious -- working jobs they absolutely hate and they're stuck and never get to see their kids even though they would like to and that's at the principle you start with, you start with -- i can't define these things -- the partially he's things come through a process of discussion and talk put a what people want and what -- democracy doesn't have the outcomes predetermined before hand. so, you have to listen to people before you know but we can think about a place to start and a place to start is, well, every single person come up with what you would have. talk about what you would have in your utopia and when we have a list, we have kind of a vision for what the world should look like. >> a question. is there any difference between the word social jim the word democracy. >> i don't think should be because -- i think that democratic socialism should be redundant. one reason you have to use the term is so many regimes who called themselves socialist are not democratic but the prim that socialism starts with is that people should be in control of their open lives which is the same republican that democracy -- so ways socialism -- the economic socialist arguments are applications of the political principle of democracy to economic institutions. saying if we evaluate the work place like we evaluate the government would it conform to -- have democratic legitimacy and the answer is no, most corporations are top-down hierarchies and we would call them dictatorships if they were governments. so socialism should be about democracy because they come from the same instinct. >> final question. >> back there. >> i want to -- question about how you think about labels in political discussion? spend a lot of time talking about what is socialist and isn't and i see the value of preventing people from being scared but socialism and have a good discussion about justice. >> the question was about do you even like using labels? you shay whoa you should be a and then insert label. one of me old teachers said to me, i love eave sing -- every single element of bernie sanders but a i can't do it, he's a socialist. can't stand the label. do the labels hurt or help? >> i sort of changed my mind on this. i say in the book that it it's kind of frustrating to have to have. the discussion about labels. what you really want is to just say here are the thing is think are good and do you believe in those things and if someone says yes, then you go, okay, we're the same thing. i find the word socialism useful and i want to save it in part because many labels are easy to co-opt and drain of their meaning, like left, progressive, and socialist kind of plants its flag and claims loyalty to a political tradition that has had -- sort of more difficult to say isn't radical. like if you're a socialist you share with other socialists a very radical critique and a kind of radical vision for change. everyone calls themselves a progressive. obama calls himself a progressive, but they differ very strongly but obama would never call himself asocialist and the difference between the fact that obama wouldn't call himself a socialist and bernie sanders would captures an important difference in people who use this label feel so much it's become a very useful label because it does distinguish you and it does convey meaning. now, obviously a lot of people go, oh, especially older people so-with the cold war, but that's why we have the book because i think we can persuade them. i don't know, we'll see. >> on that note, thank you everyone for coming. >> thank you so much. thank you for coming out. [applause] >> stick around and sign some books. [cheers and applause] >> my most reap book is cyber war, how russian hackers and trolls helped elect a president. what we do can't and don't know not nosily in that order, you're watching booktv. >> here's a look at some authors who have recently appeared or will be appearing soon on book of boosted residents "after words," the weekly author interview program that includes best-selling nonfiction books and guest interviewers. argument that tech companies are failing the public. coming up, pacific research institute sally pipes offers her thoughted on health care reform and this weekend, andrea bernstein chronicles the trump and kushner family's rise to prominence. >> the president as a private businessman was extremely adept at fending off criminal investigations, charming fbi agents, then people, might hire well-connected lawyers, he might as he tide for many areas support the favor evidence charity of the manhattan district attorney. always kind of ways the could get himself into good grace with law enforcement in new york and new jersey. he befriended a u.s. attorney in new jersey named chris christie when he had gambling somes. so he made sure he understood who his friends were and they understood who he was. and he was able to make it work for him. he was never charged in any criminal case. it is interesting to have that background sort of in the rearview mirror into this impeachment situation where he is being called to account and there is a public reckoning and even though he is president, he is not able to make things go away as he once did. >> "after words" airs on saturday at 10:00 p.m. and sundays at 919p.m. eastern and pacific.