Using Unions as a Weapon: The Socialist Plan to Kill Small Companies

One of the most important things that any of us are going to be thinking about in this time is what is going to be the economic philosophy that we get behind. Once we understand that economics becomes warfare in the political realm, then we understand we have to wrap our minds around what is the philosophy that's driving this stuff. Right now the energy in the Democratic party is the um democratic socialist of America and it is entirely a Marxist communist philosophy and it's very easy and I will do this many many many many times in the future because we must combat these terrible ideas with good ideas. But it's very easy to take the ridiculous among them who just say the quiet part out loud and dismantle it. But I actually came across a guy who is very measured um has a far more reasonable stance, but his philosophy that drives his decision-making will break the engine of prosperity in an extremely knowable way. And so I'm going to go through I will concede the things that I think he gets right and I will say all the things that I think he gets wrong, why he's getting them wrong, what they will need to be in order to get this right, so that you guys aren't living your life at the level of bumper stickers. you can get in, build this model of cause and effect, know where you fall on the spectrum, um, and that we can all get sharper. >> Ample income levels of certain people that are voting for candidates of the left. I think they could rightly point out that, okay, these people in a comparative, you know, standpoint are not um necessarily the most most oppressed. In many cases, they're earning uh raises at higher um than the level of inflation, but they still feel like they're being squeezed. And what I would point to is the cost of a few headline goods like housing. >> Beyond that, what I would say is that a lot of people have been drawn to ideas of the left for purely normative reasons. I, you know, did did not come from a particularly affluent background or anything like that, but I was drawn to the ideas of the left when I was in high school when I had a part-time job at a key foods grocery store, but I was politicized not by my experience of of being exploited and the the key >> proletarianized. Yeah. I was not that because in fact I was so ineffective at my job, I'm almost positive I was producing no surplus labor. But I was politicized, you know, in the library books, you know, reading books by people like Irving how by Michael Harrington. >> This is the very thing I need people to understand. This is a guy who has an academic understanding of economics. He does not have an understanding of economics from inside the belly of the machine of prosperity that understands how A Lisa B leads to C Lisa D. because he has a purely philosophical understanding of the economy. Um, he's going to articulate ideas that are so obviously stupid, but he actually doesn't see it. And that's the thing that I think is really fascinating about this guy. I think if you peer inside this guy's soul, you actually don't see a lot of the resentment that drives a lot of the people in this movement. I don't think leftism can be understood, the far-left, let me be very clear, Leninist, Marxist beliefs, I don't think they can be understood without understanding resentment. I don't think that this guy is actually driven by resentment, which you'll see in what we're going to play. He's conflicted. He knows that his principles lead him to something that make him uncomfortable. And if you're watching, you're going to see him be visually uncomfortable because it's like, yeah, [ __ ] Like, it actually does lead me there. Uh, but I'm a little bit. and you'll hear him explain for himself. But this is where when you're hearing somebody spout economic ideas, you have to figure out if they actually understand the economy because they've engaged in it in some very meaningful way that has yielded a positive outcome. The easiest is to run a business. Ideally, a small business. Ideally, a small business where they only get paid if the business itself is profitable. And it's profitable based on the things that they do. Because when you're that person and your house is literally on the line and if you make bad decisions you lose your house that creates at least it created in me the sense of like I'm not interested in whether I'm right or wrong. I'm only interested in the right idea and if the right idea comes from somebody else and they challenge all of my most cherished beliefs that's fine. I will adjust my beliefs to get closer to what is true so that I can actually grow this company and make sure I don't lose my house because that is going to be very traumatic for my wife if nobody else. When you encounter people that only understand it philosophically, they will put forward with enthusiasm in their heart the world's most terrible ideas with no understanding of why they are terrible. Right? don't know was a key socialist intellectual mid-century 50s and60s America not a kind of communist vanguard trying to bring about violent revolution right >> basically what he's trying to say is uh this isn't one of the bad socialists this is one of the good socialists the problem is because of the mechanisms of socialism socialism is by design and I'll talk more about this later it is by design meant to lead you to communism so anybody that says socialism it's by design meant to get you to communism again I will explain why that is actively true knowably true uh but for now just trust that's true so from that perspective socialism is always going to break the engine of prosperity always >> to the left of social democracy people who just wanted to make capitalism a little bit more humane but also to um you could say the right of um a certain Leninism. So to the right of Joseph Stalin, >> of course, as as we should all aspire to to be um but I think that the gap between what I thought society could be given its abundant riches, >> what society could be given its abundant riches, this is part of the thing that drives me absolutely crazy. Remember the default state of humanity for hundreds [snorts] of thousands of years is poverty. Grinding poverty. Poverty does not need an explanation. The thing that need an needs an explanation is wealth. The thing that will happen by accident, nobody has to think about it, is starvation, death and poverty. The thing that requires hypercoordination, absolutely brilliant ideas, um innovation, um all kinds of very careful um governmental structures and regulatory bodies that are extremely light light touch uh is success is riches. So when somebody looks at that and acts as if the riches are the thing that requires no explanation, that's where the madness begins. And it it literally this is the guy who just looks at it, grew up in it, sees it, and just like, well, that's how the world is. It's not how the world is. The world is grinding poverty, death, and misery by default. a layer of people who both feel economic security day-to-day or feel frustrations but are primarily driven by these sorts of normative eal philosophical ideas and I don't see a huge contradiction there I just think we should be aware of the fact that we still don't have the deep level of rootedness that other redistributionist movements in the past have had like let's say the New Deal coalition in the US from the the 30s to the 70s. And as long as we're aware that our goal is to get deeper roots fundamentally by all layers of the working class, then um I I think we're moving in the right >> Okay, let me translate that. Um hey, you know what I'm discovering is the same thing that Markx ended up discovering, the same thing that Lenin discovered is that the workers don't rise up. In fact, Lenin had to kill a bunch of workers because they were rising up against his dumbass. So, the fact is that the world becomes more prosperous as people get more freedom, not less, as they're able to um create the companies that are going to generate the prosperity. And keep in mind that Markx was writing before the LLC. I might get into that more later, but that really was a time where you had to be rich to start a company. We don't live in that world anymore. So when what he's saying is deeper roots, he's like, "We need people to really want this. We have to show people how bad their life is." And they're having a hard time even now with a broken economy. They're having a hard time convincing people that their life really sucks because they're still, at least here in America, they have AC, they have public schools, they have, remember, 47% of America's budget goes to um social programs. 47% man. So the half of the population only pays 3% of the taxes. Almost half of people pay no taxes whatsoever. It is crazy. So in the face of that, it's very hard to get people to rise up in a way that will put their freedom at risk because life isn't that bad. And so the idea of getting people so animated about things being so bad that you have to go in and um re spark a revolution through bloodshed, tear everything down becomes very difficult. And that's why it's very scary to me that the way that you've gotten so much energy in the movement is through race and trying to get people to um hate billionaires to play the class card because when they look around and their life really isn't that bad. The only thing they can do is stir up resentment to and this is why it's always born of the overproduction of elites. You get people who the vision they have for their life is so different than the reality because they've been overeducated and they're undermployed at least by their own estimation. And you have to trade on that resentment to get these quote unquote deeper roots >> want then in practice like as you know you you've referenced housing and Medicare for all and so on but what what is the you know if there were a socialist contract with America god help you right what would it say what would be the five points and how would those be different from what Amy Clolobachar or you know a sort of conventional democratic politician would be inclined to support >> well for one thing uh and I mean this this earnestly. As far as I can tell, American socialists are way more uh liberal than um they themselves think and that they truly do believe in pluralism and multi-party democracy in certain places that the state should not go. >> So, I don't know if he's being disingenuous or he's just not paying attention. If you look at the um co-chair of the DSA, which is what he is speaking to here, he calls it out by name earlier um in this. I think they mentioned it at the beginning of the clip here, but they they are talking specifically about the DSA. And uh they have just unabashedly said that they're um here for socialism. Some of them will say out loud that they're here for communism, that they want to get rid of the Senate, they want a fundamental change to the judiciary. um they want to get rid of borders, they want immigrants to be able to come in. I mean, on and on and on. It's absolutely wild. So, this guy is out of his mind uh to make that statement. That that one is just either again just completely a lie um or he is blind to his own party. >> There's been a sort of reconciliation of liberalism and socialism. So that you're saying that if there's a cont a socialist contract with America, it does not promise collectivization in a one party state. >> I think that if there we we believe in a bill of rights socialism. >> Okay, so what is what is it? >> Okay, here's the bad news. The Bill of Rights won't survive socialism. This is the part that everybody leaves out. uh as every socialist leader has found, you either go the way of the Nordic countries and you just charge everybody broad tax and create massive freedoms, lower uh corporate tax than we have in the US, um and you then do broad-based social programs and really aren't socialist at all. Uh you just have a gigantic social safety net. Uh but you have not seized the means of production. That's not your stick. Um or you start killing. Those are your two options because people will push back. immediate set of demands that you could call us attempting to bring about doses of socialism within capitalism. So this comes at the realm of decommodification of certain goods providing them as social rights instead of them being dependent on your ability to pay. >> Another reminder to everybody the reason that we can't have socialism the reason we can't have communism is because all of us expect to get paid for our work. The second people will work for free then you can have this but nobody does and they never address that problem. So, they are talking about, and he'll even acknowledge this later, what they're talking about is, "We do need some of you guys to go work and be successful so we can tax you and give free [ __ ] to other people." It's so wild how blind they are. And they go on these interviews where the guy uh agrees with them. So, he's not pushing him. He's not asking the real questions of, "So, sorry, how exactly does that work?" >> America is partially decommodified. If you're elderly, if you're very poor, if you're a child, you're you're going to have a guaranteed access to healthcare. Uh we want to see that extended. Same thing with things like social security and certain other um benefits. So an expansion of the welfare state, not unlike Norway. >> Anytime somebody invokes the Nordic states, just remember the Nordic states are not at all what they uh call them out to be. The Nordic states tax everyone to death. Everyone is paying a massive amount of tax. It is super broad-based. And it's you'll also get VAT taxes. So, not only is your income being taxed to death, but then when you go to buy something, you get a value ad tax. So, everything that you buy is more expensive. And so, people pay an inordinate amount of their money in tax no matter how poor they are. 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Start your free trial today and get 50% off your first year using code TB50 for 50% off Monarch Core tier. Click the link below and use code TB50 to save. Now, let's get back to the show. >> Even within capitalism in the here and now, uh there's sectors of the economy that I would like to see greater state control of. Um, you know, in the old language of the left, we would call it the commanding heights of the economy, but even things like rail and and and things like that. Um, I I think there there are benefits to selective nationalization, particularly of natural monopolies. >> Anything where you need it, but there is no way to make money off of it. Yes, I get why we would want there to be a national presence. Um, so there are going to be some things that that will fall into. Uh but if we can agree that monopolies are terrible and we never want um people running corporations to have a monopoly, why on God's green earth would we want the government to have a monopoly? Remember corporations at least you've got they have to survive. They have to stay in business. So the market is going to check them if they're being stupid. When it's the government and they have infinite taxpayer dollars that they can throw at it, they can be super [ __ ] and have absolutely no consequence. Why would we want there to be a monopoly there? You should want the government to have as few monopolies as possible. You should be looking at things going, "God, I hope we don't need the government to intervene on this thing like take roads and [ __ ] like that." Yes, you want let the government pay for roads. That's phenomenal. You're going to have to deal with they're probably going to be less efficient than they would otherwise be. But hey, at least we're going to get our roads. Everybody can use them. But god damn, like wanting the rail to be run by the government so that we can have a monopoly. That's that's bad mojo. >> Is there any other thing you can think of that the government would be better suited to take over? I know you said roads, but is there any industry that you can think of or something like that the government should? Um, I will give it to you at the level of philosophy as I have not spent time building out a list. But if you look at um the X-P prize, the X-P prize tries to find those things um where there's no um financial incentive to do it well or where um looking at the financial incentive it will create abuses. So prison system great example um that it has deranged putting it in private control. Um education there should be a public option. It may not be the only option. Uh or at a minimum there should be public dollars put towards people to use in private institutions but you don't want to be like oh sorry your parents can't afford your education. Sorry kid. Uh you definitely do not. Like that's just think of the intelligence in your country as a natural resource for [ __ ] sake. And so that's one where I just do not understand people's mentality. It's like I want to make sure the [ __ ] poorest kid in America gets a gangster education and as long as that kid shows that they're really [ __ ] sharp, keep going. Keep going, kid. I'm going to keep paying. If you're a bonehead, you're going to eject out into something. Sorry. That that's just you got to be [ __ ] Chinese about it and just say you got to earn your spot on that one. But uh that would be another one. It's going to be things like that where do we all benefit from this? Um, and if we give it to um private industry, is it going to make it better or is there something where there's not a real business model there, right? Prisons. That's a weird business model cuz now you're going to do weird [ __ ] In the same way that like video games start becoming predatory towards like kids with microtransactions, prison system becomes predatory towards their very captive population. And so it it's just proven it's not a good scenario. So if you take that principle and then look for other things that would fall into that category, great. Um but man, you should be super paranoid about it because humans humans become the problem. >> Yeah. Got you. >> That vision right there of socialism within capitalism could be true of a lot of social democrats. So the question is always now why would you go about calling yourself a democratic um socialist? And for me, I call myself a democratic socialist because I actually believe in a socialism beyond capitalism. I actually do believe in economy um built um on the idea that workers should control their workplaces and on this sort of more radical vision of a society without capitalism, even if it still has a motor needed for investment and for efficiency gains and growth and so on. >> All right, that that's absurd. So, this is somebody that leads with philosophy, who's never tried to run a company. What you realize very quickly is the very reason that companies work is because you have a king that is going to make decisions and they're just going to decide and that's it and that's the thing that we're doing. But because you can leave at a moment's notice and take your talents elsewhere, that king has a desperate desire to make sure that everybody in the company is actually um bought into the vision that they're moving in the right direction. That's like 10x true in a small company becomes less true as the company gets bigger because people want people that are attracted to a big company are either there because they want to become part of the executive team and so they pay an exorbitant amount of money to attract the best and the brightest or they want a place to um prioritize security and safety over um impact over um having autonomy. And so it's a trade and people can make that trade. But there are so many different companies and when the economy is thriving, the companies are all competing for that talent. Japan, that's one of the things I worry about with them. They just promise people a job for life and so people don't have the impulse to compete with each other. People aren't moving from company to company. And so you lose that dynamism. So I know that my employees have a gun to my head as I have a gun to theirs. I can fire them at any moment, but they can fire me at any moment. And there is a lot more of them than they are of me. And so I think a lot about my employees and getting them bought in on the vision and where we're going. And so that dynamic of these two opposing forces holding each other in that dynamic tension as with all good things, it's like that's what you want. This guy's saying, "Oh, the employee should be able to control their workspace. Are you [ __ ] high?" So now there you're going to get people that contribute in different ways. And so what's going to happen? The high contributors either revert to the mean and they lower their productivity down to the median or you get people that are like bitter and resentful that you've got this guy that's not contributing in the way that they are and they all start infighting. And what do you need to keep that infighting from happen? Get ready everybody. You need a leader. That's right. And so you need somebody who's like, "Okay, we're going to do my things my way." Now, when you earn that trust, then everybody moves in that direction and the owner of the company should earn that trust. When you don't have that trust, then people should be free to leave. But if you're looking for the employees to just magically align themselves with each other, pick a direction for the company and move with intelligent direction, you're really in for trouble. You're going to get a horse uh what do they say? Uh camel is a horse by committee. That's what you're going to end up with. you're just watering it down because innovation requires people to take these incredible leaps of faith that will often be wrong. They've got to be I mean think about Uber, man. Like just all it required um Travis's particular personality, his contankerousness, his willingness to fight the local governments, all of that [ __ ] You're never going to get that when everybody can just pull in a different direction. It's nonsensical. That vision is not going to be the vision of the National Democratic Party in 2028 presumably right there. But there is going to be a vision of the National Democratic Party in 2028. And if the faction that we're talking about here, and I think we can say it includes everyone from people who envision a world beyond capitalism to people who are just sort of fellow travelers who want the Democratic Party to move to the left. I if that group wins, so then the party becomes definitively pro Medicare for all, definitively pro- various other expansions of the welfare state. What else? >> I think that's a great immediate program to win over people. If you can't convince people to have a American National Health Service or a singlepayer system like they have in other industrial country, there's no way you're going to convince a majority of people that, you know, every cook can govern and and everyone should turn on their their workplace. So, I I think that would be a great and good enough place to start. You have to listen to people and listen to what their demands are. I'll give you one one quick example. you know, Dan Osborne running as an independent in in uh Nebraska for Senate, one of his key demands is the right to repair. The idea that, you know, if you have your John Deere um tractor, you should be able to open that tractor up and do basic maintenance without voiding your warranty and not having to send it to some special service. >> So, that one's crazy to me. The the right to repair, I like. Um, so people being able to go, it's yours. Do whatever you want. If you want to turn uh your combine into, you know, something that uh [ __ ] gives kids a ferris wheel ride, go for it. But you're going to void your warranty because I don't know what you're going to do to it. So, if you go in and do something [ __ ] stupid, I'm not going to pay to fix it. You're on your own at that point. So, yeah, I don't that argument is just dumb. socialist in America who's against that demand. But that's also not a demand that would naturally, you know, come to us, you know, living living where we're living in Queens and Brooklyn and and and and whatever. You know, I I don't have a patch of grass um in front of my apartment, much less room for a riding mower. But that comes out of, you know, being in a certain environment, talking to people, hearing their concerns. And I think a lot of the program of any party, the Democratic party or the Republican party, needs to come from dialogue with with constituents and people you want to win over. >> Okay. But so those those people in Queens though who you mentioned, they're concerned about housing, right? What is the leftward view of what housing policy should be from for for the Democrats going forward? I think everyone can see across the political spectrum uh that there's a huge problem with housing construction in the US. >> So Zoron's policies for example in New York is very heavily built around upzoning and making it easier for for developers to build. >> Zoran Mani is making owning property in New York less appetizing. We're already seeing um we saw Sergey Brin bounce out of New York real estate. We've seen uh Ken Griffin hit the pause button on his New York real estate. Uh Mani's administration is being sued by local bodega owners. Um I think property managers are also if they haven't launched a suit are rumored to be working on a suit. It it's just like that that argument is um dumb. If you're making owning the property difficult, you are going to get less of it. That's just plain and simple. So now the question becomes um what ends up happening if you upzone? Does it uh do you actually attract the people that you need to attract or are you creating something where this is all going to be government-owned housing which has never gone well uh because you're not running it like a business and so now it needs taxpayer dollars. So now they tend towards um being in disrepair in the exact way that they complain about slum lords running things. So if you really want to solve the housing problem, this is a nimism problem. This is everybody saying, "Okay, yeah, that's a good idea, but just not in my backyard." So, you've got to get to a zoning place where the entrepreneurs realize, "Oh, cool. I can build a business. I can make it make money, and so my business is property, and so I'm going to build and build and build and build." If you let people build, now you're going to see that this is a supply and demand problem, and as there's more supply, the cost will come down. It's so This one's so bonehead simple. The problem is we've been telling people for god knows how many decades that the only asset you have to worry about is your house. Your house is always going to go up in value. And if we start telling people that your house isn't going to go up in value, it may not even keep up with inflation. Now you're going to have um people who own property starting to panic. And it'll be interesting to see if millennials switch their script as their boomer parents die and leave them property. And are they now like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I want this property to go up in value. We'll see. But that's a problem you actually have to solve for. >> But beyond that, I think on the left, we point to successful examples around the world of public housing being done right. And we think at least part of the construction needed needs to be public housing. We also need to maintain, expand existing um units. I think that's the room for the state to step up and do more more things. But I think these solutions for example that I'm mentioning are largely first and foremost on the supply side. Then beyond that we do believe in certain stabilizations and other other things. But >> but stabilization meaning rent control or >> meaning destroy >> rent control can and >> destroy the property, destroy the value. Yep. >> Which can be designed well. I it could also be designed poorly. But you could imagine for example >> telling landlords, we're going to clear the way. we're going to allow you to create this big housing development. We're going to fight against the interests of local homeowners and you build your big piece of housing, but after 30 years, after you have a reasonable uh return on investment, that unit is going to have some degree of rent stabilization. >> This guy seems really sweet, but he's actually [ __ ] So, again, this is somebody who's never had to run anything ever in his life. So, what he's telling you there is, oh, you got a return on your money and now we're going to make the building untenable and make it impossible for you to keep up with because remember inflation happens. And so, once you put rent stabilization in, it doesn't matter when you put the rent stabilization in, once it's in place, unless it far exceeds the rate of inflation. And so the business owner can actually still run a business. You're going to be in a position where that property loses value and will become slum lord uh run immediately after the fact that you've got the cost to upkeep the building escalating faster than they're able to raise the rents. That is the fundamental mechanism that breaks and why you don't want to do it and why when this has been done even in New York it has been absolutely catastrophic. a perfectly common sense um economically coherent vision for housing. >> It is notically coherent. >> I know there's lots of talk on the left and in the Democratic party about the debate over abundance, but fundamentally any form of social democracy is grow give. There needs to be a motor for economic investment. there needs to be profitability in order to have something to redistribute the so he's talking about grow give versus redistribute. The question is why do you have to redistribute? Why don't people just give? Because it is not in our nature. In our nature we give to our loved ones uh friends, family, maybe the church and that's about it. And so it doesn't scale. You cannot have society at our scale where you're expecting people to just give in the right amounts to the right people. It does not work like that. Which is exactly why you expect everybody to hey go do your thing. Capitalism was like oh it's a realization that people are going to be selfish but if we create limitations so that the only way for them to get rich is to do good things for other people awesome they will serve their selfish interest but it also feels awesome to build something that people want. I'm literally speaking from experience. And so now you create something people want it. You get wealthy doing it. It is awesome. It is a tremendous feeling. And capitalism has been able to capitalize on that. You don't get grow give. What you get is grow redistribute because you realize you have to do it by force and when you start doing things by force top down you break the system. This is the part that they refuse to talk about. I would say is an important part of a socialist agenda is making sure that there are strong unions and workplaces that can advocate for higher wages even before the state gets involved with redistribution. What about AI? Bernie has, you know, taken some pretty strong stances. I would say has sort of staked out a position as the Democratic politician most open to both kind of doomer narratives about AI and but also most enthused about sort of the prospect of strong government intervention. What is the socialist position on the AI industry right now? >> I think there's a host of different socialist positions. I lean more on the side of just seeing it as any other technology. Um, companies are going to invest in new technologies. The economy is going to change. We're going to need to adapt and figure out how to regulate it. Um, obviously any changes that we do, any regulation we need to do need to make sense in an international context too. doesn't make sense to uh tank certain US companies if there's going to be other companies creating the same disruption that are coming from other other parts of the world. >> That's at least sensible. I I I've got to give him there. Um it doesn't make sense to break the companies in the US trying to stop this if we know that this is still going to happen somewhere else. That makes sense. where there's legitimate debates. I uh think the idea which has been touted by figures as as varied as Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon of the US government owning a stake in um major AI companies. It makes makes perfect sense. >> It's absolutely moronic. >> Um but um fundamentally we have to respond to a dynamic economy in which there's always going to be new technologies. There's always going to be new wants and needs and new goods and services and uh we need regulation that's able to be flexible and adapt with changes. >> All right. It's a bit word salad, but he's at least being uh intellectually honest. It is going to happen and so we're going to have to um there's no point in breaking it and stopping it from happening here. Uh we're always going to be contending with new technology and so we're going to have to find a way to embrace it. Yep. don't see AI as let's say a you know once in a century opportunity. >> Boy, do I want to ask him. Okay, so pause. Uh you don't see AI as a once in a century opportunity for socialism. What do you mean by that? God, I want to know what he means by that because uh socialists need control. AI offers massive amounts of control. That's option one. Option two is the far more um optimistic view which is well once we have an age of abundance then we can actually start distributing this stuff >> in the sense where you've just described a pretty expensive list of things that socialists want to do right so there's I feel like there's an imaginable future where socialism gets invested in the idea that there's going to be this AI surplus that can then be redistributed to create the um you know the the social democracy or the socialist democracy of of our dreams. What what do you think about that conceit? Um so I do think there's going to be productivity gains. I think our goal has to be to make sure that companies that are seeing um increases in profit because of these gains are forced to invest in expanding production and invest in the economy and not just um you know cut bigger checks and bigger dividends to shareholders and obviously still have some sort of economic effect but is way more diffuse than those companies just expanding uh production. But but >> what does that what does that what does that so let let's just say we're talking about open AI or anthropic or something right and suddenly they're making insane profits lots of new billionaires and so on and you're Bernie Sanders or you're you know a socialist president who's not Bernie Sanders in the future what does it mean for them to invest in the economy first of all >> well I'm I'm fairly confident I could be wrong that open AI andropic will never be making huge amounts of profit but I think Their technology will enable other companies to make huge amounts of profits. What we want on the left is not just to increase your corporate tax, but we also want you to make sure that you are finding other avenues in the economy to take that surplus from and to invest in more more jobs and and meeting more more needs. My only fear with the direction of the economy here is that more and more companies are just going to cut checks to to to to shareholders and we're not going to have the sort of massive growth we had in the mid-century from new technologies. >> But uh the growth in the mid-century um that was riding on the back of new technologies but you didn't have the government forcing people to find ways to invest to do this that or the other. By having a capitalist society that takes care of itself. People are trying to get ahead. They're pursuing their selfish interest within the um shell of doing something awesome for society and for the people that want to buy that product and it all happens. So, it's when these guys try to get this authoritarian top down control, that's where I start being re-remembered that as sweet as this guy seems like he is, he still wants to have control and he later is going to admit actually I'm I'm anti- capitalist. And so yeah, th this is how when you think that you're smarter than all of the collective wisdom of a bunch of decentralized attempts at something, the vast majority of which will fail, a very small number will succeed. I am reminded of the fact that I believe it's 94% of all companies failed to do $10 million or more in revenue. Uh, and so this is a guy that's like, okay, even though 94% of all companies failed to do this, I know what you should be doing so well that I'm going to now put pressure on the few people have actually managed to survive and shown that they know how to run a company. That that's where this gets deranging. >> What is the political policy mechanism that gets that company to, you know, invest in six new factories in Wisconsin instead of instead of doing shareholder capitalism? One mechanism is actually stronger unions. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but stronger unions and forms of sectoral and centralized bargaining. So basically saying to companies, now you have to across the board, your competitors have to deal with the same wage floor, too. Now you have to deal with demands of paying auto workers an extra 5, 10, $15 an hour. What that will do in reality is it'll take the weakest companies in the field. It'll probably make them collapse. It would allow the the the companies in the middle of the field to kind of survive and continue to find ways to innovate the level of labor techniques and labor saving technology. And it would enable the the companies at the top of the the sectors, the benchmarks producers to be able to um have some excess profits that they could then, you know, invest to maintain their their their market share. That's just a classic example from social democracy of something that seems like it would tank the economy. Stronger unions actually being used to push the economy towards more productivity and more technology. >> That that is the most outlandish thing that he has said this entire time. This is so [ __ ] ridiculous. So this is why my instinct with the um unions is that the problem becomes they become like a government. They want to exist. They want to make themselves bigger. And they become the problem unto themselves. And this is a guy literally saying, "We're going to use unions as a weapon against the companies. We're going to cause the smaller companies to go out of business. We're going to force the middle companies to be sort of on this bubble where maybe they exist, maybe they don't. And then we're trying to create market force dynamics essentially. So I'm going to go in 94% of companies fail anyway. I'm going to try to increase that number by killing off the small companies who may have the better idea, the more brilliant thing. They may speak to workers that want to work at a small company. No, I'm going to reduce the total options available to workers so that I can create this pressure that I think is somehow going to make these companies better. That that is so absurd. He literally just said the quiet part out loud. We are going to kill off a bunch of these companies by using unions as a weapon. It's so crazy. These guys think that markets can be manipulated easily and you can just get the outcome that you want. And this is exactly how they break the engine of prosperity over and over and over. Running companies is ferociously difficult. And when you think, you know, oh, we're fine killing off the little guys. That's going to be fine. You don't realize that then power entrenches in the few companies that are left. It starts looking like another monopoly. Like, are we in a better position because the social media companies have been decided and they're just getting bigger and bigger and bigger? I don't think anybody's going to say, "Yeah, that's a great idea." And he's saying he wants to use wage pressure via the unions to create that across the board. So [ __ ] crazy, man. That's so crazy. >> Act stronger market pressures. >> Exactly. It's still I I think part of the logic behind even crude measures like the minimum wage. Um part of that logic, let's not just sweat out labor. Let's figure out a way to make companies more more productive >> by putting them under artificial stress. Yeah. Brilliant. >> Of mechanisms. I'm just using those as examples that that aren't just regulatory. >> By the way, just by keep in mind all the workers at those companies that you supposedly love and are trying to help, they just all lost their jobs. >> Great work. >> Redistribution though. I'm also for smart common sense regulations and of course I'm obviously for for redistribution. Socialism needs a tax base for for a welfare state. >> But just pull pulling back, I feel like we've danced around this a little bit, so let me just ask it directly. >> Is democratic socialism compatible with capitalism? >> In the long term, no. We're anti- capitalist. We want a world beyond capitalism. But in the short term, while we're within a capitalist economy, of course, we need firms that are profitable, that are providing employment, that are providing taxation. So I think to govern in the short term as social democrats, we need profitable firms. But in the long term, you know, I don't hide my desire that I I think the economy should be socialized, even if I think in the socialized economy, there needs to be a role for markets and also a role for worker controlled firms to be able to meet people's needs and uh provide new goods and services. >> That that was the last thing I want to make sure that we hear. Okay, that that is finally him admitting what's really going on is this is somebody who wants to see the means of production seized. Now he can tell that oh [ __ ] we do need it now. We need something to redistribute. The question is his only hope is to say, "Well, no, really what I'm looking for is the Chinese model." And it's an entirely market-based economy with wild amounts of inequality that by the person who measured this, I think the best, at least in the research that I could find, the person who people respect his methodology for measuring China says they have greater um household wealth inequality than we have in the US. So no matter how you shake it or bake it, whether it's a little bit worse than ours, same as ours, a little bit better, it it certainly doesn't not exist. So China has a very unequal society. China's the one with nets to catch workers from jumping while they're trying to commit suicide. Okay? So the people that we're trying to emulate. uh not exactly the utopia that we were promised. But the reality is that the thing that China is doing is they understand you absolutely need a ferocious amount of competition that you're going to let these companies you're going to decide where what industries we want to see flourish and then within that you let them compete like absolute mad. So and inequality be damned. We're going to let our billionaires exist. We're just not going to let them push back against the government. And so these guys like there there's like this handwavy thing that happens where it's like yeah yeah yeah I know that for me to have something to redistribute that we need capitalism now. Uh however there'll be this magic thing that happens in the future and we suddenly won't real we'll suddenly realize we don't need that. This is where I have to take time to define. So Markx writes this whole thing trying to get people onto communism. Markx does not ever talk about socialism. Marx talks about communism. Okay. Now, Lenin goes, Marx is a G. I'm going to go do this. We're going to we're going to overthrow the government, which was a terrible government, by the way, in Russia. So, I get why people were mad. They overthrow the government. And Lenin goes, "Okay, we've like started killing our way to get where we want to go. And uh we've now got control. uh some of the pesky workers were trying to rise up. Don't worry, we killed them. Uh and so we're going to give them this movement whether they want it or not. Am I right? And so he builds out his socialist utopia through bloodshed, of course, as people are always want to do. And now he's looking at all of this going, uh-oh. Like this is not yielding the thing that we want. We want to get all the way to communism, but we've sort of like inserted ourselves. We're running things. We're sort of breaking things. We're killing people. I need a name for this. What is this thing? Because we haven't gotten all the way to the thing we really want, which is from each according to their ability to each according to their need. That's where we're going. That's what Markx told us all about. That's where we really want to be. But we're at this sort of middle ground. What are we going to call it? And he called it socialism. And then he was asked, "What's the point of socialism?" And he said, "To get to communism." So all this handwavy [ __ ] remember, when we get to communism, all we do is kill. All we do is kill. As far as the eye can see, we put the secret police in place, which Lenin did, known as the Czecha. Um, we do famines, which Lenin did. Uh, we do famines, which Mao did, which uh [ __ ] h God, what is with this guy's name? Stalin. Uh, we did with Stalin. Pulp pot. We just kill kill kill kill. We starve people to death. That's what we do. That's how we keep this going because we've broken the engine of prosperity. But they they never make that leap. So, what what are you saying? If you're saying that you want China, then we've got to contend with, do you really want someone to tell you what to do or is this really just you saying you want to be part of the pilot bureau telling everybody else what to do? What happens when um you're doing the wrong thing? Right? So, right now, China's economy is in trouble. You don't get to vote. Xi out. Uh Xi's doing purges like crazy, which by the way was invented by Lenin. So, for all the people that make out like Stalin was a bad guy, but Lenin was great. That's [ __ ] ahistoric. I don't know what they're talking about. And so you have to put these draconian measures in place specifically because it does not line up with human nature. Humans want control. Humans want autonomy. They want to be able to run their own lives. They want a certain amount of freedom. I'm not saying everybody wants an American democratic uh solution. They most certainly do not. However, people want to say, "I've got an idea. This is the idea. I want to give it a shot." And they want to be able to do that. And these guys don't understand that that very impulse when put in the right regulatory framework gives you the greatest most wealthy nation the world has ever seen. But instead of asking what were the mechanisms by which we got here people just go we are here and so let's redistribute this with no sense of what we might break. And so the reason I wanted to show this guy is I really think he's not like driven exclusively by the um the resentment that I think drives a lot of people on the far left. I think he actually got uncomfortable as he has to confront that yes like ultimately they're not compatible. And I know I just spent like 40 minutes talking about all these um basically capitalist enterprises and and how much abundance that's created and and before I think this clip uh earlier uh in the interview though he's talking about you know my family came here. I love it. America's been so welcoming. It's this incredible place. I think it's the best place on earth. All of that and now I want to [ __ ] it up. That is the like crazy [ __ ] is these people only have the ability to have the social systems because we've built something so extraordinary and everybody that goes to actual socialism, not social democracy. Okay, I wish they had used any other word. Nordic states that's a very different thing. That is not socialism. socialism as these guys want it is to seize the means of production on our way to at best China at worst full-blown communism. And that's where all of this stuff gets crazy. Drew, >> um, how do we solve the problem that capital capitalism doesn't like losing, so it tries to capture the system? >> Well, that's human nature. So, you have to protect yourself against that at all costs. Whether you're talking about the government running away and becoming uh the sinister uh regime, which Mao is a great standin, Stalin Lenin, all great stand-ins for uh oh, government realized they could seize power. So, you're going to have to protect yourself from that. Whether it is a CEO uh who will use child labor, work them 16 hours a day, six days a week, and only gives them Sunday off because if he doesn't, they start getting sick. >> Uh yeah, you got to protect yourself from that. And we have historically done a good job by having a left and a right political party. Uh checks and balances all throughout our structure as a government. This is why so many places started doing sort of loose imitation of what the US was doing because it is so effective at generating prosperity and wealth. This is exactly why I'm not a libertarian or somebody who's interested in anarchy. You just end up creating a vacuum where the strongest person will rule because you know that you can hurt other people. And so they do and they hurt people. and the vast majority of people fall in line when you hurt them. >> Um, what do you think about the embolded AI and the vast amount of companies building it that would make socialism possible? So, that's >> that'd be dope. Look, if we get to a point where it is legitimately I don't have to worry about you, you don't have to worry about me because you have all the riches you could ever want. I have all the riches I could ever want. That would be incredible. It's not my prediction. My prediction is we hit an age of abundance and everybody goes, "Oh, I can't prove that I'm better than you." By the way, that'll check out a huge number of people. Let's say 60% of people go, "Oh, I don't care. I've got everything I want. >> I'm good. I'm over here. Just leave me alone." But 40% are going to be like, "Well, I like where your house is. >> I I don't just want [laughter] the same house. I want that house." And so then they'll go, "So, how do we decide? Why do you get it?" And I'm like, "Well, I put my house here first." Oh, so just because you did it first means you get it forever? No. [ __ ] that, man. Like, I want that exact view. I want that spot and nothing else will do. We need another way. And you will invent scarcity. And people will bring that [ __ ] back and it will end up looking like money. How do I know? Because we've run this experiment already. And uh this is what we do is we find a way to say we're all different and uh we all have different abilities and so I need some scarce things so I can get the thing that a lot of people want and only a few people can have. geography becomes the easiest because they're, as I say, they're not making any more uh Manhattan. So, it's like, >> well, you said we've done this before. Like, what do you mean we've done >> human history is the answer to Got it. Got it. >> Uh, we're trying to survive and we're not all equal. How do we address it? Uh, real estate is finite. What do we do about it? And we fight. >> Um, have you read MarkX? Some people are saying you haven't read MarkX. >> They are correct. And it it'll be um I will obviously eventually have to put that to bed. Yeah. >> Uh just like I'm going to have to read the Quran. So yeah, I've read enough analysis that I'm happy to take the Pepsi challenge with anybody from a just understanding standpoint. Uh but they'll be able to say, "Well, buddy said this." And I'll be like, "Fuck, I don't know the context of when he said that." Um so I can only point to history and say, "Well, this is how it played out." But it does create a weakness in my ability to pound the table. So, uh, yes, it it is true. I have not read Doss Capitau or any of his other works. >> Um, >> that's not true. I read like a chapter, but [laughter] I haven't read enough. Um, so yeah. >> Um, and then a lot of times when when we talk about age of abundance and things like that, there's this idea of like the scarcity mindset. Is there when it comes to socialism, capitalism, a lot of times we always get into the conversation of once we convert to this system, people are just going to do money grabs, power grabs, everybody's going to die. Is there a transition where we can do it that makes the pie big enough that everybody's good? And what's that thing that we need to kind of flip that switch? >> It's a scary moment, man. I don't know. So, the human tendency is to use the latest weapon to get control over people that don't have the weapon. And it's a pretty rare moment like World War II where you nuke the [ __ ] out of people and then rebuild them. Um, so I worry that the US and China will use the race to artificial super intelligence to reposition whoever wins as the global hegeimon. Um, so that feels like the honest answer to how this is going to play out. Um, but do I hold out hope that we can get to a point where the age of abundance is true and wonderful and um, it won't be only good, but will it be overwhelmingly good? That's certainly my hope. >> This seems like a mindset ideology that we keep pushing against in different ways every couple decades. Um, historically, I feel like we had this conversation a couple years ago and then it came back up. DSA is now winning elections. are starting to get more airtime in the conversation in national media. What is your prediction on what happens with our with America and the DSA >> like our culture? So, is the DSA going to get more powerful, get elected, get more cultural? >> What's your prediction you think is going to happen for me? >> Oh, God. This is where my reasoning is now motivated and that is a super dangerous place to be. Um, so my reasoning goes like this. I so um don't want it to happen that I almost can't allow myself to paint that scenario. So, uh give me the out and I'll paint two scenarios. Scenario number one is um myself and a gazillion other people get on the microphone and talk about um the mechanisms of prosperity. What we need to change. Acknowledge that the system is broken now. Acknowledge that people are struggling. That's real. talk about what very specifically needs to change in order to get the train back on the tracks. Um, get people focused on what candidates are likely to get us there. Um, call out the [ __ ] all of that. Give people enough nuance that they can actually make contact with reality and we deflate the enthusiasm around the DSA because the DSA is resentment uh, created by overproduced elites. So, cool. we um use ideas to solve for that so people don't get sucked into that. Um the alternative is that because the resentment is there and a bunch of dumb asses on the right just keep fighting for as long as the top of the K is fine. [clears throat] What the problem is and so then they just keep making it worse and worse and worse. Um and then that resentment will eventually spill over and you will have revolution and that will be led by the DSA. Uh, and then you end up in just naked civil war where you've got the DSA going head-to-head with basically um the well-armed right and it neither side is going to go quietly. >> Um, so those are really your two options and the left actually wants bloodshed. So, uh, let me be very careful. The far-left Leninist Marxists admire the bloody revolution that was waged in other countries and long for that outcome. Now whether they are like this is going to be fun to pass through the bloody part or whether they um only young dumb ones are saying that only time will tell. But there is actual revolutionary energy and revolution means killing other people to get what you want. There is actual revolutionary murderous energy um on the extreme fringe of the left. The DSA is going to be a spectrum. This guy, the not the guy you can see on the screen, but the guy that's been talking, I don't think he has a murderous bone in his body. He does not strike me that way at all. This seems like a person you can have a very reasonable conversation with. You could debate the ideas. He seems like he's um perfectly capable of doing that. Now, whether he's been captured by his own audience or his own um sound bites, that I don't know. But truly when you look in his eyes does not strike me as the murderous type. I think he will be very surprised that that's how uh these things tend to play out. But there are people in the party who are at the extreme fringe that really do have that blood lust. You see it in Antifa. Uh you see it in um some especially some of the people that are more uh youthful. Um so there's the YDSA. Uh, I don't know if it stands for youth or young or whatever, but anyway, I assume it's one of the two because they're all super young. Um, and when you hear them talk, it's direct action, meaning go uh pick it, maybe throw a rock or two um on up to um bloody revolution is what's needed. >> Yeah. Um, somebody said that the Communist Manifesto is way too short for you not to have read it. So, that's on your reading list. >> None. Nonetheless, I have not read it. Um, but uh, yeah, it it will it will get read. >> If you like this conversation, check out this episode to learn more. >> The situation in Japan is getting very weird. Anybody that's invested is going to need to pay very close attention to what's happening. Um, it is a it is a complex issue, but it is very