center. watch c-span "washington journal" live 7:00 eastern monday morning. discussion. >> monday night on the communicators. national association of broadcasters ceo gordon smith on the future of television. >> i think again, the future in foriew is very bright broadcasting. new 3.0 receiver standard because it will give -- investing dramatically into spectrum. of our it will wake up your phone so if emergency coming in the your neighborhood you can be aertedded to that through broadcast signal. i've already said tremendous pictures that it will provide and the sound contains it will augment. the internet, the broadcast

signal is a one way signal. source that everyone in the geographic area. because it will be in the future internet interoperable if a talk to ats to broadcast signal, there will be morepportunity to have far engagement with your television broadcaster. in the political world, i wish existed when i was on the ballot. a will enable the ability of broadcaster to provide political advertising for members of congress just to the people in the districts they represent. >> watch communicators kill 2.tern on c-span >> next debate on merit of socialism.versus from new york city this is an and 20 minutes.

applause >> thank you so much for coming out on a friday night. [applause] >> the reason that i was intrigued when bhaskar asked me wanted to do this, i'm sort issue.uadable on this i came of age at a time when it alternatives to capitalism has been completely

discredited. remember or hard to hard to understand if you weren't around then, how much it nom as if there was really alternative. it kind of didn't matter what you thought of capitalism just you it doesn't matter what mortality.man it was inevitable fact of life after fall of communism. of age now, itng hads that just as communism fail capitalism has now failed. this comicned by of oligarchs while fee oh are forced wear diapers at their factories givene they aren't bathroom breaks. it's clearly not true. a time when wages are

while tens of millions of silicond in kind ups.y start i'm interested in this debate. if eithersted to see side can talk me out of my sense dispair. forgrateful to cooper union historic great hall to have this in. it was scheduled for different quickly. it sold out it's testament to how much hunger there is for intelligent political debate that all of you are here. tradition ofto a political debate going back to made aen abraham lincoln major anti-slavery address in this very place. you to --

[applause] thank you to -- operating the the hall.ide backsyou to ver so provide for life and services so this debate can reach people beyond this room. how this isxplain going to go. a're going to -- we have number of formal questions that everybody that we talked about hand. people will have three minutes them andide to address then two minutes for rebuttals. so that i don't have to kind of talk over people and try to them andments to then a close. cut out whenll

their time is done. fairly briskly, morewe'll move into a informal discussion and there are not going to be audience doesn'ts, which i hope disappoint people very excited hear. panelists.oduce our nick gillespie editor in chief tv.eason and reason sorry, editor of reason.com and tv.on katherine mangu-ward is editor of reason. ofek chibber is professor yorklogy at new

university. activeson with a very fan base, and the editor of journal of, his latest and is post colonial theory capital.f bhaskar sunkara is the founder jacobin. publisher of [applause] we're going to begin by trying to define our terms. the first question, which is going to start with reason, what capitalism? >> thank you very much michelle. jacobin jayb debate.nizing this

let's get it out the way. capitalism is a system that doesn't have any answers. it does not seek to impose answers to the question which should we produce, how should we produce it, who gets the stuff we produce. that kind of sounds like garbage. i will try to get little more nitty-gritty also in my answer. what that means in practice is that property is largely privately owned. means that profit provides incentive for production, it will.employment is at the government role in the economy should be limited and forces of supply and demand in a free market are the most efficient means of providing the the general well being of human kind. i'm mostly going to obsess about point.st my colleague nick gillespie will be hitting on other topics. keep coming back to this idea. question whether or not capitalism let people flourish

whether it provides the best life that we can provide for them. couple of points here. and 2010 we have had the most incredible revolution. michelle introduction expressed dispair. the sidefind myself on of optimism. i will give a go here. that in those 20 years, we took the number of people living poverty and cut it by 50%. we did the same thing for the don't haveeople who access to clean drinking water. those 20 years? i know. capitalism. that's what happened. came to india and china. the version of capitalism that india and china is wildly imperfect. it doesn't look anything like diversion of capitalism i would like to see in the world. it looks enough like capitalism this huge boomed in standard of living.

when americans talk about capitalism, we cob myopic. we can think about what our now.alism look like that's a different question what capitalism and idea looks like and what capitalism looks like world at large. don't hear that neither nick and i are fans of big business. argue forhear to crony capitalism, we're not here big government. we do not like those things. about how to talk things really fit in the world. sure the gentleman from jacobin how socialism plays out the world. probably maybe all the way socialism plays out in the world. let's talk about the real world let's keep in mind that we have an ideal vision of capitalism as well. you.ank [applause]

jacobin. >> what capitalism is a an fundamentally. my colleague said capitalism doesn't have any answers. right.exactly i think is it doesn't have answers to most of the problems world is face today. a systems is fundamentally organized around exchange. around trade around money around commodities. in particular, capitalism is organized around purchase and .ale of labor power where work has been fundamentally carried out by wage in theng for a the united states today and in the world where any part of the be called will capitalist. labor.m of labor is wage this country is 65 to 70 percent of the population are wage labors. on the other side of this, is a group of people who own production.

this is a tiny percentage of the population. means ofay owns production, it means two things. either it's direct ownership of means production or control. ao for example technically is salaried employee. we'll call them a capitalist decisions.ll the in between these, we have a population of in the united about 20 or 25 percent of the people depending on how you callre it, who we would middle class. this will be people who are managers, people who are white salary peopleevel or owner operators. pop shops. people who have their own that.ering things like the essence of capitalism everything we know about it, relationshipnd the between the first and the second group of people. and the labors capitalist. we're going to ask the question, is this a system that is the best possible means for

improving standards of living providing opportunities etcetera. it's a hard question to answer, say best possible for socialist, you're comparing against two things. au're comparing it against system that today, i hope we will all agree on this, a system that today nobody supports. which is soviet style or chinese system of socialism. on the left today, people don't us.ort on the right it's strong man to knock down socialism. want to stipulate now for the rest of the conversation, nor bhaskar will support that system. second alternative to which we it is the improvements that have been made within capitalism improvements that it in a socialistic direction but without going hog into public ownership with means of production. the reason most socialist embrace those systems they are the same principles.

you.ank [applause] >> you know the first thing i want to say, michelle is, i when you were talking about working conditions, that the "new york times" requires its people to work at their desk and wear diapers. i thought that only happened in world.rd i realized many of the people at times" are that old. we'll let that pass. >> obviously if everybody in this country had working conditions of the "new york be up capitalism won't for debate. yes.ll, the revolution right. on some ofo pick up the things he said that capitalism is an economic system. want to stress, actually that capitalism is a subset of a larger liberal political philosophy.

people inthat reason jacobin and people in this audience agree on which, the very way that we're talking this question does the individual, you have individual under a particular political economic social system. capitalism is the application to economics of a kind of classical liberal theory that goes back at 17th century. it's really all about centered around the individual and and maintaining autonomy for individuals. i think about thetalism or the world and liberal philosophy from which i tend to defend capitalism was summed up few years ago by politician named tim mowen who ran around the slogan, friends toarried gay be able to defend their plans with guns. that's in my ways, is what

reason vision of capitalism is about. it's about securing basic rights live and to explore and to express yourself to participate in what john stewart, a economist libertarian ideas as well as socialist ideas experiments of living. that's what we're defending when we talk about capitalism. >> thank you. word.t the last >> i'm glad you said that. actually we couldn't agree more. socialist and people on the left for generations have fought for right. the reason we have those rights left.e of the it's important to understand that the liberties that libertarians embrace are liberties that were not bestowed

population by the leet power in the 19th power. garkyhey put in place was -- oligarchies. everyone where and always came about through fight and struggle of trade unions working people, genders.lors and all that's a baseline that we can agree on. rest of the debate withat the problem capitalism is not that it's based on the principles or the philosophies that our colleagues about.e talking the problem with capitalism is that it cannot possibly deliver on them. going to trywe're now.tablish from >> to return to jacobin. first question, is the a force for good?

you,ybe i'll surprise michelle. no. a limited way. what i said earlier, what system that'sis a based on market exchange. misleading.e bit what capitalism is is a system firmsstructurally compels and on owners to maximize profits. the center of capitalism is blind relentless pursuit of profits. it's a compulsion. it is not a profit opportunity. an entrepreneurial spirit. it is a compulsion. firms don't maximize profits they die. this is a very important consequence. it goes straight to the question of appreciate and autonomy. in capitalism for the vast majorities of the population, there's no choice servicesfer up labor for wage.

they have to seek employment. hires them isho an entity for whom. onlynly that matters and that can matter is not just acquiring but maximizing their profits. in two things. for the worker, they have to when they take the wage bargain, comes with the wage bargain is an increment for the eight, hours or 19th century 12 hours or third world that, 14 hours, for period, i surrender my autonomy to you. i pee when you tell me to, i to. when you tell me i stand where you tell me to stand. you get to set the wage level. it's not just that inside the workplace the boss gets to tell me what to do. because he has the power to set bargain, of the wage the boss gets to decide what the level of wage is. i gets to decide what time come in and leave. i understand this. of all, that first

income distribution and by people whoset run the firms. by the ceo's and managers. their power,at their bargaining power sets what they will get out of it. years,why in the last 45 what we've seen in the united states while productivity and manufacturing as gone up, real wages, production line workers ordinary workers have stagnated. maybe sixne up percent. for the bottom 60%, there has in wages in 40 years. that's a consequence of their lack of freedom. secondly means that for the ten hours they're at work they are unfree. work,e time they leave now they are spent rest of that time getting ready to come back to work again. they have a choice who to work for. is, whoever they work for, that's the work, bargn get.

[applause] little bithear that at the end? >> yes, they have a choice who they work for. here.hat's my whole point that's what i will dwell on. people have choices. people have choices when they take a job. choices when they buy in and they have choices when engage in commercial transactions where people don't have choices is when they deal with government. mind, one of the strongest gates for capitalism when we space that is voluntary transactions. agree, self-expression, individual autonomy. these are the goods we're seeking. of theear in the case modern american market economy, where people are living free lives is not only outside of their work lives. we heard about the working class and capitalist. what i want to emphasize here is

that as a kids these days say, is prettyin this room bouji, we are benefiting from the modern capitalistic system. profits are information. just like prices are information. what profits and prices tell us when we are making the right amount of stuff for the people who want it. going too are voluntarily buy it. it tells us when people are in for they are willing to do the wages that they are offered. this is something that is constantly locked in this debate. that people are somehow coerced in their working environment. to live experience anyorkers in america at level. this is not to say that people

love their jobs and just bounce ofthere everyday full any unicorns and rainbows. that's how i feel about my job. is still ultimately every morning you wake up and you have the decision about tother or not you are go work. you can choose not to go. the day that you choose not to go -- you know what happens to nobody comesoint, to arrest you or take you away. happens.n fact what i think this is something that jacobin liken team erase. it is, however the lid form of system. under capitalism we have a constant ongoing push for to all thech leads riches that you currently enjoy. it leads to the fact that you could pay your five or ten bucks for tickets to this event. uber and phone that

you're texting on now and how i'm a evil capitalist. you.ank [applause] >> let's start with the question of choice. everythe case you wake up morning i wonder whether you're going to go to work or not. me it is. capitalism. it's a great system if you're on top. it's never been a better system top.u're on the fact of the matter is, for people who actually are, people here'sk for a living, the express they use. i have to work for a living. there's no choice in capitalism gout whether or not you will to work. this is no small thing. no choiceuse there's about whether or not will you go

to work. submit to the power the and your employer. it's disingenuous to suggest that when people go to work, open playing field for themselves. what they face is an employer soul prerogative, soul goal is to do two things. pay out as little as they can much work out of the workers as possible. is this a bastion of freedom and is a bastion of opportunity? not really. it's true that it's better than being a slave. thantrue that it's better being a surf it's true that it's socialistn state society. those are the choices we put before our kids? choices we hang our philosophy of life and the way we organize our societies. that theolutely true state social systemmers were abominations. done much better within

capitalism. we've done better it's been increase power of workers and giving people access basic necessities of life without the market.

this is the opportunity to have an freedom to indulge in. the workingong youthis rising brooklyn and that is not a problem but that is what is happening. we have more things and or opportunity than we have had in the united states, the cost of everything you want to buy that is not completely regulated or prized by the government such as health care and education. it has been getting cheaper in terms of the amount of work that needs to be produced in order to print this purchase it. car, a refrigerator, a television set, a cable package, and internet connection goes on and on in the developing world. there is not a placement is not good better.

even though we have had a bad economy for all of the 20th century, we are still doing better and catherine was talking about extreme poverty day more than halved in the past 25 years because of trade, not because of aid, not because of giveaways by states to cryptic. this script dictators around the love. property is absent essential and cannot is a flat proper property. of thisting point system, i don't think this is a question for socialism either, it begins with individual and a concept of self ownership. it begins very clearly and profoundly with the right to say no. you're not going to do something and it is better than slavery.

it is quantitatively better than slavery, it is qualitatively distinct from slavery as well. it is wrong in an advanced economy or any of the u.s. and canada and mexico. there is trying to blur those lines. we do have options and we found ourselves, not completely, not fully early on ourselves and in that is the beginning of liberal philosophy and capitalism as it plays out in the world which makes us richer and better off. >> thank you. [applause] >> i was hoping i would not have to speak tonight, i could just hang in the back of the music video. conception, icell think someone ownership is a great way to put it. in that respect, do we have freedom today? yes, we have some freedom.

it is limited frick, it is a freedom was enjoyed by a small group of people who own private property. the rest of us are at these people's mercy. i'm not talking about personal property. i'm not talking about your ownership of a toothbrush. i'm not talking about makes leather jacket. at the kennedy concert in 1982 and i would die for his rights to keep it. but private property is different. those are the things that give the people that on them power over those who don't. take a privately on workplace, business owners get to impose working conditions and argument a good alternative most people would reject. while markers do most of the this is underb, we are driving home but it is a

simple point. i think is a point that even libertarians should not reject if they are thinking their conception of cell phone ownership seriously. that is not a fair bargain, economic relations are not free and private if the contract was made under duress. the contract. today is a net of -- undemocratically given tremendous power over others. if you want to talk about concrete, but still that, as look at existing societies like europe's welfare state. blazer with proper property have been undermined for the regulation of capital, though societies to some degree limit freedom for the people that own private property, but the majority that don't, these people enjoy a greater range of choice and a greater chance to achieve their potential. they have this freedom not because private property is upheld but because the freedom for the minorities who own private property is limited.

fundamentally, socialist believe in the rights of people to the fruit of their own labor. of course we believe in individual rights and individual freedom but have individuality can only be achieved in a theety truly embodying virtues of liberty and solidarity. we believe in a system of law, we just believe in different law. private property is not just about government taking things but we also don't want the corporate bureaucracies to control our society. social and economic decisions must be made by the people they must affect. libertarians can't go far enough embracing the mars base a vision of freedom, they can't go far enough to truly embrace the self ownership that nick was talking about. the reason you get the last

one, the idea that we get to define private property as a property that seems kind of disgusting that we don't like, we have to put all of the post up that we really do like in a different basket of personal property, i think that is a fundamental misunderstanding of how those two things are barely tightly interrelated. if you like your stuff, if you want to be able to do what you want to do in your home, in your car, on your computer, this is all enabled by private property. they have faces carved out where people not only on their own bodies but also the physical space around them, they on the media in which they communicate, this is more true than ever, it turns out that capitalism as exists in the world does not of thein a narrowing channels for communication. it turns out that greedy

corporations actually have made it incredibly easy, therefore liberated the ways for people to get together, shout at each other, express their opinions, do they want to do. that is predicated on our understanding of where the lines of free speech start. speech is free or in private spaces. this is something that you can when youhe fact that look on a corporate owned platform of any kind, using people shouting about how awful corporations are. that strikes me as evidence that corporations are not suppressing expression or personal liberty. furthermore, i want to say that private property as a precondition for political liberty does not mean businesses get to be in charge of the government. that is the opposite of the thing we're talking about, the moment that they business and big up -- the government gets together, everyone loses. socialist lose, libertarians

lose, it is the inevitable endgame of socialism as it is proposed. >> thank you. the next question is what is the relationship between freedom and democracy. >> is between capitalism and democracy. >> this is a historical question. i think we should be very clear about the answer to this question. capitalism has everywhere and always fought against the imitation of democracy. also, the expansion of suppers, no need to clap, is a sad thing and a historical fact. once we got them, capitalism has worked to undermined it. withenjoy the power it has the potential it could have his

hand in. capitalists don't want to give up power to democratic processes. didn't want to do with engaging empowered voters. why were capitalists so worried about working in democratic society? it is simple, they thought that working people could express their political rights and they wouldn't stop there, they would extend democracy into economic and social wellness. underestimated how resilient the system is. live in a democratic capitalist society. a society has been made more civilized. of thes is because struggles of working-class movement and despite the resistance of capitalists. the fact is that we still live in a partial democracy, not a complete democracy, that is because of how much time we spend in our workplaces. if you ceos make decisions that affect millions of people. this tyranny bleed over into other spheres of life, even if

you are saying that the tierney at the work place is fine, it can be justified but we want democracy elsewhere. it doesn't work that way. it has been consistent for the icloud powers of capitalism undermining our political democracy. whatever noble and liberal dream we share of liberty and justice has been frustrated by how well and empowering it has been distributed. forward, if weo were to try to achieve a deeper democracy, and economic democracy, the kind that would allow the majority to win and live in freer and happier lives, we would see capitalists as a barrier to that event. we see it everywhere. this to me is history so the only recourse they have is to defend his history and say that the emerald against democracy were justified or go on. but this libertarian temptation play services to the

democracies unsustainable. -- the democracy is unsustainable. >> democracy is majority rule. how many of you are republicans? how many of you want absolute democracy now that the republicans on the white house and both houses of congress? does anybody out there? this whole idea did that democracy is an absolute good is both -- bad. we all know that, the single achievement of the past 500 years in western political philosophy has been limiting the state. there are certain things that the state does not own of you, from your because of you. we all believe in fedor democracy. benson mclean recently wrote a democracy in chains book about

how the evil koch brothers will work democracy. i should point out that the koch brothers are donors to reason and thank god. we believe that there are individual rights including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that a majority of dollars from republicans can vote to take away from the rest of us. so let's get that straight, democracy is not an unfettered good. it is deeply problematic. there is a wide range of the shared activities of which majority can vote and we can decide this for that within a certain range but nobody wants unfettered democracy. that is my biography. i think we are all against that. question then is what is the relationship between capitalism and democracy. to the extent that there are social goods that we agree that we want to fund and if you're a liberal, a libertarian in today's parlance, classic liberal in years past, that

might be something like public at i will speak for catherine because as libertarians we are not allowed to speak for each other, i'm not even allowed to speako -- speak for myself. i usually am not quite sure what i think about something. take public. we will not take all of their income, we tax people and give it to people so they can participate more fully in society, develop themselves, have more autonomy, etc.. all right, let's do that. it doesn't need to be absolute. we need tax money, you get tax money from markets and commercial transactions of things that people actually want as catherine was talking about. capitalism or the economic application of liberal, political philosophy gives you the money you can use in taxes to help people participate more fully in society. that is not such a bad thing, we

might argue in terms of -- i know one thing that is good is that their market socialists so they miss a public education would be better if it was based on charter schools and schools of choice within a system. rather than mandatory schools that are a lot like prisons. it is funny.cord, that they make mention the koch brothers and i appreciate the disclaimer. does anybody know where the coke family got rich? catherine has brought up the specter of stalinism and socialism practice a little bit. deals inrich making the ussr. this was the time when anti-stalinist were announcing in late 20's and 30's that

stalinism, we should not have -- forward this capitalist interest were. there had to drop their ideology and do business with who they could. of let's take the example public education. if they're conceding that, i actually agree that most conservatives and libertarians would concede that a child has the right to be literate and the basic mathematics and it is really unequal. we have public education in this company. they were having a three meals a day, he's not more fundamental than education? why don't we enjoy all those things as social rights?

the question is how to take a paper at entering them into a reality. the historical record is very important for american socialist. we fought for the eight hour work week, liberty's whatever, reproductive rights, the fight for gay marriage and on and on. this is our history, this our legacy and what our actual relationship is doing. [applause] >> this is the last question for the formal part of the debate. -- does capitalism allow people to reach their full potential? it iss one seems easy, having access to resources that allows people to reach their full potential and as you just

heard, the jackson post was said at the way that we give people access to basic step they need is socialism. we cited against the capital system to shove all the stuff around and in fact, i will come back to the song i've been saying all along. in the last 25 years, there has spectacular, unprecedented, my blowing large growth in the number of people basics. access to the i'll think anybody in this room would disagree that if there is this isomic insight, capitalism, this is a very fundamental fact which plays to our point of agreement, people need stuff to do they want to do. capitalism generates stuff.

it also generates an incredible amount of stuff. i think what you always your in these debates is the inequality point. not irrelevant. the poorest people, while the gaps between them and the richest people is growing, the poorest people are getting richer as a spec -- at a spectacular. if your apprentice is that too self-actualized, two floors, people need to have some basics and go out and do their thing, capitalism is the best way to provide as basics and i think everything else is essentially clouding the issue. if we have private property, people have their own space and their self ownership to do they want to do. we have capitalism even in the garbage and imperfect way it is existing in the world, people are rich enough to get a hold of the basics. the knot that people spent on

dramatically,eted the amount they spend on housing has plummeted to medically. it is so easy to gloss over, that is why want to say over and over like a broken record. people have enough my to buy the basic stuff and there is no amount of handwaving and talking about the workers and talking about the capitalists that can make that untrue. we are looking for something else for self-actualization is totally misguided. people should be able to choose what their own best lip looks like, they are maximizing the area for personal choice and it starts with providing the basics and that is what capitalism does. [applause] >> the answer is no, it can't.

this is my time you're taking a. a couple of factual issues here, i would to respond to two factual issues quickly that nick and catherine brought up. this idea that there has been a massive decrease in poverty rates around the world, this is driven by china. misleading, i don't want to be the point he had a professor here. it is a little misleading what they're saying and china is a country in which 50% of the revenue is still controlled by the state. if that is your vision of capitalism, it is not quite where you wanted to be. secondly, this is more important, you can't be serious when you're talking about united states, three out of four americans are better off now than they were 30 years ago, actually untrue. outside in new york, it seems misleading but outside the country, even in the last 20 years, the poor are better off. not true. we are living through the first. in history in the last 40 years in the united states, the bottom

50% of the country has not seen his wages or income rise and this is from stanford, this is the caddy, this is a manual sires, study after study you are showing this, but it mattered, we think that capitalism doesn't have bargaining, quite the contrary, it absolutely has bargaining, the point is the bargain itself between employer and employee is what is resulting in stagnated incomes for the bottom. in this?t resulted the trade genes are supporting institutions for the state to dismantle and what we have is a complete despotism of the employers. this is not an aberration, this is capitalism, this is what you get when you take away the support from working people. the address the question very precisely. it works if you are wealthy and for the rest, no. tot does take for you

develop this? autonomy. should have the freedom to decide what you want to do. time, to develop them and in the end, money. for the bulk of the working time of a working american, they are presiding in a tyranny. a private tyranny that is called the workplace. catherine, he said civil liberties are enhanced whenever there is private property, you can't be serious. the one place in america are you do not have full right to speech is in the workplace, a place that is the essence of private property, you are to organize a union, they will fire. if you want to go take it he when we tell you not to, you are fired. these are called employment rights and these are encroachments on people's autonomy. secondly, time. do you know that 80% of americans feel stressed. and are underpaid overworked. overworked means you are killing herself at work and what happens when you are away?

you are just recovering to like to work. what autonomy? what flourishing? >> thank you. [applause] >>. the question, as catherine underscored,nd is we are not talking about perfection, capitalist perfection like your and now versus a socialist paradise. i'm not a religious person but i believe in original sin. we live in a fallen world. china is more capitalist than it was 15 or 20 years ago. go to whereg way to it would even be similar living in mississippi but to the extent that it is more capitalistic, fewer people are starving to death. that is also true of the continent of africa where between 2000 and 2015, two-way

trade between the united states and africa, it more than doubled and extreme poverty rate which is generally defined as living on a dollar 90 were less for purchase power parity, it has massively declined. it is more capitalistic than it was, there's more commerce, is more trade, there were more goods that i owned that i sell to you. you buy and use only something back. was that if said you look and this is scholarship done by scott winship, drawing up the panel survey of income dynamics, it doesn't -- it is not controversial in the field of income ability. three out of four people, by the time you turn 40 you are doing better off than your parents were. it is an old song and a really nice on to keep saying this is the first generation in america that will live at a lower rate than before. think about it yourself, and was the last time you bought a tv? when was the last time you paid

more in dollar amounts, not accounting for inflation for better features, things have been getting cheaper and cheaper in nominal dollars and also in the amount of work that the average worker has to do in order to do it. things are getting better, where they need to get better still is to remove restraint on individual rights so we are not locking people up, not for nonviolent drugs and things like that, a lot of it these report improvement but economic stagnation is not actually what we are talking about here. >> now we are going to move into something a little more informal. the reason to know about is if it is a position that because capitalism has given us a world overflowing with craft that the inequalities that that creates -- the kind of desperate stories that we are all familiar with from our health care system, the people

inhumanethese defeating systems that any attempt at family life or stability, all this just-in-time scheduling, is it your position that that is basically worth it for the world full of craft that capitalism creates? >> a couple of things, the first things, those horrors of working life are a thing that are more common in poor societies. in that sense, yes, we are -- worldose things full of crab corresponds to fewer of those things in the world. we are not saying that the world full of crab is contingent on those things. i think it is likely that the

next 20 years will see a heck of a lot more crop and a lot less of the kind of abusive practices that we hear about all the time that workers experience, that will be in part because political advocacy also be because of this year society. the cause we have more money and the luxury goods that we consume is moral goodness. -- we in theonsume united states as we have gotten richer, we commit less, we are more conscious about our environment of footprint, that is because we have the luxury to do that because we are rich. you see that and lots of other areas. is richerted states than a lot of scandinavian companies -- countries but you have a abuse of workers here, people being bankrupted by the health care system, yet people being bankrupted by childbirth

that we don't have in countries that aren't as rich as us but it -- they devoted themselves to a more equitable system. >> one of those things is that when people are richer, the benefits of that, the change by which those bridges make our lives can julie better changes from sector sector and i would argue and united states that health care and education are two places that are heavily dominated by the public sector. these are not places where they let the market get in and improve people's tuitions, we had not actually realized a system of free labor, people are much more trapped in a health job for a government job where teaching job than i would argue in a lot of other sectors. so against the example of scandinavian and social democracy, when you talk about socialism and market socialism, how is that different?

how does the system you're aoposing different than european welfare state? that we start at a certain level thinking about what we want to see in a society, what are we against in capitalism, i think that socialists, especially those with marxist background like to have very scientific protections, this is called scientific socialism for that reason. this is a more ethical complaint. we are against exportation, we are against hierarchy to whatever extent it can be abated, you want that sort of society. we have seen the struggles of the workers movement in much of europe and scandinavia but also elsewhere. they have built welfare states that have given people a greater range of choices and opportunities. we see that working. the system also has a bit of an achilles' heel. in athough to put workers

commanding position of power compared to almost anywhere else, it cap investment decisions in the hands of capitalists. allowed them to slow the desk slowly undermined and wrote all of that. that's why i think if you want a sustainable long-term socialism then you need to go beyond social democracy and socialize investment. it comes to market or not markets, i want what works. i think this is something where we can say that given our the path ofas on central planning, that model is broken and the future with computing and other things, maybe a more participatory system would work. maybe we will still have questions of calculations where we might need the market, to me, that is a question that has to be decided, not high priority but in the process of struggle. we envision society without class, a society after just socialism

within capitalism. >> most of us would agree that capitalism has to answer for the sins of actually existing. you can just talk about it as this theoretical abstraction. why shouldn't the very well-documented cores of communism impact how people ofnk about the possibility socialism and why shouldn't it make them weary about something that goes beyond social democracy? [applause] >> it should impact the thinking of any thinking person. any history or past experience, you can't ignore, it has to factor in. in the same way when we talk one hasason model, no mentioned franco, these are obviously different things. say, init is suffice to the historical record of the 20th century, you have seen democratic experiment and socialism.

you have seen movements that have attained great power and even state power and honored and respected democracy while absent a social and economic rights. this is most sweden and norway and a host of other places including central america in nicaragua. this is were less movements have seencipated, you also have in other instances, gross people's dignity and rights, you see that on both sides. both socialism and capitalism are capable of democratic and authoritarian forms. i think people should keep these things out of their mind. i think it is important but also it is important to know that the democratic socialist tradition of the united states is long-standing farber for the soviet union, it exists now

afterwards and many of these people were the most intelligent critics of stalinism and political systems. our knowledge, even the worst stalin and the weight is used to describe it came from the democratic left. >> i will ask you guys one more question before we turn to the final proposition. to me have a poor person in the to a badates going public school, being bored with substandard medical care, how is that for some more free than a person born into a european with cradle-to-grave welfare states? >> we should recognize that they can move to america where they can come here. while we are talking about a place that is generally hostile

to immigration, it has been historically and continues to be. i say this is a muddy, i am an open borders person. anybody who wants to come to the united states should be allowed to enter. on the not a small thing left that is usually meant that i am somehow trying to stoke the reserve army of the unemployed to drive down wages so that capitalists can get more wealthy, even wealthier still by having low wages, what it means is that people can come here and flourish. socialism, this is generally true, the heart the social worker state, the more homogeneous the population tends to be. they don't like immigrants, this is one of the reasons why donald trump is not really stupid but profoundly evil. even he is within a few generations of emigrating, he would close off america, many people on the left would do that as well, many people on the right. when you talk about what it means to be poor in america,

clearly there are people were are born in bed circumstances but the way you fix that is not by started to talk about democratic socialism and investing socially, it is that you free them from a public -- theyystem in which never seem to help people that need to have the most. you freedom from that system. that is why they been very forward in the school choice moment. is where people have more choices within whatever limits are placed in front of them, you do the same thing with health care, liberate the health care system from a place where $.50 to every doll is being spent by the government, it doesn't work very well, there is no reason why health care and education can't be delivered much more cheaply and innovatively by a flourishing free market, but to when it be great if we were all born middle class in denmark, maybe.

but that is not the world we live in, the question is why we have the poor with us everywhere, how do we have the fewer of them and how do we have more options -- i would argue that is limiting the government and providing a basic social safety net and then looking to civil society as well as market socialism within those areas that we agree going to be under perp -- public purview like education and health. about immigration, it seems that the one thing that america actually has historically done better than most countries in europe is integrate immigrants and part of the backlash against immigrants in the european social democracy is that people don't like paying all this money for people that they see as then and the one thing that makes me despair about the social democratic system that underlie seems ideal is that it doesn't seem to -- it seems to crack under the strain of diversity.

>> that is not true at all. >> a couple of points, let me say something, what nick said is really important. he says the health care system is working and that we need to free it up because we see there's too much money being public -- public money being spent on it. it is being freed up because they are clearly failing and they need to get them more choice by bringing markets in. toos important because often in the net estate, in these debates, when it find something in the -- and it is working, here's the thing, health care in europe is provided at battle -- better quality at lower costs and with greater scope through the public system. it is not private health care. debates, i sisi summit come from another country, you want to have americans know if the rest of the world exists.

schools,k at public yes, public schools are failing because they have been choked because the funding to them has been choked. there is stealth privatization of public education because of linear financed. furtherlt is not to advertisements of the poor get trapped in these apartheid the neighborhoods of theirs, these are increasingly balanced schools with kids with michael get to lead, the option is to genuinely fund them and get the money the way there given money and other advanced industrial countries. privatizing is a kind of extortion. public support is on the table so either you stay in the crack houses we are giving you and that is not fair to me. >> think the socialists should be reminded that denmark exists. >> let me answer your

observation that the abuses that are going on in the workplace of the united states are something that occurs in poor countries so let's talk about these poor countries. why do they occur in poor countries? poor countries is what victorian england was in the 19th century, the reason you don't see these abuses occurring in europe right now is not because there's something magical about rich countries. in all these countries, their trade unions and political parties that defend workers and it makes it hard for employees to have what they have in the united states. and poor,about rich it is because in more developed countries there is a history of trade unionism. united states stands alone in having a protection from workers organizations with those workers and that is why in the u.s. today, it is a parallel to what you find in poor countries when these two parts of the world have no petition from workers and the unbridled power of employers, that is why.

that is not denmark, that is the best of the world. >> what they stand up for is workers to the exclusion of people who would hope that they could someday be workers in the countries. quite against immigrants they stand up for workers. they stand up against people who want to work for lower wages, they want to make that a legal. jobs atople don't have all, i honestly think that standing up for workers is and i examined sentence that should be more closely examined, there are workers that need our help. let me try to systematically answer what michelle raised. i'm sorry i did not hear everything you said. it is true that in europe right now, there is a kind of backlash against immigration amongst certain sections of the population. let's give something else in wave of migrants and immigrants that came out of the middle east, iraq and syria over the last 12 years is quite extraordinary having europe they were welcomed.

in the midst of that, there's been a backlash. of the not an artifact welfare state. since the establishment of the european union, wages have stagnated, england has gone through its worst. of wage stagnation. what they say is that our mainstream parties, our own states are doing nothing to defend our wages while our benefits are being cut. the reason they point to that event is not because of social democracy, it is because all the establishment is telling them is that there is nothing we are going to do to improve your economic luck. europe has been in unrelenting austerity for almost 15 years. the far right comes in and says to them, here is why you are stagnating, these people are coming in and taken it away. there is no other political party that is addressing the issue other than the far right.

immigration has not been an issue in europe. it has become one because of the fact of the stagnating standards of living and that is all because of the increasing power of the right, the increasing power of corporations any increasing insecurity that we are feeling that has nothing to do with social democracy, it has to do with the altered balance of power. [applause] at it we have to move on to the final question. -- is capitalism the to ensure political and economic freedom and provide opportunities? >> i sent catherine and email and she responded within a libertarian and market opportunities, i will give them that. both sides being

so respectful. please keep it there, i can't imagine what the offspring of socialism libertarians would be. this question itself is a bit unfair, it is too easy for us because we can't compare a theoretical system with an existing one in good taste. i can tie it at socialism would be way better, i can look at all sorts of assertions but that would be fair in a debate. what we can do is start with the reality, where we are right now and think about what a just society would look like. we think a just society would be one in which everyone is reaching a potential, the social scientists, even jay gould used to say about einstein that he was a certain, is interested and

, peopled with his brain equal talent lived and died in sweatshops and cargo. if the system is allowing people to reach their potential, i think we would all in it that it is not. with amazingilled wealth, also, exploitation of poverty and all sorts of terrible misery, how can we make it better? we can try to tame the system at first. we can try to build the welfare straight to get the basics. different,unique and we can all only develop these unique abilities in a society with a different order priority. areace where in equities tackled so we all truly have a fair shot at life. this would mean that society will be able to socially provide ,eople with the necessities food, housing, education, i'm glad we only got one of them, health care, shall care to allow for him to do it. then we look in and say can we go further?

can we go beyond it will burst into a more democratic, but it does -- but does the tory society. this is an open question, we notice the social democracy works, we also know it has limits, then we can go beyond it. this is a lot of my work on the idea that we can but we did so by testing and pushing the boundaries, it is a democratic process that can move forward but also one that can move backward. i imagine in a capital society that there will be plenty of catherine to and have a party of three or 4% on the fringe of society. honestly it would not be much of a change for anybody. we where we end up, wherever end up, it will be a utopia. it will still be a place where we can get our heartbroken, we may be depressed and feel lonely, it won't cure your stomach ache, your nausea,

indigestion, all that stuff, in the process of getting that i think we will solve a few of our animal problems. we begin to start tackling our human ones. socialists know that the old system isn't working and we know that a democratic one lead people to more free and his own lives, that is the claims i can make and if you're interested in these ideas, i think it will be part of a long, multigenerational unit of movements. it will perhaps one day make the earth a homeland rather than any good -- in exile. >> it is funny what you said just now, your system won't stop you from being heartbroken or lonely, it will cure your heartburn or your stomach it, but it kind of does do those things actually, i'm sure all of you have been on tender, i'm sure all of you have bought

pepto-bismol, those are the gifts of capitalism and it sounds silly but it is true. >> capitalism as it exists in the world is imperfect, i appreciate the extent to which we managed to curb both of our toulses to compare real imaginary and vice versa in this discussion, it has been an absolute pleasure, a rare one. i think what i want to wrap up is just to say that the virtues that capitalism fosters are not sexy ones. it does not martial courage and solidarity, the ridges of capitalism are prudence and guideness and to be the who is fighting for politeness is not a great place to be but i think it is the right place to be. a world where people are

fundamentally basically decent to each other because they are going to engage in voluntary market transactions to get the stuff they need in which people can find love and secure their stomachache and go down to the duane reade, head over some money and whatever you need, thank you, whatever build out they wanted, it is an underrated miracle that capitalism has provided, the free-market enterprise embedded in capitalism, embedded in modern liberalism has provided. separating idea of the craft from the broader system is misguided, the craft is the system and the system is awesome. as exists in the real world, perfect. i'll say that a million times over. publishes 80ne pages about how the current system is nothing magical capitalist system we would like to see.

thatwhat i want to say is if we are try to create a world where people can make their own choices about their own lives, capitalism does better than socialism, even more so than the whidbey capitalism socialism that these guys keep flogging. i think the reason that is true is because it actually is a powerful force for bringing poor people into more access and basic income, fundamentals of life, just because rich people get richer doesn't mean the poor people are not dramatically better off and freer under a capitalist system. years thate last 20 show that, i think we can show in the developing world, only if we would let it. >> this really went by fast, although we were just getting think of, i would to

you who came here, jason furman has not been mentioned yet and he did incredible work. you may not know this but for all his radical talk, he runs a magazine and jason is one of his for michelle of course, thank you for coming here and this does not going to my three minutes by the way. i would like for nick to think about this and address this, because said that capitalism, an authorization of the political philosophy and what would you suggest is capitalism is completely inconsistent with liberal and political philosophy. if you really do take liberty and freedom seriously, you have

to be a socialist. there is no way around that, let me tell you why. essence of liberal and political philosophy is not the protection of property, this is something that was foisted onto it in the 20th century because of liberalism's fear of socialism. the essence of liberalism from the moment of its founding through all of them, the essence was to treat people as equals. the moral equality of human beings, not equal treatment, not to give people money or equal income but to recognize the essential moral equality, the intrinsic worth of human beings. that is liberalism. it gets better. capitalism is a system, what it is is a system which systematically forces subordination, the willing subordination of the majority of the population to an unbridled authority. that forces them to subordinate every other one of their

longings for our ticket -- artistic expression, love, health, whatever they want to do to the imperative of the job. other, them against each it forces people to treat each other as means, not as ends. >> they are forging to view one another as rivals, that is how the labor market works. you can't have a vision of the world in which you once -- treat each people other with respect, multiples, liberalism while you live in a system that is built on power,

on war against all, that is the essence of capitalism and what motivated socialists from the start is to try to open up a space where people can have mutual respect and treat each other as ends, not as means. we have made progress in capitalism. it is true. all that progress has come from battles of the poor, led by socialists who try to tame these barbaric aspects of an inhuman system. [applause] so the question was put that if i really wanted to take liberalism seriously, i would have to be a socialist. i don't think so. i thought it over and among other things, the history of liberalism is bizarre in that it does not actually begin with

beginning of liberalism which predates lock a couple hundred years before he was talking about it, it was about equality under the law. it was very important to understand that what religious fighters were fighting that is that we are all equal under the eyes of god and that a ruler does not have an absolute claim to any of our stuff, especially our lives. in that limitation of government power and state power or as the collective in the face or body of the king. that is where liberalism was from and it is about limiting government based on the idea that we are all not means to an end, i would argue that capitalism is a system that does a better job of actually implementing that vision. it does it in a lot of ways by releasing us from marbach received, whether in the name of the king or the spirit or anything like that.

capitalism as we have been talking about it and we can quibble with definitions, it is not perfect. it does cost of the need to be adjusted, but of the great things of what the lefties to lament about capitalism before they started going back to talking about lake capitalism rather than invest capitalism is that capitalism is infinitely malleable and takes on all this criticism and puts it in the system and get people more time off. kids did not stop working because of eugene b debs. they stop working because technological innovation and capital production that a point where we didn't need kids in order to group -- grow food or make sox where do all of the other stuff that we take for granted. we produce more stuff with less time and less resources, that is good for all of us. that gives us time to watch netflix, that is also a product of capitalism, not of socialism. are getting better,

our food and culture are getting better, our lives are getting longer. this is not accidental to capitalism, this is because of hope it's, netflix, amazon, apple, dreadful pharmaceutical companies. profit motive of mostly going out of business and going bankrupt but every once in a while coming up with pepto-bismol or antidepressants for all sorts of things like viagra, you name it, it is out there, the contraceptive pill was not a socialist fantasy, it was a capitalist reality, it is a good thing, capitalism helps us grow, victims is energize ourselves and live our life to a full or potential. what we do need is not to debate capitalism but take the wheels off of things, we have to stop shooting wars and we have to stop was on drugs, we have to allow people to become or free, not just from the state but from society in a way that says we don't like the way that you want

to live, with only the way you look, we don't want you to live there and get rid of those impediments which come primarily from the state and vested, certainly not from capitalists were happy to sell anybody, anywhere, anything they want. >> thank you so much. [applause] [applause] afterwards,on astronauts scott kelly recalls his voyages into space in his book endurance. he is interviewed by charles bolden. >> your was the third servicing mission. having been a part of that mission and become a official hubble hugger, what you live the legacy of hubble is?

incredible, 27 years. doing the kind of science on a and not letting on the scientist experienced the data that they get from it which is most of the stuff you don't provided in visit that people get a sense for where we are in the universe which is pretty insignificant if you consider those images. 9:00 afterwards to my at eastern on book tv on c-span2. c-span, q&a with