0:15

Pushkin from

0:18

Pushkin Industries. This is deep background

0:21

the show where we explored the stories behind

0:23

the stories in the news. I'm Noah

0:25

Feldman. Tonight

0:28

we renew our resolve that

0:31

America will never be

0:34

a socialist country. That's

0:42

President Donald Trump to a huge round

0:44

of applause at the State of the Union address,

0:47

And that got me thinking, in a world where Bernie

0:49

Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist,

0:52

and so does Alexandriocazio Cortez,

0:54

and so to a whole raft of young

0:56

and active new progressives,

0:59

what is socialism? What's a socialist?

1:02

Doesn't matter? Is there any

1:04

really good reason that we can't have socialism

1:07

in the United States? Or is

1:09

it truly the case that we can never have a socialist

1:11

country? And maybe above all,

1:13

how close is today's brand of socialism to the

1:15

real thing. To discuss socialism

1:18

and what it means today, we have

1:20

with us probably the person in best position to talk

1:23

about that in the entire United States, and

1:25

that's Professor Sean Willance of

1:27

Princeton, who's thought incredibly

1:29

deeply and written extremely broadly about

1:31

the history of labor, of unionism,

1:34

of politics, and if the terms that talk

1:36

about those things in the United States from the

1:38

very dawn of the American Republic right

1:40

up until the present. Sean, I'm thrilled that you're

1:43

able to join us. Thank you for coming, well, thank

1:45

you not for that lovely introduction. So

1:47

let me start with the question that is frankly

1:49

plaguing me in the aftermath of Donald

1:52

Trump's proclamation and the new

1:54

Democratic Socialists in their rise, and that is,

1:56

at the most basic level, what is

1:59

socialism? Well,

2:01

in America, there have been a lot of different answers

2:03

to that question, actually, because I've been different

2:05

strains of socialism. Very importantly, for

2:09

the first thing to do is to talk about what is socialism?

2:11

What is it not? It is not communism.

2:14

Let's just get that from the very start.

2:17

You know, it's not just the narcissism of just

2:20

noticeable differences that socialists and communists

2:22

despise each other, very

2:24

different views on how you go about building

2:27

a socialist you know, future

2:29

completely at odds with each other. So let's just take

2:31

away all of the Stalinists and all

2:33

of the trots Kits and all of them, they're off to the side.

2:36

Was that true right from the start? I mean, if you had

2:38

Karl Marx in the chair here. Oh, Karl

2:41

Marx is dead by the time of

2:43

all of this is happening, or pretty much so. No,

2:45

No, the history of American socialism begins

2:47

in around the eighteen eighties eighteen nineties. There's

2:49

a prehistory to that. The first

2:52

great socialist figure is Eugene Debs, and

2:54

Eugene Debs founds a tradition that goes

2:56

through the Socialist Party. Socialist

2:58

Party runs basically from

3:01

Debs to Norman Thomas

3:03

in the thirties, finally

3:05

to Michael Harrington. So the first takeaway then,

3:07

if I to try to sum it up,

3:09

would be that when we talk about socialism

3:11

in America, we're talking about American socialism

3:13

correct, which is its own thing, and that may be very important

3:16

for our conversation. Absolutely absolutely. Then

3:18

there's another tradition which is more of an immigrant tradition.

3:20

I mean, Debs was from the Midwest and

3:23

Norman Thomas went to Princeton. After all, Michael's

3:27

different. We can get to Michael in a sect, but that

3:29

was a tradition that was very all American.

3:31

That's all American socialism. So what's the definition

3:33

of all American socialism for the socialists? It

3:36

comes out of basically

3:38

all American political traditions, very

3:40

Christian. And then this Michael shared

3:42

it because he was Catholic, was a Catholic Protestant.

3:45

Yeah, but it has

3:47

that kind of social gospel aspect to it.

3:49

It's not exactly the same, but it

3:51

comes out of that. The other stream

3:54

is very different. The other stream is immigrant,

3:57

much more Jewish. It's

3:59

the New York tradians, people like David Dabinski,

4:02

Sidney Hillman. They are a very

4:04

important part of the socialist

4:06

tradition, and if you're talking about the connection

4:09

between socialism and the Democratic Party, they're absolutely

4:11

crucial. So before we get into them,

4:14

let's go back to the mainstream American

4:16

socialism of Debs and of Norman Thomas.

4:18

Yes, how did they think of socialism

4:21

definitionally, Well, basically it meant it

4:24

meant that there would be a social

4:26

revolution in which the working class

4:29

would take power in effect. And

4:32

now what that means is complicated, but nevertheless,

4:34

and own the mean and socialize the means of production.

4:37

So let's clarify that too. Socialize the means

4:39

of production means the government, such as it

4:41

would be, would own anything

4:43

that was a money making enterprise. Basically. I mean

4:45

there would be different sectors agriculture, industry,

4:47

et cetera, finance importantly, but yes, that

4:50

it would be that socialism

4:52

means a society

4:55

that is run by society that is run by the class

4:58

of society that is the

5:00

universal class according to Marx, which

5:02

is they say, the proletariat. So the workers

5:04

own the means of production that is there, that

5:07

is their It's all about without the thing

5:09

that Donald Trump is terrified by, correct, I mean,

5:11

without the mesa production, Socialism

5:14

in that form doesn't mean anything. So

5:16

that is that. Now how democratic was

5:18

this version of socialism? Did they think that

5:20

it should come to power by people voting for

5:22

it or were they open to the other kind of revolutions?

5:25

Well, there were other kinds of you know, there were socialists and

5:27

socialists. But you know Debs. Debs is running

5:29

for president does a socialist party. He's getting getting

5:31

votes. I mean, he's going out in campaigning it's

5:33

democratic socialism. From the beginning. He didn't

5:35

pretty a couple of times, didn't he. They did well once

5:38

in nineteen twelve he got six percent of the vote,

5:40

the highest, but it's a lot, you know. So

5:44

these are socialists who believe that

5:46

the people will rise up, but they won't

5:48

do it violently. Correct. They will

5:50

run for office, correct, and they will democratically

5:53

pass laws. Correct. The takeover

5:55

ownership of the businesses of America

5:57

and agriculture and so forth. It's very very

5:59

simply yes, um, you know.

6:01

But but coming off of that, there are lots of other

6:04

ways in which socialism

6:06

developed. That is to say,

6:08

there's a there's a ranch of socialism called sewer

6:10

socialism. This is very big in the Midwest,

6:13

in places like Milwaukee. German

6:15

socialists for the most part associated

6:17

with debs, but distinct and they got

6:20

very interested in municipal It was about

6:22

all about cities and municipal services,

6:26

trying to socialize, you know, socialism

6:28

in one city if you will, so literally the sewers

6:30

of the city should be owned by the

6:33

city rather than a private exactly exactly. You taken

6:35

out of the prime hands of the private exploitters, and you put

6:37

in the hands of a just government, and

6:39

you'll get things done better. And that seems to have worked pretty

6:41

well. I mean, depending on what you think of your sewers. In

6:44

most of America today, isn't it the case that

6:46

municipalities they may not run the sewers

6:49

on a daily basis, but they own them, don't they better or

6:51

worse? Yeah, so sewer

6:53

socialism kind of work. Well, I mean though, I mean

6:55

I pay my I don't pay the city for my electric

6:58

bill. I don't pay the city for a lot of utilities.

7:00

I mean, there's a lot of things that are not the case. But the MTA,

7:02

for better or worse, is run

7:05

by the government, run by elected officials,

7:07

with a public private aspect to it. It's never

7:10

completely outside of it. But that comes

7:12

in part out of the socialist tradition. Yes,

7:15

you can see that very clearly. So why

7:17

did sewer socialism do as well as it

7:19

did do when other forms of socialism ran

7:21

into problem Well because, I mean, look at the local

7:24

level, you can organize and in the Midwest,

7:26

in western cities, it was very powerful. It

7:28

has a political base. I mean, you can get somewhere

7:30

at that local level. It's much harder to do that

7:33

at the state level at the national level. So these

7:35

municipalities, they would elect people

7:37

to Congress. Victor Berger was

7:39

a socialist in Congress for a while.

7:42

You see this repeatedly, in fact,

7:44

you see it today. In fact, what do you see with the Kazio Cortez,

7:46

for example, Congressman Kazio Cortez,

7:49

you know she has a following in a particular district,

7:51

they can elect you to Congress. That's locally

7:54

based. Socialism can get pretty far politically.

7:56

So let's talk about Alexandreo Kazio

7:59

Cortez and Bernie Sanders and the new

8:01

Democratic socialist and let's focus on

8:03

a specific thing. And I want to ask you if it's a kind

8:05

of stewart socialism, and that is the policy

8:07

they're pushing of medicare

8:09

for all. Right, many of the Democratic

8:11

candidates in the primary are either

8:13

opting for that or saying that they think it's a good

8:16

idea in principlescuarly being pushed from

8:18

that direction. And President

8:20

Trump says Medicare for all sounds like

8:22

socialized medicine to sounds

8:24

like socialized medicine. To me, that

8:27

is a form of socialism. And presumably the

8:29

Democrats who aren't self identified

8:31

as democratic socialists would say, come

8:33

on, there's nothing socialist about that at all.

8:36

It's just an opportunity for a healthcare to

8:38

be paid for. So let me sort

8:40

of ask you the point blank question,

8:43

is socializing medicine

8:46

sort of like socializing the sewers. Is

8:48

its socialism? No? Why not? Well,

8:50

look, the idea of universal healthcare

8:52

is at the center of the Democratic Party since Harry

8:54

Truman, since nineteen forty six forty

8:57

seven. So this has been a traditional

8:59

idea that healthcare is

9:01

indeed a right amount of privilege and the

9:03

government ought to be able to provide or help provide

9:06

healthcare to everybody. That's not

9:08

a particularly position. There

9:10

are many ways to get there, however, and

9:12

that's where I think the Democrats will divide and

9:15

medicare for role as a single payer system, as

9:17

you know, which is very distinct from the

9:19

kind of system we have now. It gets rid of a private insurance

9:21

company. Right. That's one version

9:24

of how you get there, But there are other versions as

9:26

well. It's not so much that

9:28

we have a socialist versus non socialist version

9:30

of this. There are different versions of a

9:32

democratic what

9:35

has been a Democratic Party position forever. There

9:37

are different versions of how to get there. So I'm now

9:39

trying to channel Donald Trump running for office

9:41

against this policy. And let's

9:44

imagine a Donald Trump, if it's possible to imagine such

9:46

a person who's taken your course and has

9:48

learned about Sewer socialism yes, and says,

9:50

well, yeah, there are different kinds of programs. Some

9:53

involve the private sector, but some

9:55

say the government should take it over completely. Correct,

9:57

Medicare for all, it's a single payer system.

9:59

It really implies, perhaps

10:01

that the government should take over healthcare

10:04

completely, as opposed to universal healthcare

10:06

of the Obamacare type where the government repays

10:08

private Insuran and he says, I think

10:10

I get an A on the test. President likes

10:12

to get on tests, or it likes to believe he's gotten a on tests,

10:15

because I call this genuinely

10:18

a social system. Well, I mean, you know he

10:20

get a C from the course.

10:23

I mean it's it's it's not completely

10:25

wrong in all of that, but the image

10:27

that's given of of of of a government

10:29

run healthcare system is maybe

10:31

closer to the NHS, where the NHS could

10:33

be in Britain, the National Health System, the National

10:35

Health System Britain UM and

10:38

people's fears that the government's going to tell you

10:40

you know, who your doctor is going to have to be, and

10:44

when you can get the so called

10:46

death panels that Sarah Palin was talking about.

10:48

You know, all of these things out there that I have nothing to

10:50

do with the system per se. So the

10:52

image of it being socialist is not actually the reality.

10:55

The reality, however, does in part come out

10:57

of Yeah, I mean socialism is a

10:59

part of what has been American liberalism

11:02

for a very long time. I mean socialist

11:04

characters. And I was mentioning before people like Sidney

11:07

Hillman, and to basically

11:09

was a certain example. Hilman above all had a

11:11

lot to do with the New Deal. A

11:13

little bit about him, Well, Hillman's the head

11:15

of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union in

11:18

the United States, and um, he actually

11:20

started off with a little closer to the communists,

11:22

but then he very very very much

11:25

you denounces them and gets

11:28

rid of the communists in the labor movement

11:30

as best he can. But he is very tight with Roosevelt.

11:34

I'm sorry, he's very tight with Franklin Roosevelt. And

11:37

you know, he has a lot to do with putting

11:40

together and not just Roosevelt, but

11:42

all of the New Deal people, so people like

11:44

Senator Robert Wagner in New York, people

11:46

like Francis Perkins, Secretary of Labor. He's very

11:48

close to all these people. And Hillman

11:50

had a great deal to do with getting the you

11:53

know, the Wagner Act, the nineteen thirty five of the landmark

11:55

act of collective bargaining in

11:57

American history. Hillman had a lot to

12:00

do with shaping that um the

12:02

Fair Labor Labor Standards Act from nineteen

12:04

thirty eight. Again, Hillman had a lot to do

12:06

with all of that. So then, in that view, the

12:09

core accomplishments of FDR's

12:12

New Deal owed something to

12:15

conversation and interaction with leading

12:17

labor unions, labor unionists like

12:20

Hillman, who were avowedly socialist,

12:22

and that was normal at the time.

12:25

So that leads me to the following question about

12:27

FDR himself and about the New Deal. Broadly, critics

12:31

of the New Deal at the time. You've pointed

12:33

this out called it socialist. Yes,

12:35

FDR said politely,

12:38

hell no. So what was FDR's

12:40

response to the charge that he

12:42

was a socialist? No, he said he was a liberal. He

12:44

said he was a Christian, a Democrat, and a

12:46

liberal, I think in that order. And what

12:49

did liberal mean in the Roosevelt

12:51

era? It meant coming out of the progressive

12:53

era, from the earlier part of FDR's

12:56

life, from when his cousin was president. It

12:58

meant seeing the federal government as having a

13:00

very very large role to play in

13:03

improving social welfare, taking

13:05

the constitutions, you know, preamble very

13:07

seriously, that the in a very positive

13:10

way. So, borrowing a phrase from Bill Clinton,

13:12

could we say that liberalism meant

13:14

capitalism mend it, don't end it.

13:16

Yeah, you could put it that way. Yes, I mean it does

13:18

not believe in the socialization of the means of production,

13:21

that's for sure. It understands that capitalism

13:23

has been the greatest wealth generating system

13:25

the world has ever known. It takes all of that

13:27

into account. But the point is capitalism

13:30

has to be protected from the capitalists. Left

13:33

to their own devices, the capitalists will rain

13:36

down, rack and ruin not just on the

13:38

working people of America, but on the entire system,

13:40

as we saw, for example in nineteen twenty

13:42

nine, nineteen thirty two. So then the

13:45

New Deal's version of liberalism says, let's

13:47

redistribute some wealth so that the poorest people

13:49

have a safety net, and let's put

13:51

some restrictions on what owners

13:53

and employers can do in the context

13:56

of blocking labor unions. That gives you the National Labor

13:58

Relations laws. Yeah, and then last, but not least,

14:00

let's have a Securities and Exchange Commission and

14:02

laws that regulate the financial markets

14:05

so that they don't play dirty.

14:07

And in the process of at the

14:09

same time, all of these things are meant to shore

14:11

up, to prop up capitalism, yes,

14:13

so that it doesn't collapse in the wake of the Great Depression.

14:16

It's one of the reasons why Norman Thomas, the great socialist

14:18

leader of the nineteen thirties, when asked if

14:20

FDR he carried out the socialist program,

14:23

he said, yeah, he carried it out. He carried out on

14:25

a stretcher because

14:27

he took all of those ideas and

14:30

took them away from the socialist essentials,

14:32

means of production, all of that, and save capitalism

14:35

with some ideas of socialism. So in that

14:37

sense you could imagine the view that liberalism

14:40

is almost the enemy of socialism

14:42

because it takes the best ideas that socialists

14:44

have, it implements them, and then it

14:46

has the effect of preserving capitalism

14:49

rather than allowing people to become

14:51

so miserable and unhappy that they say capitalism is

14:53

fundamentally broken. We want to take over the government,

14:55

we want to do things differently, and we want to have socialism.

14:57

You can look at it that way if you were a sectarian socialist,

15:00

but people like Hillman and others,

15:02

and above all maybe the greatest

15:04

labor leader of the twentieth century, you know, is Walter

15:06

Ruther in Detroit. I

15:08

mean what they saw is, look, we're

15:11

not going to have a revolution, but

15:13

if we can get enough of our stuff

15:15

through, who cares whether it's socialist,

15:18

liberal, what have you. We're making life better

15:21

for ordinary people. We're making we're expanding

15:23

the social welfare. That's what we're here to do.

15:25

What they saw their role as being is

15:28

not an antagonism to

15:30

the liberals, not trying to overthrow the liberals,

15:32

not saying the liberals a role running dog imperialists,

15:34

et cetera. No, they said

15:37

we can see a role for ourselves in trying to

15:39

push and pull from within. So

15:41

that brings us to the current

15:43

democratic socialists. And the

15:45

first question I have about them is

15:48

are they really socialists? Well,

15:51

it depends. I mean, when I hear, you know, Senator

15:53

Sanders, for example, talk about

15:56

define socialism, as he did at some

15:58

point during the campaign at Georgetown, effect,

16:00

he says he's an FDR liberal right, So

16:03

I don't know if that's socialism, then

16:06

socialism has changed. I mean, even they

16:09

calling them some socialists. I've been doing a little informal

16:11

poll of twenty some things. I know, yeah,

16:13

and I have a hypothesis. I'd like to

16:15

hear it because I have no idea. I wonder what your students

16:17

think about this too. So my very informal,

16:20

unscientific poll was that

16:22

people said, of course that the Democratic

16:24

Socialists do not favor nationalizing

16:27

the means of production in the country. They don't want the businesses

16:29

to be taken over by the government. But

16:31

they're sick and tired of the

16:33

term liberal right. They're sick and

16:35

tired of the term progressive right. They

16:38

think, and you've written this that Hillary Clinton took

16:40

the term progressive and you know, muddied it essentially

16:43

by being not left enough. And

16:45

the word socialism sounds cool.

16:47

Yeah, it sounds like I want to change things, I

16:49

want to do things differently. And that's a big part

16:52

of Bernie Sanders appeal a cooint to this theory. And then when

16:54

you take away Bernie Sanders and you put in Alexandro

16:56

Alexandro Ocasio Cortez, now it's younger,

16:59

it's hipper, it's more with it. So what do you think about that? Well,

17:01

I think that's right. I mean, I think that that liberalism

17:04

had a crisis in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies.

17:06

Democratic Party out of crisis as well, coming

17:08

out of Vietnam and all the rest

17:10

of it, and um, the Reagan Revolution

17:12

put the Democratic liberals on the defensive

17:15

and they had to figure out of political strategy

17:17

for themselves. And the Democrats had done

17:19

themselves no good either by changing their party

17:21

around into a kind of conjuries of special

17:23

interests. They took away the party bosses, they ceased

17:26

to be a party in the traditional sense. So

17:28

coming out of all of that, yeah, the Democrats had

17:30

a bob and weave and triangulate,

17:32

if you will, in order to just survive. Now,

17:35

coming out of that, the Clintons

17:38

were trying, i think, to give the Democratic

17:40

Party a substance again, you

17:43

know, seeing them as very much as liberals,

17:45

pushing forward, trying to expand you know, social

17:48

welfare, all the rest of it, the kinds of things with

17:51

some socialism sort of in there. People don't realize

17:53

all of that, but it was the people they were talking about,

17:58

you see. But they always do that they'll call anything

18:00

socialism because they know it's a scare tactic. That's

18:02

a scare word. But you know, maybe it was

18:04

sca It's interesting, we'll come back to that about whether it's

18:06

blood he had to tag politically. It was about politics.

18:08

That's what pople don't understand about what the Clintons

18:10

were about and where things were

18:12

going. Now, things changed

18:15

after that, change changed dramatically, particularly

18:17

after two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, after the

18:19

economic collapse, which I think has a lot to

18:21

do with the students young people you're talking about,

18:24

So people who grew up in the who

18:26

have no memory of Ronald Reagan, who have no memory

18:28

of what politics used to be, like what

18:31

Reagan did to politics, and then who came

18:33

of age in the aftermath of two thousand and eight two thousand

18:35

and nine. I've gone of a very different view of all of these words

18:37

and what they mean than the likes of me who

18:40

grew up in the nineteen sixties. So let's talk about

18:42

words then. Yes, you've written in

18:45

Democracy Journal very powerfully.

18:47

I would say that we should call things what

18:49

they really are. Yes, and that the Democrats made a big

18:51

mistake when they stopped calling themselves liberals

18:53

and started calling themselves progressive. And

18:55

it's really the Clinton era where that happened.

18:58

Yes, why what was wrong with that? Well, liberal

19:00

had been demonized successfully by the right

19:02

wing Republicans. You remember in nineteen eighty

19:04

eight, when George H. W. Bush was running

19:07

for president, he talked about the L word.

19:09

He made it sound, you know, like manure. He made

19:11

it sound like something, you know, so execrable

19:13

that it was really excrement. That was before the TV

19:15

show the L word made it sound somewhat better. But well that's

19:17

another story. But you know, but this is way back in nineteen

19:19

eighty eight, ancient history. But the word

19:22

liberal was demonized. Nobody wanted to be known

19:24

as the liberal right, and so

19:26

the Democrats, chow happened on the word progressive

19:29

as a subside for all of that. Now, progressive

19:31

had been a left wing word that was very

19:34

very anti liberal, if you will. That

19:36

was where the left kind of gravitated to after

19:38

the Communists had been you know, disgraced

19:42

and so forth, in the aftermath of McCarthy, in the

19:44

mathmath of fifty six, full

19:46

of that um so. But

19:48

the Democrats took this all left wing word and made

19:50

it into a kind of euphemism for liberal. They

19:53

repurposed it yet exactly now

19:56

you know, that's okay. But what happened

19:58

was that when by the time you

20:00

got to say, the twenty sixteen

20:03

election, here

20:05

was Hillary Clinton, who

20:08

had this background of having to you know, having to fight

20:11

through the nineties and having to go through all of

20:13

those politics, but it understood

20:15

that times had changed. So she comes

20:17

up with a very liberal, that is to say,

20:19

leftish liberal platform. If

20:22

you read her platform, it's

20:25

it's much to the left of where she was in two thousand and eight,

20:28

for sure, But she was presumably pushed there very hard

20:30

by Bernie Sanders in the prime No, I disagree

20:32

it was that was true before the primaries

20:34

ever began. He then began to push

20:36

her, not so much with anything dramatically different.

20:39

But you know, if she came out for a twelve dollar

20:41

minimum wage, he would come out for a fifteen

20:43

dollars minimum wage. He would rail

20:46

against the billionaire class. That's not her

20:48

politics. He brought up all of this

20:50

old you know stuff, and she

20:53

looked she had no way to argue

20:55

against it, and she ran calling herself a

20:57

progressive. He's going to progressive her any day.

20:59

And so you think the mistake was where was the excuse

21:02

me, He's going to do that rhetorically. You

21:04

know, whether he's going to be able to deliver on

21:06

it's another matter. So the mistake,

21:08

I think is that, Look, the idea

21:10

of liberalism, which was when I was growing up,

21:12

is a very powerful one. It means up, meant Walter

21:15

Ruther, it meant people like that God

21:17

de Nature got lost. Um. It's

21:20

a word which I think is an honorable one.

21:22

It's an honorable tradition. Now what

21:24

I like to go back to the word using the word liberal,

21:27

No, because I don't think

21:29

that it's going to um, you know, on its own,

21:31

it's going to matter. But I do think that

21:33

people calling themselves liberal progressives,

21:35

for example, as opposed to the socialist

21:38

progressives who want to hold on to that word,

21:41

there could be a fruitful, you know, exchange

21:44

about all of that. Something tells me that Kamala

21:46

Harris is not going to say the difference

21:49

between me and Bernie Sanders

21:51

is that he's a socialist and I'm a liberal.

21:53

She's gonna say something else. Maybe she's gonna chase he's

21:55

a progressive liberal

21:58

doesn't seem quite ripe yet, Okay,

22:01

brought to life. That may be true. And I'm not

22:03

a political you know, putnent or

22:05

neither am I an operative, So I don't

22:07

really know these things. I'm sure it pulls

22:09

terrible So it's not a great idea.

22:12

But let's not talk about let's just started what we're saying

22:14

in public or on the stump. Let's think about our own

22:16

thoughts about all of this, how we conceive all

22:18

of this. And I think there is a difference between

22:20

people who understand what the liberal tradition, it's

22:23

richness, what it was about. Don't trash

22:25

it as just you know, neoliberal corporate

22:27

blah blah. No, that's not what it

22:30

is. That was the way that people referred to Hillary

22:32

Clinton. She is not that she's not Margaret

22:34

Thatcher to try

22:36

and reown that, but

22:39

to do so in a spirit that, you know, these

22:42

things don't have to be in conflict. So

22:44

if that's the case, then how do you feel

22:46

about the democratic socialists doing their

22:49

own bit of repurposing right. If we're right

22:51

that they don't believe in the old version

22:53

of right, even the classic deb's

22:56

version of socialists, then

22:58

they're using shows lists simply to say, well,

23:01

we're to the left of people who call themselves

23:03

progressive. What do you make

23:06

of that? Do you think that's good? Do you think it's harmless? Do you

23:08

think it's desirable? I think it's vaguely

23:10

demogogic. I mean, I don't think it means

23:12

a whole lot um, you

23:14

know, I mean, why is the demogogic? To me? Just to be

23:16

provocative, What seems demogogic is Donald

23:19

Trump saying well, we will never be a socialist

23:21

country. I mean, they may be walking into the demogogue,

23:24

but they're being demogrague. There's there's

23:26

more than one way to be demogogic, you know that.

23:29

Look, And so let's

23:31

take the case of another person

23:33

on the left of the Democratic Party, Elizabeth Warren.

23:36

Elizabeth Warren says that she's capitalist

23:38

to her marrow or something, but

23:41

she's also talking about the kinds of things

23:44

that Walter Ruther was talking

23:46

about. If anybody comes close interest

23:50

in the middle class, no putting workers on boards

23:52

of corporations. I mean, this is a very

23:54

Rutherian socialist idea. Now

23:57

she's not calling herself a socialist, but

23:59

you know, the proof of the pudding. It's in

24:01

the program, is what she's talking about.

24:03

She's thinking more imaginatively, I think than

24:06

any of the other candidates along the kinds

24:08

of lines that I think of as new

24:11

deal liberalism. So if that's

24:13

the case, then I don't know if

24:15

you would agree with this, But maybe the takeaway should be

24:17

that the terms don't matter that much. Yeah,

24:19

I think that's probably right. That it's all the policies

24:22

and it's all very well and good to try to figure out where they

24:24

come from. And we could try to figure out this one comes from here, and

24:26

this one comes from there, and Stewards are a little

24:28

bit socialist and putting members of

24:30

companies on boards a little bit socialist, but in

24:32

the end they're not genuine socialism. So,

24:34

you know, if someone says, who cares about this terminology?

24:36

Why are you guys even talking about it? What would you tell them?

24:38

I would say that you have to be careful though, because it can

24:41

very easily get weaponized. And let's

24:43

talk about weaponizing that should I think what happened in twenty

24:46

sixteen. I mean, you know Bernie

24:48

Sanders, who is not a Democrat, who

24:51

comes out of a you know, the left wing

24:53

of Vermont politics that he helped

24:55

invent. Right, attacked

24:58

at Hillary Clinton as a goon of Wall

25:00

Street, attacked her in sectarian

25:03

terms, which damaged her terribly

25:05

going to the election. Many of the things that

25:07

he said about her, Trump's said about her, Yes,

25:10

making her out to be a slave of Wall Street. That's weaponizing

25:12

socialism. That's turning socialism

25:15

into a weapon that's trying to destroy That's

25:17

another idea. It's actually

25:20

from the perspective of a Clintonite liberal, and

25:22

I think that's a perfectly fine perspective to hold. Right.

25:25

You can see how that's weaponizing in a

25:27

bad way, yes, But from the perspective

25:29

of a critic of Clintonite

25:31

liberalism, it would be weaponizing

25:33

in a good sense. Right. I mean, that's if you

25:35

want to destroy liberalism. But if

25:37

the point, if the point of socialisms destroy liberalism,

25:40

then I think we're going down a very dangerous

25:42

road, a very dangerous because

25:45

socialism might succeed in destroying liberalism

25:47

because because socialism is not going to be just

25:49

supplanned liberalism as the alternative to

25:52

the Donald Trump. So then

25:54

the danger, so I understand correctly, is sort

25:56

of what happened in your interpretation between

25:58

Sanders and Clinton. By criticizing

26:01

Hillary Clinton from the left, by weaponizing

26:03

socialism, as you put it, Sanders

26:06

weakened Clinton, yes, helping

26:09

Trump to win. Correct, that's the account. And on

26:11

that view, the Democratic

26:13

socialists can do that again. They

26:15

can defeat whoever is the Democratic

26:18

candidate in twenty twenty by weakening

26:20

that person, and then that can actually

26:22

plan to Trump's head exactly. Now, look,

26:25

criticizing from the left is perfectly legitimate.

26:27

I don't have any problems with people saying that Hillary

26:29

Clinton is not was not. You know, she

26:32

should have pointed to her program more. Actually, I

26:34

think then she would have shown people that she was not the neoliberal

26:37

hobgoblin that she was being made out to be. That

26:39

was a tactical mistake, indeed a strategic mistake

26:42

on her part. But that's put that to the side.

26:44

Criticism on the left is healthy,

26:46

it's great. We want that. When

26:49

you weaponize it, however, you're being

26:51

destructive. So how do we draw the line.

26:53

We're entering a presidential

26:56

season. We've got umpteen

26:58

number of presidential candidates

27:00

who've already declared right. None

27:03

thus far is running to the right of

27:05

where Hillary Clinton ran the

27:07

last time around. I guess that's right. Yeah,

27:10

I mean, maybe there will be someone who emerges that way. Right.

27:12

Mike Bloomberg has said he's not running, and

27:14

that's partly, I think because he's a rational

27:16

person and he could only have run for

27:18

the right of where Hilly Clinton was and he doesn't see a path

27:21

to the presidency through that, correct. So

27:24

let's talk in practical terms. Yes, what

27:27

would it mean for Bernie Sanders for the

27:29

other Democratic Socialists to criticize

27:31

legitimately from the left, in

27:33

your view, and what would it mean for them to

27:35

dangerously weaponize in very practical

27:38

terms, what's what's kosher according to a lens

27:40

and what's not kosher? Yeah, I mean, it's

27:43

like pornography. I know when I see it. You know what,

27:45

when you see it, when you're calling someone

27:48

a name, a Wall Street

27:51

goon or whatever whatever the language

27:53

was, that's a polemic, that's that's

27:55

an attack, that's destructive. If you say,

27:58

Mike, my my advers my opponent,

28:00

and I disagree. I would like to see this happen

28:02

rather than that happen for this reason. But I think that.

28:05

But I think they're gonna be a lot of listeners or I

28:07

hope. There are a lot of listeners who instinctively

28:10

respond to that by saying, but wait a minute,

28:12

Hillary Clinton was cheek

28:14

by jowl in close

28:17

relationship, absolutely with plenty

28:19

of liberals. To be fair, yes, on

28:21

Wall Street. Yeah, there really were lots of

28:23

Goldman Sachs partners making donations.

28:25

Because it's perfectly reasonable, and if you could have a

28:28

reasonable conversation about that, I believe

28:30

that she could actually convince many of the people

28:32

who opposed her for why that's not a terrible

28:35

thing. But you could not have that conversation.

28:37

She couldn't have that conversation. It was terribly

28:39

embarrassing. It was terribly difficult given

28:42

the political setting, which in fact, in part

28:44

the left help set up. Why can't

28:46

the radical vision just

28:49

when? I mean, we have had moments in

28:51

American history where radical visions

28:53

of conservatism have come

28:55

very close to winning definitively. Think

28:57

about the Reagan era, where there

28:59

were some significant pushbacks. Why

29:02

and maybe you could argue, well known, actually

29:04

more pragmatized, that did what did he do? He

29:06

didn't get rid of Social Security, he

29:08

didn't get rid of all of the New Deal. I mean, Laala

29:11

Reagan was an interesting character but he was a pragmatist

29:13

on the right, you know, as par excellence.

29:16

I mean, look at what we've got today. Now,

29:18

okay, you want to see you want to

29:20

see the radicals taking over. There's the Republican

29:23

Party. It's become a movement, not a party. Okay,

29:25

so good. So you have a radical movement that claims

29:27

to have a chance of taking over. And after all, Republicans

29:30

do control the Senator, and they control the Presidency. And

29:32

as you say, Republican conservatism is a

29:34

movement, not just a political party, and

29:36

many of its leading figures are not pragmatists.

29:39

So just to push the question, why

29:42

can't the same thing happen on the left, you have

29:44

to recognize first of all, that all America

29:46

is not Brooklyn. All

29:49

America is not Cambridge. All

29:51

America is not Berkeley. That's number one.

29:54

I mean, my daughter, I love her, she's

29:56

great, she lives in Brooklyn. You know, you'd

29:58

think that you're in the people's Republic of Brooklyn.

30:01

Now it's great, but it's not the rest

30:03

of the world. That's number one. So

30:05

whereas I think a person on the right could you would

30:08

have a lot more to go on in terms of what America

30:10

is like America is a much more conservative country.

30:13

Thank you very much, great to be here, very good.

30:22

Sewer socialism. That's a phrase

30:24

I admit I had never heard before Sean

30:27

Willens described it to us, and

30:29

it's really remarkable to me because

30:31

it seems to capture in the most fundamental

30:33

way something about socialism that has

30:36

never come up in the course of our big debate

30:38

about whether America could ever be a socialist

30:40

country and whether the Democratic Socialists

30:42

or onto something brand new. It's the idea

30:44

that socialism has always, in fact been

30:46

with us here in the United States, every

30:49

time we make a choice about whether something should

30:51

be done by the government or whether that

30:53

thing should be done by the private sector.

30:56

So maybe it is socialist to say that

30:58

we should have medicare for all, But

31:01

so what, maybe that's just as socialist

31:03

as saying that the sewers should be run by the government

31:06

instead of buy a private, for profit company.

31:09

Going deep into the history of socialism

31:11

in America and into the question of the

31:13

terms that we use taught

31:15

me to realize that there's more

31:17

to our tradition than meets the eye. Deep

31:20

background is brought to you by Pushkin Industries.

31:22

Our producer is Lydia Genecott, with engineering

31:25

by Jason Gambrel and Jason Roskowski.

31:27

Our showrunner is Sophie mckibbon. Our

31:29

theme music is composed by Luis Gera

31:32

special thanks to the Pushkin Brass, Malcolm

31:34

Gladwell, Jacob Weisberg and Mia Lobel.

31:36

I'm Noah Feldman. You can follow me on Twitter

31:39

at Noah R Feldman. This

31:41

is deep background