Communities. With democratic socialism in the United States and by the growing membership of democratic socialist and the popularity of Bernie Sanders and representative of causey of cortez to show a future that is more democratic inclusive and environmentally sustainable. In the age of trump and beyond. Let me introduce our guest writing in the guardian and the nation and the New York Times and is a coeditor of we own the future democratic socialism and she lives in brooklyn. Michael smith author of New York Times bestseller invisible man got the whole world watching he has written for the New York Times the atlantic, the paris review author of the new republic and the guardian and has been a featured commentator on npr and bbc radio cnn, msnbc and also lives in brooklyn so now we will turn it over to our guests. After the discussion there will be some words from Michael Bennett later there will be q a and after that there will be a book signing when q a happens i will come back up and give you the microphone so cspan who is filming tonight can record your question. Thank you so much. [applause] good evening. Capitalism. I take it you are not a fan. For sure no. Tell me why. What we argue in the book in which i happen to think it has uniquely failed us on many fronts that logic of domination to western thought and what capitalism does it gives very little back. And with the Economic System with extracted labor in order to appeal the massive profitmaking. So what we argue in the book so what you do to transcend capitalism and how to get around that. And coming to different conclusions about that personally. And with the Common Ground to replace capitalism and it means to prioritize the profits as the driving goal of society which it has been for a long time. And in terms of how much capital. And then in order to build a society that is sustainable it isnt clear so to spend time thinking and with those ideas we wrote out a list. But rather than thinking about what does this look like and then not just saying that but in what they want to talk about which i very happy to have some overlap between that and its so holistic and smartly has gotten rid of the idea. But what i hope comes out from the reflection of these essays without doing the effectively. And thats what socialism has been good at. So that is what we try to communicate. You are honing in on the idea at the very least over the last decade and with the democratic socialist tradition. And then as opposed to other anti capitalist traditions. Yes. So as in the collections the history of socialism so people in early america of that utopian socialist in uk and then everybody who thinks of himself as a socialist like wv be devoid to randolph and as part of American History sometime more open than others but in fifties and sixties are waving the flag. So at this moment when people who our age dont have the same hangups or those who did live through that. For those socialist that did have that propounded affect and dealing with socialism as a tiny influence. So now that we are past that moment thankfully that millennials are comfortable with that term and Bernie Sanders is identified as a democratic socialist for a long time so it is a thing that keeps coming up so this is the period that we are living in right now. We saw the emergence of all these movements. And 2013 and 2014. And the wave of teacher strikes in chicago. These moments kick off so they come from organizing traditions and in many cases of organized labor. Maybe they were perched at some point. So there is a sense that what socialism does is something that they are working for. The other thing is that a socialist party and those meaningful ways in the socialist party with austerity from most people so its just a different kind of resonance a little more novel and little more fun than it is in a country where the socialists are the ones who implement tuition hikes. Or cut public services. So you dont have that hangup either. So then to figure out what does American Democratic socialism look like. So socialism is a little more fun . [laughter] you also mention in the introduction you dont offer a definition of socialism or the contributors to do so either. And you really want to enforce that. And things from abroad but i think it would be a little dishonest with that definition of socialism so that it isnt falling in that trap of five different groups and there is a commitment to having this vehicle but there is a commitment to some type of Institutional Forum and it means a lot of Different Things with that collection of people and they breathe that through this stuff they are writing about so people in the collection identifies social democrats and those anarchist instinct which is totally representative of what socialism means. It is a wide range of topics talking about workers rights and corporate greed and democracy and things that would immediately attribute or the intellectual tradition but with the right to a good life of what art looks like and essentially and what brings us joy to imagine under a socialist organizing principle so what is important . And there is the attendance i on a tendency to fantasize trouble. That we are always going up against the boss or the corporation and but those inspired moments when its possible to imagine something else. That they dont just existed in the workplace so we have all of these other things. And then how capitalism is managed and and to play sports in a semi professional capacity. But i can appreciate it but but what does it look like and really think through that not only exist outside of our relationship to be rightfully talk about a lot. Essene that nothing will change should, like that is the idea. Vote for me because you will be comfortable in exactly the way that you understand comfort now. So, there is a whole different vision. How honest do they have to be about like what gets lost. Host i think about this question a lot because it is always a sacrifice for as long as we talked about it in the u. S. Inarguably other places thought there is the notional idea things will be better at some point in the future but in the meantime, you have to give up your cars, hamburgers, theres a quality. You will manifest in slightly less religious terms but the idea that we cant is the most successful project. Thats really effective. Theres nothing in the world that could make the society be organized and its the sort of rewriting a. Of we have managed. Never let anyone tell you that. It really has. I may have wandered off from the original point tha but it is an alternative and we can beat this and in addition it is a commitment to counter a lot of liberal or progressive thought there are certain people that have made out very well. The majority of people have not. This is the 99 versus the sma small for people are working out. So organizing collectively is the way to change that. Though i am a member and actually here tonight as the chair of the democratic socialists of america board which is the 501c3 organization, we are happy to be here are presented to support this project officially through the fund and though i dont speak for them, i was having meeting with the financial director. Together they are building a series of educational events around of the book and making Copies Available to the members. We own the future and its part of the democratic socialist process, so its great that we can bring so many people to this movement through thinking and writing about what he wa with a. The book brings together able to offers from various points of view talking about issues important to socialists and those promoting the book are part of the collective, so you have the editors and authors of the event here tonight. It takes the collective to make things happen. One of the most important things i think this book can do is make it clear it brings together a variety of backgrounds and i would especially like to say its important in this moment for us to recognize while the other side may have a lot more Financial Resources than we do, we do have people power. Building the people power that helps this boo plugin helps us bring together for the Democratic Socialist Movement of the neofascism in the Republican Party and the neoliberalism which seems to have captured the party in the mainstream, so we have to use that people power together so that in the weekend on the future. Thank you again to everybody involved in this event and this project and all of you who came here tonight. Lets now open up for qanda and speak into the microphone so i can hand it over for anybody that would like to ask a question. I wanted to ask about the role of race in terms of all the comments i think what im most interested in u is your thoughts on the tension between the distinct on the one hand for the coming together of the working class to understand themselves as a class versus very specific projects and things that are articulated but are not necessarily articulated that is the one question if that makes sense what we sort of argue in the book is that any American Democratic socialism has to work different then it has elsewhere, socialism has elsewhere for two very specific reasons. One is that this country was built on a foundation of genocide and so first of indigenous slaughter and so these are foundational to how it is dealt and not only that, but i think that is one thing and also what we have seen over time if there is a strategy which is to divide the 99 against itself again and again at the cost of any progressive and theres been moments that have overcome that. But any sort of battle even on these universal rights come up against this persistence of racism in society. I think the new deal itself is an example of this to win a level of Political Support and we get things like redlining and these great things we can point to there are plenty of lessons to take from the new deal but one of many things has been hasnt really torpedoed because it hasnt grappled with the program. We have several essays in the book looking at this head on. We have the coauthors that look for the third reconstruction. There are those tha that argue r the three biggest will of the racial and economic justice, federal job guarantee, reparations and to look at not just to reckon with history but to address and make people whole so we can certainly take examples from sweden, norway, from existing social democraci democracies. This is a uniquely american product and getting that means grappling with it and recognizing the ways it has been used throughout our history to be back into the sor this sort f revolutionary things we might hope for and parts that ties into this is the climate crisis. We had existing social societies and so those two things together mean it has to look different but its been tough to build these movements. I think Jesse Jackson did some of the interesting work on this in his campaign i think Bernie Sanders was trying to, but there are folks working to make that happen coming from black y. Y. Trying to figure out what this looks like and what we have to do. Im interested in hearing your thoughts if anybody involved for the last any amount of time youll se you will see e different faction on the left. If you get the anarchists together in the room it can get pretty ugly so i guess my question is how does this democratic socialist future, how can we harness all of this energy into all these factions if they came together and mobilized anyway that was productive like how do you see democratic socialism working within that like what is, how do you see a more productive way to operate other than people writing angry articles at each other like communes versus jacobin . The short answer is organizing a. I am a great organizer but those that havent devolved theres aa tendency when things are moving very slowly and for those internal sites to really bubble up to along sometimes legitimate lines and very silly lines. Its interesting to think about this in the perspective of the campaign of people going out and knocking on doors versus those that have a different set of views. I personally found that helpful to shape my own psyche but its one of the ways and a nice anecdote to anger and internal politics. I wanted to ask about the idea of socialism and theres a lot of potential if one is the idea of the Different Assembly into the occupied movement and defenthen the towns and cities d states and what we see in other places and taking over different offices from the micro level upwards and for those two to intersect within the book. That is a good question. I talk about the foundation and a socialist government for 60 years and theave of mostly german immigrants in wisconsin they had socialism that became the point of pride and managed to provide peoples goods its a difficult task as weve seen again its difficult for things like governor and so theres a trajectory but what the essay points out is there is backlash they ran at the start of the industrialization and got total pushback from the city itself. It was politically motivated but he goes through example after example. In the 1970s was glimpsing of the social democracy in the city and the fiscal crisis happened and that is just wiped out. There is no level of politics. Its the institutional level where if you have limited beautiful power in some places looking at subjects where there is a very limited range of things they can do but there is power at the National Level that unless you have that, you can so i think those things can Work Together and we will see how much they manage to be semiotic but i think there is a delicate balance that things can really improve peoples lives. A couple more questions. I was wondering if you could say more because when people hear the word socialism is one of the reasons you didnt ask people to define what it means because part of the idea is that it evolves while they are building it so tha said that plo the book. We are democratic socialists i would say. Its not a oneparty state or lack of democracy, and i think that has to be the core because i think that in big moments of transformational change it from the bottom up democracy and sort of topdown action. This is a tension and this is true of basically anything. On the one hand, there are these things that have to happen triple the amount of activity. Imagine doing that and a directly democratic way it is very difficult. To sort of decide which, but the color of the seat is going to be, its like it never happened. Its from the direct democracy like anybody that participated in the assembly but what does it mean that striking the balance is how you guarantee the rights and the say the. Its interesting some of the most egalitarian were not the product of the direct democracy or the democratic votes were executive orders, Supreme Court decisions that were made but are not foowere not good dot and pry would have been unpopular after the film what is democracy. Im not going to butcher it but yes i think there are a lot of people that might not look for the majority of people in the country and what do you do about that. If 51 percent doesnt want to make the interest, what do you do . I think it is a constant struggle to be worked out. Im curious what your thoughts are on the democratic socialism and what it looks like in the traditionally twoparty system that we have here. I think we are going to see a lot in the next couple of mom is including on when monday. We are already starting to see people lose their mind a little bit. The democratic socialists running the first two primary states which is the hostility at this point. We will see. Its like this crazy unprecedented moment it hasnt been a party thereve been efforts to reform it that have been brutally shut down a hand of the realignment throughout history, but i dont know. I would be able to say that i know what will happen if democratic Bernie Sanders wins the nomination. It feels like the territory but im pretty excited for, but i think that even if someone like Elizabeth Warren were to blame, both of them are aware of the sort of institutional structure and i think there is a tendency to treat it more like the coherent monster that it is. Its a weird coalition where people just vie for power and theres different interests and Critical Mass of people committed to not changing very much but thats not to say that its not like a permeable wall and the sort of collective backlash if bernie wins iowa which is the furthest the project has advanced in the twoparty system may be ever. You dont want bernie to win. Its impossible. Tell me why Bernie Sanders camp cannot win. Thank you all. Thank you