Transcripts For CSPAN2 Nathan Robinson Why You Should Be A Socialist 20240713

Event coordinator and im happy to see you all. Before we get started i would ask everyone to silence their cell phones. Since we are being recorded on the tv cspan. Im happy to introduce nathan robinson, founder and editor in chief for his new book. He is here in conversation with us please join me in welcoming nathan robinson. [applause] [cheering] how was the flight . Everything was unobjectionable. They arwe are so glad to havu here with us. How many of you are already socialist . Wasnt there an original cover where there was a fingerpointing at you . A lot is going to be [inaudible] the original title is socialism for people that are skeptical of it and i wanted something you could give to the non socialists in your life in order to make them understand you. For those of you to give you things to say to other people and for those of you that are shifting in your chair and looking back and forth perhaps it is time to see this system of government and politics but i would like to begin with were you born a socialist . I dont think anyone is born a socialist. Basically im originally from england. I moved to florida as a young person at the age of five and probably the same as you there comes a moment when a certain type of rebellious child personality looks around and is contended with things and finds the answers unsatisfactory. I was an unusually stubborn child and in particular to the extent i remember being politicized it was looking at the racial segregation in my hometown and finding it very clear and discomforting. And thats sort of didnt make me a socialist but it did make me someone who wanted to prove. In a county that wasnt nearly all white and that was disturbing and no one talked about it and they should have talked about it so they are starting to think about things that are true in the world that you see that things can be rationalized. A lot of simple questions. You open the wall street journal and the front page of is that is that a true story . The yes. They turn you into a cloud warrior. They have th had the front pagey was how to move your 10,000 square foot house when the sea levels rise and they show a 10,000 square foot house being moved. You can preserve and defines who yobe fine soyou dont have to wt Climate Change. These are the sort of things where if you see them they are disturbing. All we have to do is look around. I live in new orleans right now and you have Homeless People sleeping in the basement stupor of these Million Dollar French Quarter homes and its just an incredibly disturbing thing to see. I remember being disturbed a lot of the time and unsettled. I first encountered the socialist political thoughts in college and i came to this in an unusual way because it took a class was called marxism and anarchism. Marxism versus anarchy is on is fascinating because it is an intra socialist it was all about the debate between the marxist socialists and anarchists socialists. How the power should be moved and what it means to be free. Whether this date can be turned into these are the kind of discussions that i thought were so fascinating that they were being had among the people that identified as a socialist so that is where i hope i dont know quite where i come down on the marxist. Probably more the anarchists i liked them because they were very skeptical of state power and i liked but there was a libertarian socialist tradition that was critical of the violation of the civil liberty. And i interviewed members and when they started applying the term socialist 2015 but a lot for 2016, 2017 and if they made it so that it was a really useful word to rally under and i used to be a little skeptical. I am persuaded by something that helps explain something useful to people. What would you like me to do with any boundaries to this and he said whatever you do do not have the first question be what is socialism so i would rather it be my second question. [laughter] could you start by defining what is socialism . The history of socialism is the history of an argument about socialism means. Socialists throughout the ages have said i am a socialist and all these other people that call themselves socialists are not. You see this in the defined for all the revolutionaries said the american socialists who were reformers were not really socialists. The reason is hard to define in the five volume history of socialism that begins by saying i cant hope to define the socialism in the book because the same way that democracy is an argument of what it means and requires a bit of what sort of things to th do the people thate historically rallied under the banner, what do they have in common so socialism i is a socit thought of as a political tradition with many different strands but i think that they are united by a a strong sense of the existing economic and political arrangements in this society are wrong in some way in old socialists have disliked the idea of having a small number of people who own many things much larger number of people who work for a living and dont actually own things. So to get to the core of the socialist analysis. And i thought about the ethnic solidarity socialists feel. So, eugene debs, the Great American socialists had the most famous quote in while there is a lower class, i am in it and while there is a criminal element, i am of it. And while there is a soul in prison, i am not free. It is a radical but if you think seriously about what it would require. While there is a soul in prison so until you get this coming universals cannot feel free. There is a sense of solidarity with people who are being exploited and mistreated unless they leave for the socialist society would look like to save it isnt legitimate and others say we need to break some eggs if you want to have an omelette tonight and the eggs turn out to be people. [laughter] but its important to recognize that argument that they are having is the argument worth having. In that spirit there are so many nuances ive decided to make a rapidfire game show called is this a socialist. [laughter] so, here we go. First off, is Bernie Sanders socialist . We can use this to explore different questions. I wrote a thing saying Bernie Sanders either doesnt know what socialism is or is lying about socialism. If you define it friday like it is the 2016 platform and therefore he is now a socialist. You have to fight for people who have problems you dont share. A lot of the stuff he operates within the socialist political tradition. Whether some people say hes a social democrat jacobin or social democrat its unclear. Hes in the socialist political tradition and if they are socialist then hes socialist. I think that most of the people that operated in the tradition of privatized trash is that socialist . It follows from the principles oprincipleso if the a really important part of socialism than even Public Libraries dont restructure the economy or make it so there isnt a class divide that they are things that are held in common. Calling the Fire Department is socialist institution because you can imagine and ultimate department with privatized firefighting companies on the model medicine operates in the United States. Introduced by the socialist party as a socialist measure because it is something we all held in common. British people owned them collectively. Or the unions socialist, why are they into unions . The Democratic Party is part of socialism because the reasons when they talk about workers and the working class and talk about giving people a meaningful sense of participation and power and if the union is a top down union in which people dont feel that they have a voice and the union is a Company Union allied with the boss it doesnt follow the socialist principle but theyve been in a lot of unions that are about taking power back. One of the reasons i dont like the lightning round is it is identified as a socialist or not in this kind of binary is one of the frustrating things we try to do where the better way to think about it is what it has and doesnt have and the kind of spectrum. The question of the socialistic elements and to the extent they have those things they are more socialistic than we are to the extent we dont have those things and we are more capitalistic and big unions could be the same that is socialistic about them and what isnt. That is how i preferred these things. What you have been able to make that point if we didnt have the lightning round . They were slightly less economic antiwar and legal reform dedication and yet socialists are working on that and it doesnt necessarily abouy do the socialists work on these other causes . That is why i start from eugene debs feeling of solidarity because if you just go to the very narrow definition of ownership of the production you miss what they are working on at what ca and what can the y socialists care about which is more than just worker ownership as you say. But you can if you think about the socialistic effort which is solidarity in the underclass and then Climate Change it makes a lot of sense to affect people profoundly differently on the basis of where they are in the class hierarchy if you are at the bottom of the hierarchy and you have nothing in the coastal island you will be dispossessed with climate refugees so that is what they think about and its also why they care so much about the immigration right now. Thats why socialists look at the attention center. Its because they are horrified by what happens to people in these places and it isnt quite an economic argument. You talk about what kind of Freedom People deserve and what would that mean. [inaudible] they say the grand one in the article of the war and they try it again. It was the democracy and if it was workplace democracy and they failed then you would have a really good argument against socialism that it is mismanagement of the economy so if you define a socialism is mismanagement of the economy then yes. But if you doesnt work then its socialism. If the state is powerful than its socialism and so anyone that is a dictator is a socialist. They automatically become a socialist and i think one of the things we need to do this not take countries words for it but they are socialist. So, just as a country that calls itself a democratic peoples republic of korea isnt necessarily democratic or republican and the kind of understand that we should approach a socialism the same way. The fact that the country branded itself socialist because socialism is the principle of the likely cause the empowerment of working people is something that if you are a political actor, you want to brand yourself as being democratic and socialist. The question we should ask is or they actually doing this or is this some hideous perversion of these ideas and theyve been ones that were sensitive to the perceived perversions of the ultima ideals. Final lightning round question. People who want to kind of get the shine of socialism out, 52 of people under 35 are for Bernie Sanders. You say care about workers and things like that against the people that are doing well. There are these standard liberal progressives fighting for regulation and even supporting unions and they are for the big social safety net. Some people on twitter it is just liberalism taken like we want a lot of that. Why is socialism different . One of the reasons historically what has often happened as they introduced the radical idea and then its become more adopted as a sort of hard socialist movement in the 19 hundreds they complained frequently they pushed somethi something. One important thing they are the ones with the sharpened moral sensibility that pushes us where we are going to go next so we will see them adopting all the things bernie talked about in 2015 by doing that because its good to have more people in the drug market of the socialist direction. But i think the other thing is there is a big distinction between ultimately socialism and liberalism in its radical form and that is socialism is always strong with who owns what and who controls what and the ultimate vision for the socialist society is one in which there isnt and owning class and working class and liberalism doesnt really talk in those terms. Socialists disagree whether that is a market socialism that consists of Different Networks of the federated worker coops or whether it is nationalized industry. That it is concerned with who owns things and they critique the socialists make as long as you have a tiny powerful elite for the love of money, the social democratic gains will be at risk because of privatizing those things will make someone a lot of money so they are always going to be under threat on to you have a society where you dont have the skewed imbalance of power because there are giant amounts of money and capital. The lightning round for that youve survived and passed. I went over to the audience in the spirit of the participatory. I love these characters of history they dont talk about that. She said i may be blind and deaf, but im not blind and deaf to the injustices of capitalist society. Theres a great conflict with the New York Times indicated that people were watering down the radical politics still mad at them because she thought that people were, they all loved publishing as an inspiring story but then they ignored her or attributed the politics to the disability and she was infuriated by that because she said they treated me as brilliant as a Success Story that when i start saying the profit motive is corroding society, all of a sudden the New York Times isnt as interested. But she was able to then roll credits. I find examples in the book of the wonderful socialists throughout history. It was a socialist party and its important. They were in the name of socialist politics. And they are quite radical on what is important. It became very quickly the most beloved institution in britain because it changed everybodys lives to not have to think about money, to be able to go to the doctor without worrying about the bill are having to pay any Health Insurance and have it taken care of he of through taxd been done to point out view so that was a socialist idea based on the socialist principles. I began with a personal question and end with a personal question which is you have taken on the style and spirit in the world of the delight and also in your rant. The diatribe and exploration of ideas are very harsh on these rightwing people that are hoarding power. I would be interested in your choice and some people are like we dont even need to argue with these people. Why do you try to make the rational arguments but yes you are committed to rational arguments and committed to what i would describe as a delightful aesthetic and how do you hold the attention and why did you choose that . We want to give you some joy and dont want the political bombings. We want there to be jokes and surprises but also it comes with teeth. One of the things i talk about in the book is the kind of emotional extremes that many socialists feel so we start from the position of serious anger at horrible things we see and we also have love for the things we see slipping away. One of the reasons that we are so mad that there is no paid parental leave in the United States for so many people is that we understand so much like the sheer joy of spending time with a newborn child and so why that is so outrageous to take that away from people and so that one of the reasons we went to places we came to love that are demolished one of the reasons we are angry as we kneww look of placement people come and we had a very powerful love and i tried to convey that i want iallof immigrant affairs ae book that sends the socialism isnt just pointing fingers and getting mad at things. It exists partly because so many of us love other people and we love having real communities and we love Public Libraries and we love the things that human beings have been able to build together. One place of socialism sorts is we dont look at whether things have gotten better which is what the defense of capitalism is. We look at it as the gap between the actual and possible. What we have done and what we could do. And socialists often have this real eye for the utopia in the book. We have a powerful vision of what human being could do together and its a beautiful vision that animates a lot of people and so that element is something i want to have come across in my writing. The love and joy that you feel for the good parts of life and the anger that you feel when it is denied to people. Lets open up on that note does anybody have any questions ask thank you both for coming in for the work that you both do its been eyeopening to read if much of what i know about socialism is from current affairs. So, my question is that its very easy tit is veryeasy to ses how its the ethical principle you could do a lot of good in the world and one of the areas where i havent read as much is that it leaves the question when there are terrible injustices in other parts of the world what is the role of someone with power to do something about it. A lot of people have admitted that Foreign Policy is a real weakness. What is the role of the foreignpolicy . If you want to think about where to start and the democratic socialist foreignpolicy when you start with the principle you dont want to support the regime that committed these atrocities abroad and countries that are in fact genuinely democratic so one of the key always starts by committing crimes and abetting crimes is the best beginning for the more humane foreignpolicy because there are so many times the United States has just prioritized its National Interest over human beings. This is not in the calculus. Other people were eccentrically like ants. They can be freely destroyed, their lives did not 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 monetarist is the failure to consider other people as equals. So theres a good article and then plus one on the Foreign Policy and theres a few things, we are just Getting Started and it will be difficult. The call of heros chairman, mine is ralph mader and he has a phasephrase where he goes why de have court under corporate globalization and why do we have civic globalization. One aspect was a socialist International Project and also helping with the Democratic Institutions and having unions connect with each other and having them build a the leftwing models in more places. And use the u. S. Power to mandate good labor standards. Right now nobody wants good labor standards because of the raising cost and thinks but use the amount of economic might that we have for good ends and some people very cynical of whether that is possible. Anyway next question. You written a lot about the different ways that you can decide how to make decisions in a society even the constitution wasnt an inclusive document. Why isnt it legitimate. Im interested to know more how you think about the question and someone has to make decisions. At the in of the long arc of social society, is there still a federal government and at what point do you stop evolving. What is the end result . I like the question. The question is in the end even if there was more socializing of more things, people have to make decisions about the institutions and who makes those decisions under nathan robinson. The article i wrote was about attic is in and when you start questioning the legitimacy of things you find a lot of things are taken for granted and cant justify themselves. The United States constitution, most of the country women, black people, native people were excluded from the ratification process. Any basic theory of democracy, the rules that result from something that excludes the population are not rules that have democratic legitimacy and we treat the constitution as a legitimate document. What happens when you start asking that, if you legitimate then why. What are we going to do if the point out the judges make decisions for political reasons and not because theyre guided by the law, are judges just supposed to impose their personal and be open that they are just doing the thing that they think is best. And my answer is no because we have a very clear set of principles on which we can build our institutions. We can say we will need a new constitution that has much more legitimacy. That people have been allowed to participate meaningfully and we should think about what the values are that we think are good and what are the things we want to improve. It is hard because there is not much guidance and you start going near to the core of where does morality come from, what is the good, how do we know what to do and that is very scary which is one reason we differ the rules because you need something. But i dont think its scary when you have a very strong democratic participatory ethic and this is the institution that looks like it can force my values and these are the kind that dont. We have written about what it would be like to have a randomly selected congress that works like jury duty where was just ordinary people and you can get a letter that said you can select to serve in congress for the next two years and whether that would be worse or better than what we have now in the conclusion we came to it would be much better. But 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 preferences if theres a Political Party that gets 5 of the vote every time you only get 5 , they have 0 representatives and the majority in the system. And how should you incorporate that segment of society preferences. These questions about what democracy requires is really difficult but these are the things that i think we can start with a very clear and defined set of principles, we will know whether institutions are conforming or not. [inaudible question] i start from the principle of it does distinguish you and it does convey meaning. Obviously a lot of people especially older People Associated with the cold war, that is why we have them both because we can persuade them, i dont know, we will see. On that note, thank you everyone for coming. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming out. [applause] thank you also much. [applause] weeknights this month we are featuring book tv programs showcasing whats available every weekend on cspan2. Tuesday, founding fathers, former doubt under george w. Bush speechwriter Jonathan Horn on his book washingtons in about George Washington final years. Followed by alexis company, you never forget your first. Chronicling the life of the first president. And historian Edward Larson franklin in washington, booktv this week and every weekend on cspan2. Cspan washington journal, live every day with the news and policy issues that impact you, coming up tuesday morning, transport topic senior congressional reporter eugene discusses the proposed transportation infrastructure bill as part of the u. S. Coronavirus response. And in National Projects michelle ever more talks about state and federal Assistance Available to those who have recently lost their jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic. And Street Institute Senior Researcher on changes several states have made to the alcohol laws during the crisis. Watch cspan washington journal live at seven eastern tuesday morning, join the discussion. Next, a communist Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell talk about their travels to socialist countries. Its a basis of their book, socialism socks, two economists make their way through the unfree world. This event was hosted by the cato institute. Good afternoon, and welcome everybody i direct the global liberty and prosperity at cato. In the style of the book we are featuring is socialism sock