Im the owner. For a little bit of history, the strand was founded by my grand father benjamin bass in 1927 in an area thats just a block over aalok along 4th avenue. It was called book row. There were 48 used bookstores at its height. In the 92 years since then, all of the stores have shuttered except for the strand. And thanks to readers, were Still Family Owned and still thriving. Tonight im so excited to welcome the founder and the editor of the wildly popular leftist magazine to discuss this book the socialist manifesto, the case of radical politics in an area of extreme inequality. Since founding, its been described as a light and dark times, hes been a columnist for the guardian u. S. The manifesto presents a history of socialism and an argument for the end of inequality, and we couldnt be more thrilled to hear about it. Were also excited to be recording tonights conversation with a broadcast from our friends at cspan. Joining him in this timely discussion is a writer, current affairs, the Boston Review and more. Shes also a cohost of a podcast. Please join me in welcoming them. Thank you, all. [applause] appreciate it. All right. Thank you so much. Thanks, everyone, for showing up. Thanks to nancy and thanks to the strand for hosting this event, so exciting. So we have known each other for i think like ten years now. We were a part of a sort of small group of prebernie millennials in an Organization Called democratic socialists of america, where we spent a lot of time trying to explain socialism to, you know, normal people. And it was very difficult. So like a moment like this is very exciting for us because weve been waiting for a very long time. For the first time i think in our lifetimes, were seeing potential for a real socialist movement in the United States of america, which brings to us the book, the socialist manifesto. I guess we should start out with who was this book written for and why now . Yeah, i mean, i think it was very difficult to become socialists when we became, you know, socialists. There wasnt kind of a friend to help guide you along or to give you it was very random. For me i picked up a bunch of books at a local library, and at the same time, you know, i was on the left, right . I believed in the welfare state. I believed that certain things in life shouldnt be accidents at birth, that everyone deserved at least the basics in life, but actually getting into socialist thought was a confusing kind of mess, and some of the guides that i did find were through democratic socialists of america. It was from Michael Harrington who died the same year i was born 1989 but left behind a bunch of great books, irving howe, and others, i kind of pieced together a tradition, but it required a lot of reading and a lot of dead ends. What i wanted to do was create a synthesis that can give people i think the overview of the highs and lows of socialist history, what socialists want, but also kind of leave a healthy trail of footnotes if someone really wanted to get deeper if one part really interested them, they could actually kind of reconstruct the bizarre, you know, intellectual and Political Development that we all had over the last im 29 now. I guess i started identifying as socialist when i was like 14 years old. So i was way too young to be making those sorts of decisions, but, you know, now theres more and more people who are less weird and less young who are coming to this idea, and the last thing i say is just when i was coming to these ideas and when we were in the yds, Young Democratic socialists, it felt like these ideas are so compelli compelling. Why arent more people interested in the abolition of exploitation . Why arent more people interested in achieving basic dignity so people can reach their potential . We felt like we were crazy, and to some extent we still are, but at least threres a little more vindication now. Yeah, absolutely. Big take away, we were right. [laughter] but actually you start the book very interestingly because you describe two sort of theoretical scenarios for socialism, one in sort of idealized state and one in new jersey. But why start out that way . Yeah, i think a lot books that say they are making the case for socialism are in fact making the case against capitalism. For now i think many people arent just questioning whether socialism is politically possible, they are wondering if its technically possible. Theyre wondering whether its Something Like an alternative. I wanted to start with a thought experiment. In this first opening chapter and i do think the opening chapter is good. The rest of the book is pretty good. [laughter] but it is like the concept is real good and theres some real moments, but theres some flashes of brilliance. Is this solidarity yeah. [laughter] i was going to curse, but its cspan. [laughter] so anyway the first chapter is good. The rest is pretty good. But i lost my train of thought. Why the thought experiment . [laughter] so, you know, i wanted to actually provide people with one, a basic overview of the marxist theory of exploitation, sort of what we mean when we say that workers are exploited. And its not just that socialists think that workers are poor and weak and thats why we focus on workers, it is that we think that these people actually have latent power, they are really strategically somewhere in the production process, and a lot of life is determined by the fact that they have no other way to survive other than to just, you know, trade their labor for cash. I try to explain that, but then explain how unions can help things and also how a social democracy, like the kinds of societies you saw arise in nordic countries in the 20th century could make things even better, but then describe what if we go beyond social democracy and what would a day in the life of a socialist citizen actually look like . So it was a thought experiment to just think about whats our goal, whats our horizon in a way thats a little bit less abstract and dry, so its meant as kind of, you know, funny second person narrative, and my protagonist is clearly one of my cousins from new jersey, like, you know right, well you know. I think thats sort of one of the things that youre very successful at is illustrating that socialism is not some sort of project of mercy or humanitarianism. We focus on workers because workers have the power or as like the Labor Movement sort of used to say like the boss needs you. You dont need the boss, but you also with the other chapters, which i think are quite good, you talked them down a little bit. [laughter] you do sort of a survey of our history of actually existing socialism, you know, a phrase for it. And theres some questions as to sort of the relevance of the history of these countries, so the soviet union tried to skip industrial capitalism all together, and, you know, youve got places like cuba that were built on sort of antiimperialist movements. There are very different historical and geographic and political contexts. I guess what do you believe is the proper relationship to history for a good contemporary american socialist . Well, i try to avoid the know truth scotsman to the highs and lows. When you talk to a libertarian, you could be lamenting all the inequities and problems in capitalism today, they might even would agree with you. They would say thats not capitalism. Thats crony capitalism. Right. Thats not what im talking about. They have some good arguments with how orchestrated neo liberalism. Yeah, but with socialism we do the same thing. We say we can dismiss that because that was socialism run by bad people. That was socialism that didnt go far enough or didnt do this. Its a bit too simplistic. Back about 150 years ago, there was a unified workers movement, and all these people called themselves social democrats. Then that movement kind of split into two. On the one side came these the left wing of the social democratic movement. It came people that were trying to, you know, take power in really bad situations and trying to catch up with the west and industrialize and use socialism as a force for development. That eventually fell into some of the worst episodes of authoritarianism the world has ever seen, and whatnot. On the other side there was a strand of the socialist tradition that confronting some of these different dilemmas in western europe eventually gave up the horizon of going beyond capitalism and instead tried to fight for a functional socialism, like we would abandon our discussion of ownership, but instead were going to try to achieve our core objectives of getting dignity and justice for everyone, but allowing capitalists to keep their property as long as were taxing them at 60, 70 percent and were creating this welfare state. I wanted to see why both of these paths became apparent dead ends by the 1980s, and of course i have more sympathy with the social democratic dead end, but i think that we need to think about what went wrong in those experiments and how in fact there was maybe a more radical but still Democratic Alternative to social democracy. So a lot of this was just looking the history very seriously, but not even in a moralistic way. You know, its easy to be negative about stalin, but its much harder to say that, you know, someone like lennon from the very beginning was trying to construct an authoritarian state, and i think it is ahistorical to kind of think it just through the moral lens while criticizing you know, i tried to avoid that and really address the dark parts of the history, just as much as i addressed the real triumphs of the social movement. I think there were a lot of triumph toos triumphs too. Yeah, absolutely. They did that whole industrialization thing, good for them. God rested on the seventh day. Many of us hopefully enjoy the sixth day off and thats a product of the Labor Movement. Thats a product of the socialist movement. Yeah, right. There are huge sort of advantages and Success Stories to sort of both ends of the kind of full on revolutionary model and then social democracy. But that also brings us to a kind of like were confronted, right . So right now theres a president ial election going on. There are 500 people running in the democratic primary. You have people like andrew yang suggesting things like [inaudible] sort of a minor degree of redistribution without any sort of democratic aspect to what we conceive of as socialism. And thats very appealing to a lot of people, understandably so, especially if youre downwardly mobile and you cant pay your bills. Socialis socialists tend to have a lot of criticisms of that. Where do we draw the line . What is the correct relationship to reforms i guess for socialists . Yeah, i think theres been a lot of movements throughout history that have criticized the or lets say even throughout the history of capitalism who said the equities, the exploitation, the present is bad. Theres been a lot of movements that have also said theres a better future. We could envision an alternative to the present. What made the socialist movement special was that they were able the movement was able to bridge the gap between the first thing and the second thing. They were able to say well, were in this awful present, but we could organize and we could fight for reforms and slowly over time, we can make this present better, and eventually we can turn this present through our organizing into the future that we want. The Anarchist Movement i think in many ways more compelling, viscerally more compelling moral criticism of the present, and their vision of a just society is in the abstract one i would agree with, one with less coercion, less authoritarianism, with democracy and so on, but they had no compelling way to get from here to there. Socialists have been able to do that. Today im a supporter of Bernie Sanders. Im a supporter of what hes doing because i think it is based on the idea that you achieve change through organizing people and through fighting for broadbased demands, and if you cant put medicare for all on the table, how are you going to put like socializing ownership . How are you going to put worker ownership on the table . It just doesnt make sense. Right. And moreover, not just as a sort of demand. I think people sort of think medicare for all as like a nice little boutique treat we can get with a social democratic package, but fundamentally, when you look at how people view healthcare in this country, with regards to employment and how heavily it is associated with employment. It is not merely that you are getting a nice thing and it is one less thing you have to pay for, you know, healthcare, socialized healthcare fundamentally reorients your entire relationship to your boss as an employer. So i mean, i think at dsa we grew up on schwartz talking about, you know, like nonreformist reforms or whatever, but that can be a little bit opaque, but the idea of Something Like medicare for all, its not just you get a nice thing, its that you get a nice thing that empowers workers, that allows them to maybe be more likely to quit their job, maybe be more likely to its the first and sometimes last thing that unions have to deal with when they go to the bargaining table. We take that off the table, it is one less thing they have to worry about. Yeah, we have to accept that people are irrational. I think thats one part of both of our views. It isnt maybe like in politics today, which is we believe if given an alternative, people know when they are being exploited and being oppressed, and they dont need organizers and activists to tell them that fact. What they do need is a broader environment in which they can actually fight back and win. So if youre a worker in a society with 20 unemployment, you might hate your job and hate your situation, but youre not just going to start a union or start some sort of Political Campaign because you know that it will be very easy to be defeated, right . Right. But if there was a jobs guarantee, if there was a welfare state, if there was less penalties to actually taking a risk in fighting back, then you would fight back. And i think that thats one thing where its almost like a dividing line that i see politically that isnt necessarily just this is the one thing it isnt necessarily left or right. Its like who actually believes that people are rational actors these days and are in fact capable of and benevolent. Yeah. Yeah, it does seem like theres a certain degree of cynicism where both conservatives and sort of people who identify as leftists, they think people are sort of like both foolish and cruel, and i think given the opportunity, people are largely rational and kind. Or best and different. And thats not nothing. As long as they are not malevolent, we can work with that. Theres a line in the most famous german revolutionary song, the united front song, i think i know how to say it in german, but i wont risk it. You dont want to risk saying something wrong in german. Yeah. [laughter] but its translated roughly into, you know, they want no boss over them and no servants under foot, and i think thats the socialist ideal. It is not freedom to exploit others. It is freedom to be freed from exploitation. Uhhuh and i do think thats at the core of what a lot of people want. They want dignity. They want autonomy, and theyre willing to be in collective projects to do it, but they dont necessarily have this endless theyre not the, you know, utility maximizers of rational choice theory, but there is something to them being rational. Sure, and the idea of selfinterests which i think weve been taught is a bad thing, but i think socialism is all about selfinterest. Its about the idea of creating a collective selfinterest which again i think a lot of people both on the right and selfidentified on the left sort of miss sometimes. Yeah, and even with bernie, bernie is saying widely popular things. Hes taught us a language to say listen, you deserve more. Youre working hard. You deserve more. The reason why you dont have more isnt because of minorities. It is not because of immigrants. It is because billionaires are benefitting from the situation youre in, and thats so much of a less convoluted way to explain the world and explain our situation than what both the left have been offering them and also even what the mainstream democrats are offering them, like ask mayor pete a question about nafta and he will tell you something about active labor market poll sis and all sorts of things policies and all sorts of things which arent completely incorrect, but it doesnt make sense to people. If someone like that, someone like biden, a lot of people will stay home and not trek out to vote. Im not trekking out for mayor pete. Im from indiana, if you have nothing to say about nafta, you have clearly not been paying attention to the state you live in since nafta. Getting back to that and relatedly, so traditionally, its been organized labor thats been sort of the motor of socialist politics. Sometimes its served us both like captain and ship where its been kind of an ideological base and obviously it is the muscle. Since the decline of labor, we have seen social movements try to sort of fill that void, things like occupy, which i think were both involved in and i personally hated every moment of it, and these things sort of stall without a lot of clear vision or focus, but for some reason, Bernie Sanders has brought socialism back to the fore. I did not see like this, you know, cold war democrat suddenly getting the kids all down with socialism and not just that. He has multigenerational appeal or whatever, did not anticipate it. Very happy it happened. Dont completely understand why or how but wondered if you had any thoughts about why its bernies time to shine. Well, yeah, i think a lot of it had to do with his training and the clarity and the consistency of the message. It was creating this narrative. Our narrative and our version of villains and heroes, were telling people that its not their fault. Were telling people they can be protagonist in making a better country. Thats a lot more positive than telling people that, you know, oh, youre unemployed. You should like reformat your cv. If that doesnt work, take a coding class. I think there is something i mean it sounds like its populism in the worst sense. It sounds like demagoguery, but if your message can appeal to people in the abstract, then it wont work. Theres no focus grouping that can make an antipopular message popular unless you go the route of the right and you create these scapegoats and you stoke racism and whatever else which i dont think centrist democrats are doing, but theyre neither speaking to, you know, to any party because in their world things are actually going okay. You know, theyre looking at the economy as doing okay, but the e