Valuetainment - Communist Professor Defends Stalin & Mao’s Legacy

00:00:00.000 We're taught that Stalin is just an appalling monster.

00:00:03.960 This is utter nonsense.

00:00:05.760 The economy grew massively under Stalin,

00:00:08.180 quicker than any society ever industrialized,

00:00:10.260 and people's lives got a whole lot better.

00:00:12.040 He killed millions of people.

00:00:14.040 Capitalism generates poverty

00:00:15.920 because it concentrates wealth in a few hands.

00:00:18.680 What's more important, living out my purpose and ambitions

00:00:22.180 or living a safe and guaranteed life?

00:00:25.900 Should you not be allowed to live out your purpose?

00:00:28.460 Of course you should.

00:00:29.300 But should somebody starve so that you can do that?

00:00:32.900 I would say capitalism kills 14 million people each and every year.

00:00:37.360 Come on.

00:00:38.180 I don't think that's how the world works. Do you?

00:00:40.340 I do. Yes, I do.

00:00:45.760 My guest today is Dr. Asatar Baer,

00:00:48.540 who's an associate professor of economics at Riverside City College.

00:00:53.400 He's a self-identified communist.

00:00:55.240 Dr. Baer frequently praises dictators like Stalin and Mao.

00:00:59.060 Dr. Baer speaks and writes about meditation,

00:01:01.380 has written over 150 blog posts about heart-centered spiritual development.

00:01:06.020 He has practiced meditation since he was a small child,

00:01:08.780 and he holds a PhD in economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

00:01:14.320 Doc, appreciate you for being a guest on Valuetainment.

00:01:16.300 Thank you so much for having me on the show.

00:01:19.800 I got to tell you, I was on Twitter.

00:01:21.000 I was looking at Twitter.

00:01:22.620 Moments after I post a very positive capitalistic tweet,

00:01:27.480 then I see your tweet come out.

00:01:29.280 I got to read it to everybody because this kind of lets the audience know,

00:01:33.740 you know, how similar a belief system you and I have,

00:01:37.140 and they're going to be able to enjoy it at the end of the day.

00:01:39.040 Here we go.

00:01:39.580 So, your tweet that just came out, let me see this here.

00:01:44.260 Speaking of debates, I'm being interviewed by Patrick B. David and a few.

00:01:49.040 Should be interesting.

00:01:50.420 Ha ha.

00:01:51.600 Hashtag communism will win.

00:01:53.880 I like your spirit of competition, which is a capitalistic quality.

00:02:01.180 I admire that a lot.

00:02:02.580 Anyways, okay.

00:02:04.000 So, Doc, we got some time together.

00:02:05.860 If you don't mind, would you mind taking a moment and kind of sharing with the audience

00:02:11.520 your background, upbringing, you know, schooling, how you came about your philosophy

00:02:16.640 so the audience can get a better understanding of your background?

00:02:19.340 Sure.

00:02:19.720 You know, I grew up in a spiritual community.

00:02:23.520 My parents were very interested in meditation, philosophy, and became students of Sufism.

00:02:31.940 And this is Western Sufism.

00:02:33.700 Sufism is the esoteric tradition within Islam.

00:02:38.160 So, it's sort of like Kabbalah for Judaism or maybe Gnosticism for Christianity.

00:02:46.060 You know, most religions have a kind of esoteric side, right?

00:02:48.460 So, and Sufism, you know, is often very deeply embedded in Islamic culture.

00:02:54.960 But in the United States, it takes a very different kind of form.

00:02:59.100 And the order that my family belongs to is a very universalist kind of branch associated

00:03:08.160 with a fellow named Hazwan Anayat Khan who taught Sufism in the West.

00:03:12.600 So, you know, I grew up in a very kind of alternative background, but it wasn't very political.

00:03:20.300 You know, there are political hippies and non-political hippies, you know, and this is the non-political

00:03:26.820 kind of strain.

00:03:28.620 But I got into radical politics as a young person when I was a teenager.

00:03:34.580 And it's at that point that I began to study Marxism, and I ended up studying that quite seriously.

00:03:42.580 I studied it in college and graduate school with the noted Marxist economist Richard Wolff

00:03:49.380 and his longtime collaborator Stephen Resnick, who has now passed away, sadly.

00:03:53.900 So, that's kind of my training.

00:03:57.540 And then I had the idea that I would really like to teach at a community college because,

00:04:04.120 you know, I want to be able to speak to working class people.

00:04:08.240 And, you know, it seemed like that was the best way to do it.

00:04:12.620 Now, there's a lot of challenges that come along with that.

00:04:16.280 But, and that's what I've done for about the last 20 years.

00:04:19.840 I did take five years out of that and ran a non-profit.

00:04:25.020 So, I haven't always been an academic.

00:04:28.200 I left and then I returned.

00:04:30.100 And that's kind of my story.

00:04:31.520 I currently, like you mentioned, teach at Riverside City College in Southern California.

00:04:35.280 Very cool.

00:04:35.620 I appreciate that.

00:04:36.160 By the way, if you don't mind going back, you said in high school, you took interest in

00:04:39.400 politics and you were always, you know, upbringing, you know, in what you guys were studying,

00:04:44.880 philosophy, all that stuff.

00:04:45.640 But why Marxism?

00:04:48.600 Why Karl Marx?

00:04:49.560 Was there a teacher?

00:04:50.580 Did somebody inspire you?

00:04:51.840 Did you watch a movie?

00:04:52.820 Did you read a book?

00:04:54.000 Where did that inspiration come from?

00:04:56.500 Yeah, it's a little hard to say at this point.

00:04:58.780 I don't think there was a single kind of source.

00:05:01.900 You know, I was in an exploration kind of mode.

00:05:05.980 Definitely a book that interested me early on was by E.F. Schumacher.

00:05:11.480 And it's called Small is Beautiful.

00:05:12.980 This is not a part of the Marxist or communist canon.

00:05:17.300 This is written by a sort of mainstream or maybe kind of lefty economist.

00:05:23.840 But I found it to be very kind of freeing in terms of its outlook.

00:05:30.040 And that was one of the works that kind of set me on the path of discovery.

00:05:36.320 I had a lot of dissatisfaction with a kind of mainstream economics, which seemed to me

00:05:42.040 just very abstract and very hard to use.

00:05:46.760 And that it didn't seem to connect with the kind of real problems that seemed to be happening all around us.

00:05:57.200 You know, it was it was very, very stylized.

00:05:59.880 And so I didn't understand, like, why was that the case?

00:06:04.760 And but then when I would read other things, I was like, oh, OK, well, you hear they're talking about real stuff.

00:06:09.980 Yeah. So that was sort of the beginning for me.

00:06:13.700 So so if I'm doing the math right, 14 years old.

00:06:18.140 So you're saying 1987 ish, 86 ish.

00:06:23.400 Who's president at the time?

00:06:25.160 I think Reagan is president at the time.

00:06:27.680 Milton Friedman is probably all over the place.

00:06:30.260 Thomas Sowell is probably all over the place.

00:06:32.020 So is it fair to say, like, it was maybe Friedman is on Phil Donahue and they're debating Nader, Ralph Nader.

00:06:40.220 And some of that stuff just didn't sit well with you.

00:06:42.040 Would you say Friedman was one of the guys that you didn't agree with?

00:06:45.620 Well, yeah, I mean, Friedman is somebody I studied later and somebody who certainly casts a long shadow in the field, in the culture as a whole.

00:06:55.060 So definitely, you know, an important intellectual figure in terms of, you know, what we could call the rise of neoliberalism or the the neoclassical counterrevolution that occurs.

00:07:08.480 Because, you know, what happens, of course, in the postwar era is that Keynesian economics becomes really the dominant form of economic theory.

00:07:16.100 And its focus is how can the state manage and regulate capitalism to to the benefit of society?

00:07:23.020 That's the kind of focus of Keynesian theory.

00:07:25.700 And Friedman and the Chicago school really systematically attacked Keynesian theory in favor of, you know, a stripped down kind of free market.

00:07:36.160 And that's the that's the neoliberal kind of philosophy, right, that the state should have a very minimal role in the economy.

00:07:44.080 And and they were, I think, broadly speaking, successful at, you know, kind of moving the pendulum back towards a much more free market or classical liberal or neoliberal kind of position.

00:07:58.080 Got it. And by the way, just out of curiosity, if you and I were in 10th grade together, who were you in 10th grade?

00:08:04.420 Was I in 10th grade?

00:08:05.860 You know, I had in high school, I was sort of an introvert.

00:08:13.040 I did some sports, but they were the sort of nerdy sports.

00:08:16.720 You know, I I rode crew and I ran track and, you know, like the sports that nobody cares about.

00:08:22.460 I didn't much like, you know, I like I was like athletics, but I didn't like the world of athletics all that much.

00:08:31.000 You know, why is that?

00:08:32.420 It seemed like it was filled with bullies and douchebags.

00:08:36.500 You know, and I love competition.

00:08:39.640 I love athletic performance.

00:08:42.060 You know, I do martial arts.

00:08:44.220 It's one of my hobbies.

00:08:45.320 I do judo and jujitsu and boxing.

00:08:48.100 You know, I enjoy competition, but I don't enjoy the putting down of the week.

00:08:55.440 You know, I think competition should bring out your best, not be about, you know, putting down somebody else.

00:09:02.180 And and so it but I often saw that, you know, in the kind of world of sports.

00:09:06.260 And it turned me off.

00:09:08.020 I don't think that can be debated.

00:09:09.740 I think there is a big part of that in sports.

00:09:14.140 And I can see that turning some people off because there's the smack talk and the comparison.

00:09:21.860 You know, sometimes maybe you can't compete with somebody else because they have certain abilities.

00:09:26.220 Somebody else doesn't have certain features, certain things.

00:09:28.680 So I can totally see that taking place.

00:09:30.520 OK, so I kind of have an idea who you were in high school.

00:09:33.320 Parenting.

00:09:33.780 Got it.

00:09:34.700 Books inspiration.

00:09:35.600 Got it.

00:09:36.360 Coming out of high school, if you were to say like my hero, if I were to say coming out of high school would probably be, I don't know, an Arnold.

00:09:42.440 I wanted to be Mr. Olympia.

00:09:43.780 Right.

00:09:43.940 I looked up certain people that were, you know, people I saw, maybe a military leader, somebody like that.

00:09:50.480 Who was your hero coming out of high school, like in college?

00:09:54.800 Well, probably be someone more like Gandhi, to be honest.

00:09:58.220 You know, so, you know, I looked at Gandhi as a figure of national liberation for India, as someone who was very informed by, you know, spiritual experiences, spiritual views, but also took an interest in, you know, real politics and, you know, things like economic development.

00:10:21.680 And so, you know, that certainly had a big impact on me as a young person.

00:10:26.420 Has that changed to today?

00:10:28.420 Have you, has there been an evolution to your heroes?

00:10:32.740 Well, yeah, yeah.

00:10:35.700 Who would you say today?

00:10:37.240 Is your hero like a M&M?

00:10:40.180 Is it a, you know, I don't know, maybe a president?

00:10:44.500 Is it a former author?

00:10:45.820 Is it a live person?

00:10:46.840 Is it a dead person?

00:10:47.760 I don't think I relate as quite so much as I did as a young person to that concept of having a hero, you know?

00:10:57.460 I think we are too individualistic about, you know, the role of individuals in terms of history.

00:11:05.040 You know, Marxism is focused more on the collective mass of humanity, right?

00:11:11.340 And the philosophy of dialectics of overdetermination is about, you know, how we kind of all matter, right?

00:11:20.560 Not how, oh, it's just about one great man in history or whatever, you know?

00:11:25.580 So, I mean, there's certainly lots of people that I look to and admire and say these are people who made great contributions.

00:11:32.600 And let me just drop probably the most controversial one just right out of the gate, and that is Joseph Stalin.

00:11:41.280 That's probably why I'm on the show, because I had some viral tweets back in the end of June where, you know, I celebrated the legacy of Stalin.

00:11:55.060 And these really sort of took over and started trending on Twitter, and that got me a lot of attention, which has been interesting.

00:12:04.260 I bet, you know, what's crazy is I have family members who admire Stalin.

00:12:08.620 I mean, you got to realize, my mother's side, the majority of them are communists.

00:12:12.760 Interesting.

00:12:13.400 Their Bible was Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto.

00:12:18.420 They escaped.

00:12:19.480 They're Armenian.

00:12:20.280 So, you figure they were in Russia.

00:12:22.340 You have Stalin.

00:12:23.120 You have Lenin.

00:12:23.920 They admired these men in many different reasons.

00:12:26.540 And then they left, came to Iran, met my dad.

00:12:30.020 My dad was an imperialist.

00:12:31.380 So, imagine an imperialist marrying a communist.

00:12:34.380 You know this thing's not going to work out, right?

00:12:36.160 It's just a matter of time.

00:12:38.140 They got two divorces in 20 years.

00:12:39.900 The second time they got remarried, I was born.

00:12:42.980 So, I'm kind of glad they got divorced twice, not once, because if there's only one divorce, I don't exist.

00:12:47.720 So, if you don't mind, I'm going to read the tweet.

00:12:49.920 I'm going to read the tweet, and you can unpack it.

00:12:53.240 So, people…

00:12:54.640 You're not just going to read the initial one, right?

00:12:56.240 You're going to read the next read.

00:12:57.200 It's a long one, so I'm going to go through the whole thing.

00:12:58.920 You tell me when to start, I'll stop.

00:13:00.400 So, people say, I idolize Stalin.

00:13:03.740 Not true.

00:13:04.700 I hold a fair and balanced view.

00:13:06.900 The man was neither a savior nor saint, but he was at once a very successful revolutionary, a great contributor to Marxist theory, and said to be a great listener and collaborator during discussions.

00:13:18.400 And then, there are his successes as a leader.

00:13:21.320 First, the foresight to fear a belligerent German fascism.

00:13:25.940 Then, the tactical ability to successfully defeat the world's greatest invading army, combined with the strength to make tough decisions that have no easy answers.

00:13:35.100 I simply think one should read everything the man wrote and then make up your own mind.

00:13:40.020 I would certainly conclude that he is one of the great leaders of the 20th century, though.

00:13:47.440 So, that's what you said, if you don't mind unpacking that.

00:13:50.220 That is the one that caused Stalin to trend.

00:13:55.080 And Twitter even wrote a little editorial.

00:13:58.200 I think Twitter felt that they had to explain this.

00:14:00.360 So, they said, trending, Stalin.

00:14:03.760 And then, it said, Dr. Asatar Bayer of Riverside City College has defended Stalin, blah, blah, blah.

00:14:10.520 And I thought, isn't that interesting?

00:14:11.860 Somebody from Twitter had to try to summarize the situation.

00:14:17.440 Yeah, that tweet got something like 20 million impressions.

00:14:21.780 And, you know, I wrote this knowing that this would probably be somewhat, let's say, triggering, right?

00:14:28.420 Sure.

00:14:28.620 You know, we are taught in the United States, because of anti-communist propaganda, you know,

00:14:37.140 we're taught that Stalin is just an appalling monster.

00:14:41.680 And there's not a single thing that he did that was good.

00:14:45.860 And this is utter nonsense.

00:14:49.680 You know, we look at the achievements of the Soviet Union.

00:14:52.940 And what we find is that the Soviet Union improved the lives of ordinary people more rapidly than any state has ever done in history.

00:15:01.720 Now, that's a remarkable achievement.

00:15:04.880 So, we're talking about two things here, right?

00:15:08.360 First, we're talking about a massive expansion in the size of the economy, right?

00:15:13.140 And when I say that, I'm talking about conventional measurements.

00:15:16.940 I'm talking about GDP, right?

00:15:19.040 Now, there are some differences in terms of how GDP is reckoned in socialist countries and so forth.

00:15:24.980 Let's just leave that aside, right?

00:15:26.920 The fact is that socialism under Stalin massively grew the economy more than at any other point in Russian history, right?

00:15:37.040 So, that's one thing.

00:15:38.520 Now, the second thing, GDP doesn't mean that much, though, in terms of how the average person is doing, right?

00:15:44.080 Because the size of the economy can grow and we have no idea, you know, where does that wealth go, right?

00:15:50.000 Does it go to a small number of people?

00:15:51.680 I mean, that's typically the pattern, right?

00:15:53.880 Typically, I mean, Marx said, right, the history of hitherto existing society is a history of class struggle.

00:16:00.160 That means a small group of people tends to take the lion's share of the wealth of an economy, you know, and this is going back thousands of years, right?

00:16:09.860 Did that happen in the Soviet Union?

00:16:11.760 The answer is absolutely not, right?

00:16:13.900 The wealth went towards improving the average person's life and especially towards improving the lives of the very poorest.

00:16:22.200 That is extremely unusual, right?

00:16:24.500 That is, in fact, at the time, there's no cases of it.

00:16:29.900 There's no parallel.

00:16:30.840 There's absolutely no historical parallel.

00:16:33.280 So before we get into, you know, this debate is carried out about, oh, Stalin murdered this and that, right?

00:16:40.060 Stalin did this, you know?

00:16:41.520 Okay, look, before we even get into the details, you start with the big picture, you know?

00:16:46.420 When you're approaching something from far away, right, you see certain, you know, there's the mountain, right?

00:16:51.520 What does it look like, right?

00:16:53.000 This is the mountain of Soviet socialism, right?

00:16:55.840 It's a rapid economic development, A, and B, rapid improvement, very rapid, right?

00:17:02.420 History's most rapid improvement in the lives of the ordinary person.

00:17:06.700 And I think that is a stupendous accomplishment, you know?

00:17:10.520 Now, again, I'm not a fan of the great man theory, right?

00:17:14.400 So I'm not saying, oh, Stalin, oh, we worship Stalin, like this, right?

00:17:19.120 Nonsense.

00:17:20.060 That's not true for any leader of any modern country, right?

00:17:23.600 I mean, you know, what leaders do is supported by millions of people, right?

00:17:29.860 One way or the other, you know?

00:17:31.160 So, but we can say, right, Stalin is the leader and in a leadership role, right?

00:17:39.280 And so, you know, he has certain responsibility, both positive and negative, right, for what happened under that, you know, 28-year period or so of his leadership.

00:17:51.460 And I think it's a huge mistake to look at Soviet history and say, oh, that was an economic failure and, oh, people suffered and whatever.

00:18:03.860 Well, look, you know, people suffer in every single society.

00:18:08.140 Could they have done better?

00:18:09.820 Maybe, right?

00:18:11.000 Could they have done better economically?

00:18:12.480 Maybe.

00:18:13.120 But you start with the actual fact, right?

00:18:15.500 The fact is the economy grew massively under Stalin, right?

00:18:19.500 The economy industrialized quicker than any society ever industrialized.

00:18:24.500 And people's lives got a whole lot better, right?

00:18:26.760 And how do we know that, right?

00:18:28.180 We can look at that in terms of, you know, the tools that social science has to measure that, right?

00:18:33.620 Which are, how long are people living?

00:18:35.700 What's the life expectancy?

00:18:37.200 How many babies are dying before age one, right?

00:18:41.380 How many calories are people taking in, right?

00:18:45.020 How many people can read?

00:18:46.440 You know, these are the basics, right?

00:18:47.840 And especially when you're dealing with a relatively poor, mostly agrarian society, a society where 92% of the people work in agriculture, right?

00:18:57.920 These are monumental achievements.

00:19:00.620 And that is why I celebrate that.

00:19:02.800 I think it's a huge mistake and a huge distortion to allow the anti-communists, most of whom, by the way, are Nazis, to write this history.

00:19:13.280 We can't allow that, right?

00:19:15.160 We have to have the true history.

00:19:16.300 You said most, you just made a lot of assumptions right there, some would say.

00:19:21.840 And you said it in a confident way, which is pretty impressive.

00:19:25.680 It's like going up to a girl at a bar and saying, listen, I'm going to be the greatest man you're ever going to take home.

00:19:32.220 And she doesn't know until she takes you home.

00:19:34.140 And then she says, you know what?

00:19:35.120 You were like a four.

00:19:35.920 You were okay.

00:19:36.980 Or you were good.

00:19:37.760 And you delivered.

00:19:38.440 So we don't know that.

00:19:39.020 Let me go back and measure a few things that you said.

00:19:41.920 You know, one, by the way, you know, I've had Richard Wolff on before and we had a great time together.

00:19:46.020 I had him on.

00:19:47.440 And Slavo Zizek's also been on.

00:19:49.300 And a few other socialists have been on.

00:19:51.120 I love talking to socialists.

00:19:52.480 It's a good conversation because I think the audience wins.

00:19:55.040 So, you know, you said, you know, what it did to the economy, it improved the average person's life.

00:20:02.540 And, you know, yeah, let's not look at the amount of people that died.

00:20:06.000 You know, it is what it is.

00:20:07.460 It's, you know, you have to do what you have to do.

00:20:09.860 And then leadership, there's some negative, there's some positive.

00:20:12.220 The part I agree with you, to me, a leader is somebody that gets people to do something they wouldn't do on their own.

00:20:19.060 That could be positive or negative.

00:20:20.260 I think a criminal that says, hey, let's go rob the bank.

00:20:22.980 I'm like, I don't want to do it.

00:20:23.760 I'm telling you, we should go rob the bank.

00:20:25.660 If I end up going and robbing a bank with a criminal, that guy was a leader who led me to go rob the bank.

00:20:30.000 Now, does that mean he's a good leader or a bad leader?

00:20:32.420 I define him as a leader, but it depends what he's leading you to do.

00:20:35.720 But to go back and say, you know, improving the average person's life.

00:20:40.940 Here's one of the challenges I have with that.

00:20:43.740 If you, any history book you read, it doesn't matter where you read it.

00:20:47.340 Stalin and Lenin are not seen as, you know, heroes.

00:20:51.480 Or Mao, the only places that you will read that's positive about them is typically their own country.

00:20:56.140 Or somebody that's maybe favoring them that was from their lineage that, you know, says good things about them.

00:21:00.940 But the biggest challenge with communism for me, and I want to kind of focus on this.

00:21:05.320 And we can go any different angle you want to go.

00:21:07.240 I got different topics we can go to.

00:21:08.620 The concept of force versus choice.

00:21:14.440 So, who is the government to determine what improving means to me?

00:21:21.660 Maybe I want to build my life at a different scale.

00:21:25.060 Communism doesn't allow me to do that.

00:21:27.200 Choice is eliminated under communism.

00:21:29.960 Choice is there under capitalism.

00:21:31.580 Communism's basic foundation is force, and I know what's good for you.

00:21:37.740 Now, you're going to disagree with that, so I want to know where you're going to go with disagreeing that.

00:21:42.020 Because I don't think communism exists without a level of force.

00:21:44.780 Do you?

00:21:47.760 I would say, I would agree with everything that you said, but we have to change the term communism to capitalism.

00:21:54.200 It is capitalism, which gives us no choices, right?

00:21:58.160 The average person has nothing, right?

00:22:01.860 You cannot have freedom if you have nothing, okay?

00:22:04.880 So, now when I say the average person has nothing, what does that mean, right?

00:22:08.100 It means, how much liquid wealth does that person have, right?

00:22:12.240 Okay, so if we look at 90% of Americans, and, you know, richest country in the world, right?

00:22:19.520 How much liquid wealth do people have?

00:22:23.080 The answer is almost none, right?

00:22:27.440 Almost none.

00:22:28.560 Now, even if when we start approaching the top 10%, that answer does start to change, right?

00:22:33.560 So, the top 10% has wealth, but when we look at how much wealth they possess, almost all of it is illiquid, right?

00:22:40.940 So, almost all of the average person's wealth is in the form of their home, right?

00:22:46.800 Now, the average person does not own a home.

00:22:49.460 They own a portion of a home, right?

00:22:51.080 Home equity.

00:22:51.700 But this is not wealth that you can use, right?

00:22:54.200 Because the most you can do with that wealth is you can borrow against it, right?

00:22:57.760 You're using it right now, right?

00:22:59.600 You're living in it.

00:23:00.460 So, if you try and use it, you have an immediate problem, which is, where do you live, you know?

00:23:06.240 Here's the question, right?

00:23:07.340 Does the wealth that you have, even if you're at the 85th percentile or whatever, right?

00:23:12.880 Even if you're sort of near the top of the income distribution under capitalism, does it allow you to stop working and do whatever you want, right?

00:23:22.100 Imagine if you could do whatever you thought would make you the most happy and be of the greatest benefit to humanity, right?

00:23:30.740 Does it allow you to do that?

00:23:33.420 The answer is no, absolutely not.

00:23:35.580 Does it allow you to do that, right?

00:23:37.020 And I can say this as a pretty privileged position, right?

00:23:39.900 I mean, like, you know, people can look up my income if they want.

00:23:42.960 You know, my critics do this sometimes on Twitter, you know?

00:23:45.200 And they say, look at this communist who's all privileged and a high income and whatever, right?

00:23:49.740 Like one shouldn't or something as a PhD college professor, right?

00:23:54.980 You know, the point is, right, even if you're doing well on the income ladder, you probably have almost no wealth, right?

00:24:03.180 And if you do have some, do you have enough that allows you to live off the proceeds and do whatever you want?

00:24:11.180 The answer is no, except unless you're in the top 1%, right?

00:24:15.620 Absolutely not.

00:24:16.660 So if you want to talk about freedom, right?

00:24:19.160 That's what I think of as freedom, right?

00:24:21.040 I think freedom means you get to control your time.

00:24:24.540 You get to decide what you do.

00:24:26.820 I mean, that's the most precious resource that we have, right?

00:24:29.800 Let's take that.

00:24:30.640 I don't know why I'm taking that.

00:24:31.540 Let's go with that angle right there.

00:24:33.760 So you said everything you said I agree with, except I would replace communism with capitalism.

00:24:39.740 Okay, so a couple of different things there.

00:24:42.460 The average person, you know, wealth is measured based on liquid savings, not based on the income

00:24:50.440 they make.

00:24:51.180 Fine.

00:24:51.920 Do you think it's the choice of the individual on how they spend their money?

00:24:56.560 And do you think there are people that are better with their money than versus those who

00:25:01.280 are not good with their money on how they spend their money?

00:25:03.320 Some have good habits.

00:25:04.160 Some have bad habits, right?

00:25:05.080 Like when you say, I'm a PhD and you're making good income, you earned the right to do that.

00:25:11.720 You went and got your PhD.

00:25:12.920 I think you, whatever you're making, whether it's 120, 150, 200, I haven't looked up your

00:25:17.360 income.

00:25:18.080 If you have the discipline to go, I haven't looked up your income, but if you have the

00:25:21.200 You can look it up later.

00:25:22.220 Yeah.

00:25:22.500 But if you have the discipline to go get a PhD and you were a thought leader professor,

00:25:26.800 if the market pays you good money, more power to you.

00:25:29.340 But I think that that's more based on the choice of the individual on how they spend

00:25:33.460 their money.

00:25:34.100 I got guys in my, in sales that make a half a million dollars a year and they're killing

00:25:39.820 it in income.

00:25:40.660 They got a hundred thousand dollars in savings because they had four Lambos for what?

00:25:45.060 You don't need four Lambos.

00:25:46.220 Then I got guys that make $78,000 a year and I got $2 million in savings.

00:25:51.440 So that argument gets stopped based on the habit of the individual on what they do with

00:25:55.720 their money.

00:25:56.260 Don't you agree?

00:25:56.860 No, not at all, because, you know, in order to, in order to have the ability to save at

00:26:02.160 that level, you have to have income at that level, you know, like let's not act like the

00:26:06.960 average person makes 78K or 200K or 500K, right?

00:26:11.080 That's not, those are not average incomes, right?

00:26:14.220 So, you know, the, the, if we want to talk about who is average, we need to talk about median

00:26:20.400 figures, right?

00:26:21.320 So the median household income in the United States, right?

00:26:25.300 And this is household.

00:26:26.760 So that includes every member of the household, right?

00:26:29.600 So there's about a little over two members of the household on average, right?

00:26:33.300 In the United States, 160 or so million households.

00:26:37.100 So the average is about, you know, about 60K, right?

00:26:39.540 So that means half make below that and half above that, right?

00:26:44.200 Now, income is not the whole story though, right?

00:26:47.520 Now, well, I should just say, just to finish that point, right?

00:26:50.620 We are dealing with masses of people who don't really have the option to save because their,

00:26:57.360 their cost of living is so high relative to their, to their income, right?

00:27:03.000 And because rents have been rising much faster than incomes have, right?

00:27:08.220 There's unemployment.

00:27:09.300 I mean, these are the, the constant problems of capitalism.

00:27:13.580 Capitalism has such an emphasis on employment, but does it guarantee everyone a job?

00:27:18.640 Not at all, right?

00:27:21.080 Do you think-

00:27:21.440 Even under good times, you have millions of people who are looking for work and can't

00:27:25.500 find it.

00:27:25.900 Do you, how much of it do you think is on the individual to increase their market value?

00:27:30.920 Well, individuals can certainly do that, right?

00:27:33.540 You can, I mean, I, I'm sort of in the business of encouraging people to do that, right?

00:27:37.380 Go to school, get your, get your AA, right?

00:27:40.600 Get your, get your BA, get your BS, you know?

00:27:43.100 Um, but is everybody going to do that?

00:27:46.720 I mean, I think it's, it's sort of cruel to tell everyone, uh, Hey, listen, we've got

00:27:51.400 to cross this river.

00:27:52.900 Uh, nine of you are going to make it.

00:27:55.060 One of you is going to drown.

00:27:56.200 Good luck.

00:27:56.940 You know, like, wow.

00:27:58.620 That sounds safe.

00:27:59.700 Maybe you could say, look, you kind of eat a little too much and you put on too much weight.

00:28:04.820 Maybe discipline yourself a little bit so you can have stamina a little bit more.

00:28:07.800 You can say, you know, what's wrong with us saying, look, instead of watching Netflix

00:28:12.680 all day and playing video games, maybe spend that same amount of time learning a new skill

00:28:16.340 set so the market could increase your value.

00:28:18.560 Is there anything wrong with that?

00:28:19.920 Is that cruel?

00:28:21.860 I think it's unrealistic.

00:28:23.960 You know, why do you say that?

00:28:25.380 Because we need to look at the fact it's like, it's like musical chairs, right?

00:28:29.340 Musical chairs, the whole point of the game is there's not enough chairs, right?

00:28:32.980 It wouldn't be much of a game if when the music stopped, everybody had a place to sit down.

00:28:37.320 That's a game, though.

00:28:38.160 That's a game.

00:28:39.220 That's a game.

00:28:40.020 Sure.

00:28:40.200 But our economy is not that different from musical chairs, right?

00:28:43.520 I mean, like, there's always going to be millions of people unemployed.

00:28:47.040 I mean, we can look at the lowest unemployment figures in the series, right?

00:28:51.660 And what does it translate into?

00:28:53.120 It translates into several million people unemployed.

00:28:55.220 I mean, that's just the reality, you know?

00:28:57.060 Every 1% of unemployment is 1.6 million people or thereabouts, right?

00:29:01.780 So you always have millions of people unemployed, even in the richest capitalist nations.

00:29:07.640 You just hope it's not you, right?

00:29:09.780 You just hope that you hustle hard enough and it's not you.

00:29:13.240 I call that cruel.

00:29:14.880 Yes, absolutely, that's cruel.

00:29:16.620 Because we are saying, look, somebody always has to suffer, right?

00:29:20.820 That's a structural cruelty.

00:29:22.140 Do you have any kids?

00:29:23.200 Do you have any kids?

00:29:24.800 I do.

00:29:25.180 I have two kids.

00:29:26.180 They are 11 and 14.

00:29:27.900 11 and 14.

00:29:29.520 Do you feel they have to contribute to society and where they're living today?

00:29:39.040 Do they have any responsibilities or no?

00:29:43.000 Yeah, everyone has to contribute to society.

00:29:45.240 And I think everybody does, you know?

00:29:47.140 I think when you say that, you mean in a formal employment capacity.

00:29:51.180 No, I just, I got four kids.

00:29:52.580 I got four kids and I think about it.

00:29:54.220 For example, the part I agree with is when somebody's coming up, like, listen, you got

00:29:59.600 to kind of give me an opportunity to kind of build myself up.

00:30:02.680 And then like, you know, the culture of Middle Eastern culture, you know, sometimes in America,

00:30:07.100 it's like, you turn 18, go figure it out on your own versus, hey, listen, let me give

00:30:11.540 you a little bit of a head start and then go and do your thing, you know?

00:30:14.880 But some may go out and be independent at 18 and never come back, but some may go at 28,

00:30:20.720 26, 25.

00:30:21.880 It varies.

00:30:22.260 I totally understand that part.

00:30:24.220 But to think that an individual doesn't have to contribute to society, isn't that a miserable

00:30:32.540 life to not have any way to contribute positively to the world?

00:30:38.740 I think it is.

00:30:39.580 I think it is.

00:30:40.280 Okay.

00:30:40.920 Absolutely.

00:30:41.420 I think there's a lot of dignity and nobility in labor, right?

00:30:47.100 And we have been given a wrong picture of labor by capitalism, in fact, right?

00:30:52.820 We think of labor as work, as toil, as trouble.

00:30:57.320 I mean, it's, this is all through the economics literature, by the way, right?

00:31:00.360 This goes back to Adam Smith, right?

00:31:01.800 It's toil and trouble.

00:31:04.060 Man lives by the sweat of his brow, right?

00:31:05.960 This goes back to the Bible, in fact, right?

00:31:08.360 So, you know, these are ideas about labor that says labor is intrinsically unpleasant,

00:31:14.440 you know?

00:31:15.380 Now, I don't think that's true.

00:31:17.640 Yeah, it doesn't have to be.

00:31:18.380 I don't think that's true.

00:31:19.060 Yeah.

00:31:19.980 Yeah.

00:31:20.220 No, you say it doesn't have to be, right?

00:31:21.320 I think there's two different versions of that, okay?

00:31:25.280 There's one version of that, which is a kind of capitalist version that says, yeah, look,

00:31:30.160 work doesn't have to be shitty, but it will be if it's low wage.

00:31:33.960 So don't be stuck in a low wage, shitty kind of job, right?

00:31:38.060 That's the kind of capitalist version.

00:31:39.920 The Marxist version says no work is shitty, right?

00:31:43.300 What makes work crappy is the exploitation, the alienation, the low wages, the precarity,

00:31:51.020 the fact that you never know, right?

00:31:52.860 Is your wage actually going to even keep up with the cost of living, right?

00:31:56.100 Those are the things that make work crappy.

00:31:58.280 It's not the work itself, right?

00:32:00.940 People say, well, who's going to pick up the garbage?

00:32:03.240 This is a funny one to me because people that pick up the garbage, this tends to be a pretty

00:32:07.520 good job, actually, right?

00:32:09.160 Like, you know, sanitation workers have good unions.

00:32:12.280 They tend to have good wages, good benefits.

00:32:15.080 It's a good job, right?

00:32:16.800 Lots of people would be very happy to have a good job as a sanitation worker, right?

00:32:21.500 Yeah.

00:32:21.960 Yeah.

00:32:22.660 So, you know, people always say this to me under socialism, right?

00:32:25.260 Well, who's going to pick up the garbage?

00:32:26.500 I don't know.

00:32:26.780 Nobody wants to do that, right?

00:32:28.420 I don't think that's true, right?

00:32:30.420 People want to be of service to society as long as they are getting their needs met, right?

00:32:36.620 There are no unpleasant kinds of jobs, but there are ways of structuring them that make

00:32:42.200 them crappier or make them better, depending on how their structure is.

00:32:45.980 So then what you're saying is, what you're saying is, there are some shitty capitalists,

00:32:52.360 you can't debate that.

00:32:53.380 There are some that are very selfish.

00:32:57.220 All they care about is themselves, and they don't treat their employees right.

00:33:01.140 Who do you think of when you think of a capitalist like that?

00:33:04.180 I mean, just who springs to mind?

00:33:05.280 I mean, I'm sure you're going to say Bezos.

00:33:06.860 You're probably going to bring up Bezos.

00:33:08.100 You're going to bring up probably, I don't know, who are you going to say?

00:33:10.280 Who's the modern day guy you would bring up?

00:33:12.200 Musk, Bezos?

00:33:13.220 I don't know who you would be.

00:33:13.880 What would you say?

00:33:14.620 I don't know.

00:33:15.160 I mean, those guys definitely get a lot of friends.

00:33:16.880 I have to tell you, because the way I see it is in the following way.

00:33:19.580 I see it as, if you and I are friends, okay?

00:33:23.220 Let's just say you and I are friends.

00:33:24.840 We have opposing beliefs.

00:33:25.700 I got a lot of friends that we have political differences.

00:33:27.480 I got them here.

00:33:28.220 I mean, we have a podcast with a guy we don't see either on politics.

00:33:31.980 But say you and I go to dinner together, okay?

00:33:34.500 All right, we go to dinner.

00:33:35.880 I got you.

00:33:36.440 Don't worry about it, doc.

00:33:37.240 This is on me.

00:33:37.820 What do you want?

00:33:38.160 You want wine?

00:33:38.620 It's on me today.

00:33:39.220 Don't worry.

00:33:39.440 I got the sushi today.

00:33:40.520 Great.

00:33:41.220 We go, you know, I treat you good.

00:33:44.000 We have a good friendship together.

00:33:45.540 I respect you.

00:33:46.440 I respect your 14 and your 11-year-old kid.

00:33:49.020 I respect your family.

00:33:50.200 I see them.

00:33:50.780 Hey, anything I can get you.

00:33:52.140 Is there anything I can do for you?

00:33:53.120 Great.

00:33:53.820 And you're respectful to me?

00:33:55.220 We're probably going to have a long-term relationship together, friendship together,

00:33:58.620 and we're going to enjoy each other's company.

00:33:59.840 We don't have to agree on everything, but we're going to.

00:34:01.720 But if I treat you shitty, if I betray you, if I disrespect your kids or your family, we're

00:34:09.160 probably not going to be friends for too long because you're not going to put up with it.

00:34:13.440 And I don't think 99.9% of people will put up with it.

00:34:18.220 So what does that mean to me?

00:34:20.940 The market who is filled with people who make their money and they become arrogant and mistreat

00:34:26.960 people, they're the ones that make others who take care of their employees well, their clients

00:34:33.220 well, they make them look good.

00:34:35.060 So you almost need a little bit of that to get somebody to say, you know what?

00:34:38.780 I got to tell you, I used to work at John's place, man.

00:34:40.900 He treated me like crap.

00:34:42.000 But man, I love working for Mary.

00:34:43.840 I've been with her for 11 years.

00:34:45.500 Every time I've done well, she's given me a raise.

00:34:47.340 I've gotten a bonus.

00:34:48.180 She's good to my family.

00:34:49.040 I go on vacation.

00:34:49.900 She's given me plenty of when I had my two kids, I had my leave time.

00:34:53.180 I had this, I had that.

00:34:54.200 So I think there is the good and the bad.

00:34:56.800 But I think the bad makes the look, makes the good a win.

00:35:00.680 Because, you know, like a lot of times on the socialist side or the communist side,

00:35:03.920 the first person they like to target is Bezos.

00:35:06.560 And like Sanders will go after him or AOC will go after him.

00:35:09.520 Look at this guy.

00:35:10.320 He doesn't take care of his people and he treats them like shit and all this other stuff.

00:35:14.680 Guess what?

00:35:15.240 I got a person here that's my camera girl.

00:35:17.340 She didn't like working at Amazon.

00:35:19.120 She said, I didn't want to work there.

00:35:20.020 They didn't treat me good.

00:35:20.860 She left.

00:35:21.840 No one's forced to stay there.

00:35:23.800 In communism, you don't have a choice.

00:35:26.740 It's pure force.

00:35:28.220 In capitalism, if you work for a shitty boss or a shitty company, you can leave them to

00:35:33.060 go to a different place.

00:35:34.200 You can do that in capitalism.

00:35:35.640 You cannot do that in communism.

00:35:38.060 Yeah, but what's your fallback, right?

00:35:40.080 Let's say you don't have the money to leave a job, you know?

00:35:42.340 Let's say you don't have any savings because you're a low-wage worker, right?

00:35:45.720 Why are you a low-wage worker?

00:35:46.840 Well, you don't have much skills.

00:35:48.020 Why?

00:35:48.720 Well, because you come from a poor family, you know?

00:35:51.120 Education wasn't available to you.

00:35:53.120 Acquiring skills wasn't available to you.

00:35:55.140 Now, this is true for a substantial portion.

00:35:57.840 Now, you could say, okay, hustle harder, you guys.

00:36:01.240 Okay, fine.

00:36:02.120 You know, hustling harder is going to work for a few people.

00:36:04.980 Absolutely.

00:36:05.720 You know?

00:36:05.880 And that's great.

00:36:06.980 Capitalism has some social mobility.

00:36:09.060 It is better than the brutal system of feudalism.

00:36:12.960 It's better than the brutal system of slavery that preceded it.

00:36:16.320 Absolutely.

00:36:17.280 And Marxists are, you know, very willing to admit that.

00:36:21.560 You know?

00:36:21.900 Like, are we trying to return to the corrupt monarchies of the past?

00:36:26.340 No.

00:36:26.920 Fuck them.

00:36:27.560 Fuck the kings, right?

00:36:28.440 Like, are we saying slavery was better?

00:36:30.580 Absolutely not.

00:36:31.560 It's a great thing that humanity has abolished slavery.

00:36:34.500 It's fantastic, right?

00:36:35.880 We celebrate that.

00:36:37.320 We always have, right?

00:36:38.880 But are we going to celebrate a system of exploitation that requires, that needs, and

00:36:45.000 that will always create a low-wage group which is on the edge of subsistence and cannot develop

00:36:53.100 themselves as full human beings?

00:36:55.500 Because how can one, right, when almost every waking moment goes to enriching somebody else,

00:37:02.280 right?

00:37:03.040 That's the actual reality of capitalism.

00:37:04.960 I mean, you know, you could celebrate for me the relatively small number of forward-thinking,

00:37:12.580 woke capitalists.

00:37:13.680 They are, they exist.

00:37:14.840 They are out there.

00:37:15.620 You know, there are good employers.

00:37:17.240 There are, you know, you know who gets a lot of press is this guy, Dan Price.

00:37:21.060 You know, that's that.

00:37:21.720 I've had him on, by the way.

00:37:22.600 I had him on like four months ago.

00:37:24.440 Okay.

00:37:24.840 Well, you know, you know him then, right?

00:37:26.540 Yeah.

00:37:26.840 I had him on.

00:37:27.360 They'll pay the workers well and they'll do well.

00:37:30.220 And yeah, you know, this is, this is an enlightened capitalism, right?

00:37:34.140 I say it's a illusion.

00:37:37.020 You know, I say, yeah, there's a few of them.

00:37:39.580 Fantastic.

00:37:40.100 Right.

00:37:40.300 They make life better than it would be otherwise, but it's still a brutal system.

00:37:44.140 You know, like when I say capitalism doesn't guarantee you a job, that's true.

00:37:48.160 Right.

00:37:48.380 And that's not all it doesn't guarantee.

00:37:50.440 It doesn't guarantee you a house.

00:37:52.080 Right.

00:37:52.380 So this is why we have over half a million homeless people in the United States.

00:37:55.980 Right.

00:37:57.480 Capitalism generates poverty.

00:37:59.400 It does not lift people out of poverty.

00:38:00.940 It generates poverty because it concentrates wealth in a few hands.

00:38:04.820 That is its primary mechanism.

00:38:06.460 I mean, are there times where societies decide to go against that for whatever reason?

00:38:10.300 Yeah, there are.

00:38:12.080 But they are at constant risk of getting undone.

00:38:14.960 And this is what we're seeing, right?

00:38:16.300 The places that have nationalized health care, let's take Britain, for example,

00:38:20.740 their health care system is quite beleaguered, right?

00:38:23.760 Because they underfund it.

00:38:25.240 Why?

00:38:25.520 Because capitalists don't want to pay for it, right?

00:38:27.460 Because it benefits everyone rather than benefiting a select few.

00:38:31.480 Capitalism is all about generating mechanisms that redistribute wealth toward the rich.

00:38:37.520 And then lying to us and telling us that's for the average person.

00:38:40.940 That's not for the average person.

00:38:42.160 So here's a question for you.

00:38:43.900 Here's a question for you.

00:38:44.580 So, by the way, Dan Price, do you agree with his philosophy or no?

00:38:47.720 What do you think about him?

00:38:50.120 Well, he's trying to be a good capitalist employer.

00:38:53.280 I think it's better to be a good capitalist employer than to be a bad capitalist employer,

00:38:57.120 if you ask me.

00:38:58.040 Yeah, I mean, the part when I asked him, I said, so at the company, he pays everybody

00:39:01.440 $70,000.

00:39:02.180 And now it's been a different story.

00:39:03.240 I think he had some issues with his brother, lawsuit, family.

00:39:06.000 Some things that happened wasn't pretty.

00:39:08.560 But I asked him, I said, who owns the company?

00:39:11.360 He said, I own 100%.

00:39:12.400 I said, that means you own a $100 million company.

00:39:14.300 He says, yes.

00:39:15.280 And then he changes position afterwards.

00:39:16.720 The guy's worth $100 million.

00:39:18.320 His people are working for him, but he owns all the equity.

00:39:21.000 So it's not like he's given the shares of the company.

00:39:23.260 So if your position, I applaud you for sticking to your position of where you are.

00:39:27.340 But let me go back to it.

00:39:28.280 So the question, what's more important, living out my purpose and ambitions or living a safe

00:39:36.940 and guaranteed life?

00:39:38.760 What's more important?

00:39:43.600 I don't know what you can say to that to an individual, right?

00:39:47.660 Like, you know, should you not be allowed to live out your purpose?

00:39:52.140 Of course you should, right?

00:39:53.320 But should somebody starve so that you can do that, right?

00:39:58.420 I mean, see, this is the disconnect, right?

00:40:01.280 We need a system that truly frees people to uncover themselves and achieve, right?

00:40:09.140 To be who they can be, to develop their potential, right?

00:40:13.080 Yep.

00:40:13.240 Think of the millions of people who are systematically denied that opportunity, right?

00:40:19.120 Because of simple stuff, right?

00:40:21.480 Hunger, you know?

00:40:23.180 At any given moment, okay, there are 850 million hungry people in the world right now, right?

00:40:31.360 And 9 million of them will ultimately starve, right?

00:40:34.840 Each year.

00:40:35.980 That's globally, right?

00:40:37.900 That's an incredible figure, right?

00:40:40.580 There's another 3.5 million people that die from lack of access to clean water.

00:40:44.520 So are you going to tell me that you can achieve your potential in life when you don't even

00:40:50.000 have clean water, right?

00:40:51.880 I mean, what happens when a person doesn't have clean water?

00:40:54.060 They drink dirty water.

00:40:55.340 And then what happens?

00:40:56.160 They get an infection, you know?

00:40:57.740 I mean, they're much more likely, not everyone, right?

00:40:59.640 Thank God.

00:41:00.060 But you're much more likely to die.

00:41:02.360 There's a lot of ways you can die from drinking dirty water, right?

00:41:05.840 Another million and a half people die just because they don't get

00:41:08.800 the most basic kind of medical care, right?

00:41:11.560 Vaccine preventable illnesses.

00:41:12.940 So I would say capitalism kills 14 million people each and every year.

00:41:19.020 Come on, man.

00:41:19.860 That is an unbelievable.

00:41:22.040 You're reading now.

00:41:23.320 Nope.

00:41:24.000 That is absolutely due to capitalism.

00:41:25.920 All right.

00:41:26.340 So then-

00:41:27.440 Let me make the connection for you if you're interested.

00:41:29.360 I've seen the video.

00:41:30.320 I've seen the end.

00:41:30.760 But go ahead.

00:41:31.160 Audience hasn't seen it.

00:41:32.040 Go ahead.

00:41:32.540 All right.

00:41:32.860 So what capitalism does, again, concentrates resources in a few hands, okay?

00:41:38.700 When did this happen?

00:41:39.740 We look at the period from 1870 to 1900, okay?

00:41:43.360 This is when capitalism conquered the world, okay?

00:41:46.760 This took the form of-

00:41:48.060 Now, some of it had already been conquered at this point, right?

00:41:50.160 India had already been conquered.

00:41:52.120 China, you know, is subjugated, never fully colonized.

00:41:55.480 1870 to 1900 is the scramble for Africa, okay?

00:41:59.000 This is a period of time where a lot of the world's land changes hands, okay?

00:42:05.660 It goes from indigenous control to European control, control under a few hands.

00:42:11.880 You end up with African countries in which 80% of the land is owned by the colonizers,

00:42:18.140 right?

00:42:18.920 Now people want to tell me that has nothing to do with starvation today.

00:42:23.320 It has everything to do with starvation today.

00:42:26.120 What caused that imperialism?

00:42:27.760 Well, it was caused by the competition among the capitalist powers for resources, for markets

00:42:35.020 to get access to those commodities and keep out their competition, right?

00:42:40.960 It emerges inexorably from the logic of capitalism.

00:42:45.040 The world that has been created, the world that we see today, is the product of that, right?

00:42:50.300 So that structural cruelty is inseparable from the system and will never be undone by capitalism,

00:42:57.360 according to me.

00:42:58.280 By the way, you know, that part, the only way that kind of cruelty is possible is with

00:43:04.540 the power of government.

00:43:06.120 You cannot do it without the government.

00:43:08.040 You need to help the government to do that.

00:43:10.040 Right.

00:43:10.200 So for me, if that did happen, I guarantee you the government was involved.

00:43:14.240 For example, monopoly.

00:43:15.360 Of course the government was involved.

00:43:16.720 You cannot create a monopoly without the help of a government.

00:43:20.320 It's mathematically impossible to have a monopoly without the help of a government, to have

00:43:24.340 some lobbyists come behind closed doors and help you out.

00:43:27.000 But I'm going to go a different direction with you on this.

00:43:30.040 So I asked the question at the beginning, what's more important, pursuing my purpose, ambition,

00:43:34.280 or pursuing, you know, what do you call it?

00:43:36.820 Just a guaranteed safe life to make sure everybody else is happy.

00:43:39.480 And everybody else living a safe life becomes more important than my own desires that I have.

00:43:45.900 Let's just say right now, we got a 22-year-old kid that's watching this conversation.

00:43:52.600 You and I are talking.

00:43:53.920 Let's call him John.

00:43:55.220 Okay.

00:43:55.520 Let's call him Jose.

00:43:56.800 He's watching this video.

00:43:58.440 And he's sitting there saying, okay, doctor's got a degree.

00:44:02.760 He's a PhD.

00:44:04.180 Patrick had a 1.8 GPA in high school.

00:44:06.720 He doesn't have a degree.

00:44:07.720 He doesn't have an eight-year, not an MBA, not a PhD, not a four-year, not an associate.

00:44:11.840 He just went in the military, came out, went into a business, and he's done well for himself

00:44:15.360 in business.

00:44:16.040 Fine.

00:44:17.000 This kid that's watching this has the choice and the capacity to go be the next Bezos and

00:44:25.200 build the next Amazon, hypothetically.

00:44:28.180 And he's in there where he has that kind of drive and intellect to be able to pull it

00:44:31.860 off, right?

00:44:32.380 The 22-year-old Bezos named Jose, okay?

00:44:35.740 If he goes and does this, in the next 20 years, Doc, he's going to create 1.3 million jobs,

00:44:44.340 which is roughly what Amazon employs today.

00:44:46.920 They got 1.3 million jobs.

00:44:48.600 That means they created the market 1.3 million jobs.

00:44:51.000 Or he can choose to go out there and become a major loyalist to Marxist and communistic

00:44:59.860 philosophies, go into school, become a professor, and educate people on why capitalism is cruel

00:45:06.860 and it's not the right system.

00:45:09.540 Who's living more of a worthier life?

00:45:12.460 The guy that gives 20 years to build an incredible company that creates 1.3 million jobs?

00:45:16.100 Or the guy that goes out there and says, capitalism sucks and communism is the way to go?

00:45:21.140 Who's making their purpose become a reality?

00:45:25.660 I think if we're dreaming, I would like to see the Marxist figure be more of a revolutionary,

00:45:32.580 actually.

00:45:33.980 Let's say he's a revolutionary.

00:45:35.520 Let's say he's the next Stalin.

00:45:36.960 Let's say he's the next Lenin.

00:45:38.020 Let's say he's the next Karl Marx.

00:45:39.760 Do you think the world's a better place if this kid chooses to become the next Karl Marx

00:45:43.300 or the next Jeff Bezos?

00:45:45.320 Well, we have to distinguish between these figures, these historical figures, right?

00:45:48.280 Because Marx is a theoretician, right?

00:45:50.660 If we say, what are the results that Marx generated for people's lives?

00:45:54.340 The answer is zero, right?

00:45:55.840 Marx was never in a position.

00:45:57.620 Marx was never in a position to do any policy, right?

00:46:00.140 So now Stalin, that's a different story, right?

00:46:02.660 Stalin is actually the leader of the Soviet Union, right?

00:46:05.060 So, and he is in a position to have an impact on ordinary people's lives.

00:46:08.560 And he did have an impact on ordinary people's lives, right?

00:46:11.180 So these are very different figures historically, right?

00:46:14.340 We have to distinguish between a theoretician, right?

00:46:16.640 Somebody who generates theory.

00:46:18.640 Now, theory is good, right?

00:46:20.260 The theory affects our understanding of the world, right?

00:46:24.680 Let's say Danzo's against Stalin.

00:46:27.320 Yeah, yeah.

00:46:28.620 Well, which one improved more people's lives?

00:46:31.100 You're going to ask me this?

00:46:31.980 The answer is unquestionably Stalin.

00:46:34.360 You really believe that?

00:46:35.120 Unquestionably.

00:46:35.700 You really believe that?

00:46:36.820 Oh, absolutely.

00:46:37.400 It's not even close.

00:46:38.700 Not even close.

00:46:39.580 Now, look, generating 1.3 million jobs is not the unambiguous good that you're making

00:46:44.660 it sound like, right?

00:46:45.880 The question is, what's the nature of those jobs, right?

00:46:51.320 I could create 1 million internships for you right now.

00:46:55.560 They're unpaid, right?

00:46:57.500 I just create a million jobs.

00:46:58.740 Boom.

00:46:59.320 Pay jobs.

00:47:00.720 Oh, they do pay jobs, right?

00:47:02.040 Yeah.

00:47:03.080 Imagine if my internships were also paid.

00:47:06.040 They're just paid at a starvation level of wages, right?

00:47:10.040 Is that a net improvement?

00:47:11.040 These are not starvation paid jobs, though.

00:47:13.600 You know, when...

00:47:14.200 Well, that's not what the Amazon workers say, is it?

00:47:18.360 You know?

00:47:18.500 Listen, the part that you're right is when the complaints come about breaks, and other

00:47:25.320 people have said that, right?

00:47:26.960 But if we have to choose between the two, you're saying, without a debate, Stalin would be better

00:47:33.260 for the world than a Bezos.

00:47:35.280 Absolutely.

00:47:36.140 Yeah.

00:47:36.720 Absolutely.

00:47:37.460 And the historical record is very, very clear on that, right?

00:47:40.960 Wow.

00:47:41.260 Now, look, how long were people living in the Soviet Union under the czar, right?

00:47:46.160 The life expectancy in the Soviet Union was about 40 years, right?

00:47:52.140 Yeah.

00:47:52.400 So this is an average figure, right?

00:47:54.540 So what it means is, let's take everybody who died, okay?

00:47:57.780 And just put in their age, okay?

00:47:59.740 You died at six months, okay?

00:48:01.220 We'll put in 0.5.

00:48:02.420 If you died at 80, we'll put in 80, okay?

00:48:04.660 Died at 40, put in 40, right?

00:48:06.980 The average of all those numbers, okay?

00:48:09.940 That is unbelievable, right?

00:48:12.020 And that shows you that this is a pretty brutal society, okay?

00:48:15.660 So Stalin improved that by about 30 years, right?

00:48:20.260 This is almost a doubling in life expectancy, and it's occurred in a very short period of

00:48:25.420 time.

00:48:25.560 He killed millions of people.

00:48:27.460 He killed millions of people.

00:48:29.720 Let's not deflect, right?

00:48:30.700 Let's just say what happened, right?

00:48:33.180 What happened was massive investment in healthcare, right?

00:48:37.100 We're talking about training thousands and thousands of doctors, building hospitals where

00:48:42.760 they never existed before, right?

00:48:45.120 Did that save lives?

00:48:46.960 Yes.

00:48:47.380 At the cost of millions of people, though.

00:48:49.700 Well, let's get to the cost in a moment, right?

00:48:51.620 We're just on the positive side of the ledger right now, right?

00:48:54.680 Did that save lives is the question.

00:48:56.640 And the answer is, there is no question that that saved lives.

00:49:01.140 And we're talking about lives on a grand scale, okay?

00:49:04.580 So this is a nation of about 160 million people, okay?

00:49:08.860 So when we say that life expectancy on average increased by about three decades, how many years

00:49:17.080 of human life are we talking about, right?

00:49:19.800 We're talking about hundreds of millions.

00:49:21.720 That is absolutely astonishing, okay?

00:49:25.940 Now, people say, oh, maybe the czar could have done that.

00:49:28.880 Yeah, maybe.

00:49:29.700 But the czar didn't do that, right?

00:49:32.020 There is, in fact, no capitalist nation that has seen that kind of increase in that span

00:49:36.960 of time.

00:49:37.600 No capitalist nation, right?

00:49:39.780 So did people's lives get better?

00:49:42.040 Yes, it's unequivocal.

00:49:43.960 Now, if we want to get into, okay, Stalin killed millions, that's a detailed argument.

00:49:49.980 Let's get into it, though, right?

00:49:52.380 Let's get into it, because now we're on the negative side, right?

00:49:55.580 So we've established the pro.

00:49:57.600 What's the cost to all this, right?

00:50:00.920 I'm listening.

00:50:01.920 Go ahead.

00:50:02.540 Yeah.

00:50:03.240 All right.

00:50:03.840 So let's deal with the charges, okay?

00:50:05.800 The biggest charge against Stalin is that Stalin intentionally caused a famine in the Ukraine

00:50:12.480 in 1932, okay?

00:50:14.440 So this is called the Holodomor thesis, right?

00:50:18.040 And, you know, this has been propagated, you know, since about the 1930s, so since about

00:50:25.540 the time that it happened, not shortly after, right?

00:50:29.660 And it was, the story was originally created by Hearst, right?

00:50:34.460 William Randolph Hearst.

00:50:35.820 Hearst sent this guy named Thomas Walker, okay, to the Soviet Union to go and observe,

00:50:42.320 right?

00:50:42.560 But Walker never went to the Ukraine, right?

00:50:46.640 We know this, right?

00:50:47.400 Because we know we have his train tickets and stuff, right?

00:50:50.060 He never went to the Ukraine, came back and told a story which Hearst was very willing

00:50:56.420 to print, right?

00:50:57.920 And then they used pictures that were from the Volga famine.

00:51:01.960 They were from the Bengal famine.

00:51:04.220 And I mean, you know, they, they, so they used a bunch of misleading pictures, right?

00:51:08.700 And tried to cook up this narrative that said the Soviets intentionally starved Ukraine.

00:51:14.800 This argument never had any logic behind it.

00:51:17.580 What the Soviets wanted to do was to rapidly industrialize and they knew they had to increase

00:51:22.500 agricultural productivity.

00:51:23.660 There is no logical basis for any Soviet official anywhere ever wanting to damage agricultural

00:51:32.560 productivity.

00:51:33.320 Their entire, their entire focus was increasing it, right?

00:51:37.000 So you would have to convince me, right?

00:51:39.120 Okay.

00:51:39.280 That's the logic.

00:51:40.480 Well, maybe somebody went bad.

00:51:42.200 Maybe somebody, let's show me the order then.

00:51:43.960 All right.

00:51:44.480 Here's the, here's the order.

00:51:45.820 Okay.

00:51:46.340 Punish Ukraine.

00:51:47.780 Starve them, right?

00:51:49.260 Well, of course there's no order, right?

00:51:51.160 In fact, what we find is the opposite, right?

00:51:52.960 When the famine began, the Soviets shipped them grain.

00:51:56.940 They said, drain the grain reserves, right?

00:51:59.780 Ship them the grain right away.

00:52:01.880 Oh, we happen to be exporting grain so that we can get foreign exchange to industrialize

00:52:05.680 slash that, right?

00:52:07.320 That's what they did.

00:52:08.900 There's never been any kind of good argument that said the Soviets intentionally, or let alone

00:52:14.520 Stalin intentionally starved people.

00:52:17.100 That is, in fact, the truth is the opposite.

00:52:19.700 The Soviets ended the problem with famine, which had a long history in Russia.

00:52:24.160 You've got to be kidding me.

00:52:25.280 Let me ask you a question.

00:52:26.060 Have you ever been to Russia?

00:52:28.560 I haven't.

00:52:29.940 Why not?

00:52:31.620 I would love to go.

00:52:32.620 I haven't been able to travel the world because of...

00:52:35.200 You make pretty good money.

00:52:36.520 You can go.

00:52:37.720 You're a good looking guy.

00:52:38.900 You look like you could be Russian.

00:52:40.440 Why haven't you gone to Russia yet?

00:52:42.580 Oh, I didn't realize that they distributed airline tickets on the basis of your appearance.

00:52:46.340 I should have asked that.

00:52:48.840 You think I'm good looking enough to be able to go to Russia?

00:52:51.520 PhD professor salary.

00:52:53.580 You make pretty good money.

00:52:55.280 But...

00:52:55.720 I would love to go.

00:52:56.520 You know how it is when you have a family and you have kids and you have a house and

00:53:00.020 you know where you...

00:53:00.720 If I love the country as much as you love Russia, shit, I'd go live there.

00:53:05.020 I don't know why you don't live there.

00:53:08.060 But honestly, let me ask you this.

00:53:09.740 Russia is not currently a socialist country, though.

00:53:11.780 You understand that, right?

00:53:12.580 Let me ask you a question, though.

00:53:13.580 Would you rather live in a capitalistic country or a communistic country?

00:53:21.400 You know, I don't like this question because I feel like it presupposes that the world works

00:53:27.560 like this.

00:53:28.340 You just move wherever in the world makes you the most happy.

00:53:31.620 You know?

00:53:32.020 I don't think that's how the world works.

00:53:33.720 Do you?

00:53:34.320 I do.

00:53:35.180 Yes, I do.

00:53:36.220 For the rich, perhaps.

00:53:37.340 Not for the rich.

00:53:38.300 No, no, for those who want freedom and they want to avoid force.

00:53:41.500 Shit, I didn't come to America to be rich.

00:53:43.660 My dad was a cashier at a 99 cent store.

00:53:46.260 We lived in Germany at a refugee camp for two years.

00:53:48.920 We escaped Iran six weeks after Khomeini died.

00:53:51.400 I lived in Tehran, Iran for 10 years.

00:53:53.340 After Jimmy Carter pushed out the Shah, saying the fact that Khomeini was going to give everybody

00:53:58.160 free housing, free food, free rice, free phones, free TV.

00:54:01.300 He came and he killed half a million people's lives.

00:54:05.760 I mean, it was a treacherous type of an environment.

00:54:08.260 My mother's family escaped Armenia and Russia and Baku to come to Iran because of what Lenin,

00:54:14.920 Stalin, communism did to many of these guys.

00:54:17.460 They escaped this.

00:54:18.260 This is life.

00:54:19.360 Like, so for you to say people come only for money.

00:54:22.440 No, man, we came here because I can tell somebody, my mom, I was an atheist for 25 years.

00:54:27.720 I don't believe in God for 25 years because the stuff I saw, it's very hard to believe

00:54:30.980 in a God.

00:54:31.440 If a God really exists, why the hell would he make this kind of stuff happen?

00:54:35.020 But we couldn't tell people we were Christians.

00:54:37.960 I couldn't tell people that stuff in Iran.

00:54:40.460 You know, my mother couldn't go out there and have the kind of career that men have here.

00:54:44.440 You couldn't do that.

00:54:45.800 Women were forced to be able to marry a man that's 40 years their age at eight years old,

00:54:50.760 13 years old.

00:54:51.480 You know, that's not cool to do that.

00:54:53.160 So when you say why people leave, it's just for money.

00:54:56.160 No, people go to places because that country's values and principles match theirs.

00:55:01.640 I didn't come to America because I wanted handouts.

00:55:04.740 I didn't come to America to be a billionaire.

00:55:07.500 We came here because I just wanted to be able to say, hey, doc, what?

00:55:11.100 I disagree with you.

00:55:12.500 Cool.

00:55:13.120 I disagree with you.

00:55:14.660 Screw you.

00:55:15.440 Screw you.

00:55:16.040 Cool.

00:55:16.280 Can we have dinner?

00:55:17.120 Yeah.

00:55:17.600 Awesome.

00:55:18.000 I can't do that in Iran.

00:55:19.260 I can't do that in the communist negotiations.

00:55:21.940 I can't do that in China.

00:55:23.360 I got a zip line China.

00:55:24.500 Hold on a minute.

00:55:25.160 I'm not celebrating Iran here.

00:55:26.820 Right.

00:55:27.180 And nor am I saying that you guys left because of money or whatever.

00:55:30.720 I said Iran.

00:55:31.860 You're celebrating Iran.

00:55:32.280 I said that the rich have the option to go wherever in the world they'd like to go.

00:55:36.800 We weren't rich, though.

00:55:37.940 We weren't rich.

00:55:38.680 We were very poor.

00:55:40.220 Right.

00:55:40.500 We were very poor.

00:55:41.700 And no doubt you guys suffered in the way that refugees suffered.

00:55:45.580 Oh, painfully.

00:55:45.960 You wouldn't.

00:55:46.480 It's not easy to move to another country.

00:55:48.600 I mean, I think anybody knows this, right?

00:55:50.320 Unless you're very rich, in which case it's easy.

00:55:52.040 We were not rich.

00:55:52.940 We were not.

00:55:53.560 I've never lived in a house before.

00:55:55.180 Listen, I never lived in a house.

00:55:57.400 I lived in a two-bedroom apartment complex with my mom and dad and my dad left at 5 a.m.,

00:56:02.020 came up at 9 p.m.

00:56:03.260 We had a very rough life.

00:56:04.580 I'm not.

00:56:04.960 I don't like sympathy.

00:56:05.980 I don't like that kind of stuff because I don't want you to feel bad for me.

00:56:09.360 I'm a very happy man, lucky man.

00:56:11.400 All I'm saying to you is none of your values and principles that you admire are any of those

00:56:18.280 that America stands for.

00:56:20.120 How could you live in a country that doesn't match any of your values and principles?

00:56:24.620 I think those are American values.

00:56:26.320 And here's why.

00:56:27.180 Okay.

00:56:27.860 If I go, I could talk in front of a giant stadium full of Republicans.

00:56:33.420 And you know what I'd say to them?

00:56:34.480 What's that?

00:56:34.960 I'd say, how many of you guys have jobs?

00:56:38.980 Yes, we have jobs, right?

00:56:40.500 I'd say, how many of you are proud of the work that you do, right?

00:56:44.680 Yes, right?

00:56:46.180 How many of you do you think everybody should have a job?

00:56:50.200 Everybody who wants to work should have a job.

00:56:53.260 Is there anything more American than working hard and being proud of what you do, right?

00:56:59.880 Sure.

00:57:00.500 I think we'd all be on the same page.

00:57:02.200 Well, those are the values of the United States.

00:57:05.080 Those are the values of Marxism, right?

00:57:07.520 Yeah.

00:57:07.640 I mean, and yet we have this dream in the United States that if we get rich enough and if we succeed, then we can do what?

00:57:15.120 Stop working, right?

00:57:16.660 I mean, when you win the lottery, oh, look, now I'm going to kick back and go in a hammock and do nothing, right?

00:57:23.440 That's kind of our fantasy.

00:57:24.780 Let me ask you a question.

00:57:25.540 How hard was it to get a PhD?

00:57:27.640 How hard was it to get a PhD?

00:57:29.600 It was hard.

00:57:30.500 It was perhaps the most difficult thing that I did in my young life.

00:57:34.780 You know what happens when I see a guy that got a PhD?

00:57:37.840 Let me tell you how I view a PhD person.

00:57:40.440 I see somebody with a PhD.

00:57:42.340 I admire them.

00:57:43.240 I see somebody with a PhD and I say, this guy must have freaking put a shitload of hours into reading and studying and improving.

00:57:50.440 Probably had to say no to a lot of parties.

00:57:53.600 He probably partied a little bit, but I think he had to say no to a lot of them.

00:57:56.880 He probably had to say no to a lot of events.

00:57:59.520 He probably had a lot of Friday nights and Saturdays and Sundays while everybody else was going kicking back.

00:58:03.940 He probably stayed and studied.

00:58:05.480 It ain't easy to get a PhD.

00:58:07.420 So here's a question.

00:58:09.060 Now, you and I go to school together.

00:58:10.740 I go to college with you.

00:58:11.940 We're bunk.

00:58:13.020 Let's just say we're roommates.

00:58:14.500 And I say, hey, bro, what's that?

00:58:17.620 Let's go get hammered tonight.

00:58:18.960 No, dude, I'm going to study for this test that's coming up.

00:58:22.020 Screw it.

00:58:23.220 Caroline's coming.

00:58:24.500 Mary's coming.

00:58:25.280 Let's go.

00:58:25.780 You get together with Caroline.

00:58:26.840 I'm going to get together with Mary.

00:58:28.360 You know, Caroline likes you.

00:58:29.760 Dude, I'd love to, but I got a freaking.

00:58:31.400 Who's the wingman here?

00:58:32.440 Am I the wingman?

00:58:33.620 I think you would.

00:58:34.280 I think I'm a historically good wingman, but I think you would also be a good wingman.

00:58:38.860 All right.

00:58:39.180 The point I'm trying to make to you is you busted your ass to get your PhD.

00:58:43.920 How about the guy that partied instead of wanting to bust his ass?

00:58:46.980 We need to take care of him.

00:58:48.480 He could have the same hours to put into it.

00:58:50.520 That's my big concern.

00:58:51.920 Yeah.

00:58:52.540 I can give a very clear answer to this.

00:58:54.600 Yes.

00:58:54.780 Everyone should have a decent life just by, but just by virtue of being alive and being

00:59:00.240 human.

00:59:00.720 Right.

00:59:01.240 That means everyone should have food, clothing, shelter.

00:59:05.080 They should have a job.

00:59:06.220 What if I'm an F up?

00:59:08.100 What if I, some people are, unfortunately, right?

00:59:10.540 Some people are.

00:59:11.300 Do drugs all day.

00:59:12.340 What if I, everyone should have a decent life.

00:59:14.680 That should be our minimal understanding.

00:59:17.080 Right.

00:59:17.760 Just like we have a very broadly shared understanding right now.

00:59:21.060 Right.

00:59:21.340 Which is that no one should be enslaved.

00:59:23.920 You know, I mean, ask a thousand people, you get a thousand people who will agree with

00:59:28.080 that statement.

00:59:28.760 Should people be enslaved?

00:59:29.860 No, they should not.

00:59:30.840 Right.

00:59:31.520 Why not?

00:59:32.100 Is it because slavery is not profitable?

00:59:34.120 No.

00:59:34.480 Slavery is incredibly profitable.

00:59:35.900 Right.

00:59:36.340 For the slave master.

00:59:37.260 Of course.

00:59:37.640 Communists know that communism is pure slavery.

00:59:39.740 I mean, that's the, the system is.

00:59:41.600 Well, now we're, now we're just mixing up terms.

00:59:44.440 Communism is purely slavery.

00:59:46.680 You better ask a thousand workers under capitalism.

00:59:50.660 Yeah.

00:59:50.920 Right.

00:59:51.180 Even in the United States, just ask everyone.

00:59:53.840 Do you think everybody should have a job?

00:59:55.860 Do you realize right now?

00:59:56.900 I think you're going to get pretty strong agreement on that.

00:59:59.020 David is sitting right here.

01:00:00.120 He's a camera guy.

01:00:00.860 Okay.

01:00:01.440 Yeah.

01:00:01.820 And he, he runs production.

01:00:03.980 If David right now comes and tells me, screw you, Patrick, you're the worst boss ever.

01:00:09.500 And he leaves me.

01:00:10.500 What can I do to him?

01:00:12.100 David, I don't want you to get fired here.

01:00:14.440 What I'm trying to tell you is what can I honestly do to David?

01:00:18.240 What can I do to you?

01:00:19.580 Nothing.

01:00:20.360 He gets up and walks out.

01:00:22.020 If in a communistic regime, he comes and puts his finger at the boss and says, screw you.

01:00:28.160 Where the hell are you going?

01:00:29.720 What's going to happen to this guy?

01:00:31.120 Poor guy may go missing.

01:00:32.540 We may not find him.

01:00:33.320 By the way, let's just say David works for me.

01:00:35.520 And he goes on.

01:00:36.160 We don't find that historically though.

01:00:37.880 We don't find that.

01:00:38.600 That's not true.

01:00:38.880 I mean, just 40 million people got killed.

01:00:40.460 That's not that many people.

01:00:41.420 Let's just not, you know, it's, it's just, it's just.

01:00:43.620 Yeah.

01:00:43.700 But that's not a true number though.

01:00:45.180 It's probably 60 million.

01:00:46.420 You're right.

01:00:46.700 It's more like 60 million.

01:00:47.780 It's a bigger number.

01:00:48.680 No, no.

01:00:49.060 Neither of those numbers are.

01:00:51.560 You know what I appreciate about you is the following.

01:00:54.480 Here's what I appreciate about you is you have your own thoughts on believing the data that

01:01:05.820 a Stalin's regime would give you to say, that's the data on how things got better.

01:01:11.640 For somebody that is an intellect like you, who's read way more books than I have and knows history,

01:01:17.060 probably a lot more than I do.

01:01:18.540 That's the world you're in.

01:01:19.700 That's the sport you're playing.

01:01:20.920 Right?

01:01:21.160 That's why I'm interviewing you.

01:01:22.860 And I have you on to get your perspective on it.

01:01:25.100 Sure.

01:01:25.400 You know, let me ask you this.

01:01:26.460 Does not every government have similar motivations to lie about the numbers?

01:01:30.780 I mean, doesn't the United States have similar motivations to make itself look good by lying

01:01:34.940 about the numbers?

01:01:35.360 The only difference we have here, here's the only difference.

01:01:37.780 Remember who charged this?

01:01:39.180 Trump did.

01:01:40.220 When Trump was running and he made a lot of hay out of this, he said, the official unemployment

01:01:43.920 rate is nonsense.

01:01:45.240 The unemployment rate is actually way higher.

01:01:48.000 I remember that.

01:01:48.560 But guess what?

01:01:49.080 You know what we have?

01:01:50.060 Here's what we have.

01:01:50.600 You just validated my point I was about to make to you.

01:01:53.100 Here's the point I'm going to make to you.

01:01:55.160 This, okay, China, Xi Jinping, right?

01:01:59.040 They say, yeah, COVID came and it left and we're freaking partying our asses up.

01:02:04.120 What's the big deal?

01:02:04.800 We're good.

01:02:05.280 The economy is growing.

01:02:06.020 We're blowing up.

01:02:07.040 People are so happy to be in China.

01:02:08.800 They just love it here.

01:02:10.140 It's a fantastic world.

01:02:11.700 But I tell you, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, you're not welcome into China.

01:02:15.780 And if somebody posts a video on any of those platforms, let me tell you, we're coming

01:02:18.820 after you.

01:02:19.560 Why?

01:02:20.100 Jack Knoll gets up there and gives a speech, an anti-government speech by this much.

01:02:24.200 He goes missing for 90 days.

01:02:26.320 How the hell does a guy worth $60 billion that created a bunch of jobs disappear?

01:02:30.520 Their Elon Musk disappeared.

01:02:32.640 Their Bezos disappeared just because they made a comment against the government.

01:02:37.240 Moral of the story is the following.

01:02:39.020 You can get up today and talk shit about Biden.

01:02:41.680 You got a job at Fox News and CNN.

01:02:43.740 You can get up there and talk shit about Trump.

01:02:45.780 You definitely have a job at MSNBC.

01:02:48.140 Try getting up there and talk shit about Xi Jinping in China.

01:02:50.700 You have a job at the cemetery and it's six feet under.

01:02:53.960 You cannot talk shit over there or in Russia.

01:02:56.760 You don't have that.

01:02:57.320 That's not true at all, though.

01:02:58.800 That's not true.

01:02:59.400 Fantastic.

01:02:59.720 So why don't they believe in freedom of speech?

01:03:02.820 Why don't we have Facebook, YouTube, Twitter over there?

01:03:04.900 Why can't we see what's going on?

01:03:06.400 Why don't they go Facebook Live so we can see what's going on in China?

01:03:08.920 Well, you have to understand the history of China, right?

01:03:12.880 China is a long-established civilization that was very severely humiliated and basically

01:03:20.920 colonized, right?

01:03:21.700 Not exactly, but basically, right?

01:03:24.160 Britain had its way with China.

01:03:26.880 It did not deign to conquer the entire territory, but it shaved off the part that it wanted, right?

01:03:32.060 Hong Kong, you know, the port part, right?

01:03:34.620 And it got the policies that it wanted that came out of the opium wars.

01:03:39.900 It subjugated China, right?

01:03:42.220 So, and, you know, this caused, I mean, you know, this is part of a whole string of different

01:03:46.940 defeats and humiliations in the early 20th century, right?

01:03:50.240 That led to, you know, the downfall of the Qing dynasty and the warlord period and Chinese

01:03:56.260 nationalism and ultimately communism, right?

01:03:58.760 This is China just saying to the capitalist powers of the world, just saying, no, right?

01:04:07.400 You are not going to run our country.

01:04:08.720 We are going to run our country.

01:04:09.980 Now, that's a very important moment, right?

01:04:12.660 Now, does the capitalist world say, oh, fine.

01:04:16.060 Okay, thanks.

01:04:16.880 Have a great day, right?

01:04:18.240 No, they do not, right?

01:04:19.800 They say, we are going to bring you the fuck down by any means necessary.

01:04:24.660 We're going to bring you down through infiltration.

01:04:27.120 We will bring you down through planting people inside your government.

01:04:30.540 We will bring you down through outside media.

01:04:32.780 We will create an entire organization called Radio Free Asia, right?

01:04:36.680 Just designed to spread lies and propaganda, right?

01:04:39.800 So does China ban a few, as many of these things as they can?

01:04:44.560 Yeah.

01:04:45.100 And should they?

01:04:46.060 Absolutely, they should, right?

01:04:47.620 Would the United States do that?

01:04:49.400 Would the United States ban things like that?

01:04:51.120 If there was a massive, hugely funded Chinese effort to spread propaganda in the United States,

01:04:58.200 would the U.S. ban it?

01:05:00.620 No, TikTok and Zoom.

01:05:02.080 I mean, what else do you want to say?

01:05:03.280 TikTok, Zoom.

01:05:04.420 Go to the sites.

01:05:05.460 We have access.

01:05:05.900 I can go to China's YouTube website.

01:05:08.380 They can't go online.

01:05:09.540 Do you think that, I don't know how familiar you are with Radio Free Asia.

01:05:12.940 Radio Free Asia is a completely propaganda outfit.

01:05:15.120 It is funded by the State Department, okay?

01:05:18.280 Do you think that TikTok is equivalent to Radio Free Asia as a propaganda mechanism, or

01:05:24.520 do you not know enough about these things to say, or do you have a sense?

01:05:28.960 I have a sense of the fact that in China, you don't have freedom of speech like we got

01:05:32.880 in America.

01:05:33.880 In America, if you disagree with Trump, you can go out there and talk about it.

01:05:39.260 You cannot do that in China.

01:05:40.780 You cannot do that in the USSR that you love.

01:05:43.120 You can't do that under Stalin.

01:05:45.480 Do you say one?

01:05:46.260 No, there's plenty of criticism of Xi Jinping.

01:05:49.380 There's plenty of criticism of the Communist Party.

01:05:52.200 You think during a Stalin era, I can say things about Stalin and get away with it?

01:05:57.180 Come on, we can't be that naive.

01:05:59.220 You cannot organize to bring down the state.

01:06:02.280 Not organize to bring the state.

01:06:03.500 You're going to have a problem.

01:06:04.400 What if I just start to, behind closed doors campaign, and I say, hey, I want to run as

01:06:08.860 an opposition against you, and I want to run as a Democrat.

01:06:11.840 You can't do that.

01:06:13.120 Their red line is, look, you can run.

01:06:15.480 You can run against anybody as long as it's in the Communist Party, right?

01:06:19.640 Why is that?

01:06:20.900 Well, because there's a long history of capitalist powers funding oppositional candidates, right?

01:06:27.280 Trying to bring down the system, again, through a million different means.

01:06:31.160 If you study the history of U.S.

01:06:33.520 imperialism and U.S.

01:06:34.640 intervention, you will find an unbelievably long list of dirty tricks, right?

01:06:39.940 These dirty tricks have been used everywhere to bring down governments that are democratically

01:06:43.940 elected, right?

01:06:44.640 I'm never going to defend a, you know, like the Taliban against the Afghanistan war.

01:06:52.420 Okay.

01:06:53.260 Listen, if you go out there and get involved in everyone's business, and then you all of

01:06:58.100 a sudden want to step away, I'm sorry, America, but you're going to create a lot of enemies.

01:07:01.040 And America's created a lot of enemies.

01:07:02.700 War involvement in a lot of different business.

01:07:04.320 You and I are probably going to agree on that part because some of this stuff, when I was

01:07:07.860 in Iran and they hated U.S. and they would scream Matic battle on recall, like death upon

01:07:12.320 America.

01:07:13.220 Yeah.

01:07:13.640 Right.

01:07:13.820 They don't like the westernized philosophy.

01:07:16.020 But what I'm saying to you is all of those tactics, fair.

01:07:19.600 Yes.

01:07:20.740 But dude, in America, you and I can get up and talk.

01:07:23.280 In America, you can be a professor at Riverside, you know, City College, and you're a full-on

01:07:31.660 communist.

01:07:32.280 You are a full-blown communist.

01:07:35.520 Yeah, but do you know how many people are surprised by that?

01:07:38.020 I mean, take a guess at how many have called for my job publicly out of those Stalin remarks,

01:07:44.320 right?

01:07:45.260 You know, like how powerful a person do you think it would take to get me fired?

01:07:51.100 I don't think you would get fired.

01:07:53.380 Well, you know, thank you.

01:07:55.180 And I sincerely hope that you're right.

01:07:57.020 You know, in fact, I'm staking my livelihood on that.

01:07:59.560 No, I don't think you would get fired.

01:08:00.900 Here's why you wouldn't.

01:08:02.160 Do you think a congressperson could get me fired?

01:08:04.660 Do you think a senator who might get involved?

01:08:06.020 Let me ask you a question.

01:08:06.820 Let me ask you a question.

01:08:07.800 Let me ask you a question.

01:08:08.620 Dude, come on.

01:08:09.500 You know, I used to work at a different university, the University of Southern Maine, and their

01:08:13.400 president fired 100 out of 400 tenured faculty members, some of them right near retirement.

01:08:19.500 Can that happen?

01:08:20.420 Absolutely.

01:08:21.060 Of course.

01:08:21.800 I mean, listen, if the president of the United States is silenced by Twitter, you could get

01:08:25.540 fired.

01:08:26.040 So, you know, if the president could get fired, you can definitely get fired.

01:08:29.720 But, you know, the left has a monopoly in education.

01:08:33.460 You know, 13 for one, professors lean to the left and to the right.

01:08:37.060 So there's a monopoly in the world you're in.

01:08:39.940 All I'm saying from my end is, think about it this way.

01:08:42.320 Why do I have you on?

01:08:43.920 This is a pro-entrepreneurship, pro-capitalism YouTube channel.

01:08:46.700 Why do I have you on?

01:08:48.060 Like, other channels wouldn't have you on.

01:08:50.320 Why do I have you on?

01:08:51.700 Do you know these are my favorite conversations?

01:08:54.340 I think you like good conversations with people who are going to push back a little bit

01:08:58.520 because that's what creates fire in terms of the discourse, right?

01:09:02.780 But you know what it is also for me is...

01:09:05.320 As long as it's respectful.

01:09:06.780 No, for me, you know who wins in this conversation?

01:09:09.200 Who do you think won today?

01:09:12.040 The viewers.

01:09:12.920 That's right.

01:09:13.620 That's it.

01:09:14.600 That's what I want to do.

01:09:15.960 The audience is going to go walk away and say, listen, I agree with what he said in

01:09:20.800 this side, and I agree with you, Pat, what you said on the following side.

01:09:24.520 So look, I've really enjoyed this.

01:09:26.900 I can go a couple of different things here, but I'll give you any final positions you want

01:09:32.440 to take yourself.

01:09:33.580 I mean, one of the things I wouldn't mind reading, because we haven't yet, we can wrap

01:09:36.580 up with this a little bit of China.

01:09:38.260 We got 14 more minutes and then we'll wrap up, is Mao.

01:09:41.980 OK, you said a couple of things about Mao.

01:09:44.540 OK, I'd like to get your take on Mao.

01:09:46.600 So you said you tweeted support for Chinese dictator Mao, describing him as one of the

01:09:53.120 greatest revolutionary leaders of all time.

01:09:55.500 Why don't you unpack it?

01:09:56.440 Because you have good things to say about him.

01:09:57.860 You call him the greatest revolutionary leaders of all time.

01:10:01.260 That meaning ahead of Stalin.

01:10:03.340 Tell me why him.

01:10:06.620 Well, yeah, Mao is an incredibly important figure, you know, in terms of China, but also

01:10:11.580 in terms of the history of Marxism and communism.

01:10:15.600 You know, I mean, we what we have here, if we look at the long historical frame, right,

01:10:20.000 we look at the last 150 years.

01:10:21.640 OK, so since, you know, the development of kind of modern Marxism, the Communist Manifesto,

01:10:29.060 et cetera.

01:10:29.560 Right.

01:10:30.060 This is about 170 years old or so.

01:10:32.740 OK.

01:10:33.380 Now, at the time, there's no socialist countries at all.

01:10:38.400 Right.

01:10:38.580 We look at 1848.

01:10:40.020 Europe is emerging out of feudalism and it's making a kind of the final transition away

01:10:46.320 from the feudal aristocracy and toward, you know, liberal bourgeois kind of democracies

01:10:52.820 and so forth.

01:10:53.480 Right.

01:10:54.120 So socialism at the time is highly theoretical, you know.

01:10:59.300 And, you know, that's why you have this relatively long document, right, the Communist

01:11:03.600 Manifesto.

01:11:04.200 And it has to say, like, here's what we mean by it, because the term is being used by lots

01:11:08.540 and lots of people.

01:11:09.400 Right.

01:11:10.300 Here's what we mean by it.

01:11:11.660 OK.

01:11:12.680 But when we get to by the time we get to like 1949, the time of the Chinese Revolution, we're

01:11:19.340 in a very different situation.

01:11:21.080 Right now, we've we've had successful socialist revolutions.

01:11:25.580 So Mao can study these.

01:11:27.040 Right.

01:11:27.220 That the Chinese Communist Party can study this and say, what did we think has worked and

01:11:34.400 what hasn't worked?

01:11:35.500 Right.

01:11:35.680 Now, they are a little bit off the map in terms of, you know, Marx had predicted that the contradictions

01:11:43.360 of capitalism would cause workers to get together and say, hey, we have some similar interests

01:11:49.220 here.

01:11:49.480 Right.

01:11:49.860 I mean, we're all working for a wage and our employers would like to pay us less.

01:11:55.940 They'd like us to work harder.

01:11:57.120 They'd like to work longer so that they can have more profits.

01:11:59.980 Our interest is overturning this system.

01:12:03.660 Right.

01:12:03.760 Our interest is, look, the wealth that we produce should go to us.

01:12:08.360 That's, you know, that that's the prediction.

01:12:10.180 And so Marxist thought that the revolution would occur in the most developed capitalist

01:12:14.960 countries.

01:12:15.380 Now, what a surprise it was to find that wasn't true.

01:12:18.220 Right.

01:12:18.520 They occurred in the least developed, like the the least.

01:12:22.360 I mean, Russia is the least developed capitalist country, capitalist slash feudal country in

01:12:28.480 Europe.

01:12:29.200 China has a very little capitalism in 1949.

01:12:32.900 Right.

01:12:33.060 It has a little bit in the cities, but is, again, mostly an agrarian country.

01:12:37.880 So Mao works with this.

01:12:39.000 Right.

01:12:39.180 Mao works with the peasantry, lives with the peasants for 20 years.

01:12:44.160 Right.

01:12:44.380 During a long march and wins them over.

01:12:48.740 I mean, that is remarkable.

01:12:50.720 Right.

01:12:51.240 To see a leader that emerges from constant contact with the poorest people in the society.

01:12:58.480 Right.

01:12:59.260 Now, these are people who are exhausted by warfare.

01:13:01.640 Right.

01:13:01.900 Because they had the war.

01:13:02.920 They had the warlord period.

01:13:04.320 You know, they had internal fighting for decades and decades and decades.

01:13:08.580 And so their peasants are familiar at the time with what do armies do when they come

01:13:13.540 through?

01:13:14.080 Here's what they do.

01:13:15.360 They steal your food.

01:13:16.820 They rape your daughter.

01:13:18.800 And they do whatever the hell they want.

01:13:20.340 Right.

01:13:20.500 I mean, like, do they make your lives better in any way?

01:13:23.060 Right.

01:13:23.600 No, they don't.

01:13:24.540 You know, the only thing that you can say that they do positively is they're fighting

01:13:30.160 against another power that's trying to take you over.

01:13:34.820 Right.

01:13:35.400 So and this is the time when when Mao and the communists really start to become popular.

01:13:41.040 Right.

01:13:41.580 They're fighting this war against this, you know, the Kuomintang.

01:13:45.800 Right.

01:13:45.980 But it's when the Japanese invade China.

01:13:50.800 Right.

01:13:51.600 That the differences between these two different armies.

01:13:54.440 Right.

01:13:54.600 So we have the we have the KMT and we have the Red Army.

01:13:58.600 But Mao is insists on a different kind of conduct for his soldiers.

01:14:03.520 Right.

01:14:03.740 He says you have to pay for what you take.

01:14:06.300 Right.

01:14:06.720 So we have to treat people much differently than any army has ever treated people, because

01:14:13.040 these are the people that we need to convince.

01:14:14.720 Right.

01:14:15.160 We can't just take their stuff.

01:14:17.240 And, you know, like we have to be different than that.

01:14:20.840 And he does this.

01:14:22.460 Right.

01:14:22.900 He gains massive widespread.

01:14:24.960 The Red Army goes from having something like 40,000 troops to having a four million.

01:14:30.060 Right.

01:14:30.720 And that shows its unbelievable popularity.

01:14:33.080 Right.

01:14:33.940 Because so not only does he treat people ethically.

01:14:36.680 Right.

01:14:37.480 And he's in a position of power.

01:14:38.780 I mean, even if you have if you have 40,000, an army of 40,000, that's small relative to

01:14:43.120 the KMT, but that's still a lot more power than any peasant has.

01:14:46.440 Right.

01:14:47.020 So you can do whatever the fuck you want in that situation.

01:14:49.420 Right.

01:14:49.740 But did Mao?

01:14:50.660 No.

01:14:51.240 Right.

01:14:51.900 Mao treated people very, very fairly because he saw it as like these are the people that

01:14:56.720 we're actually fighting for.

01:14:57.940 You know.

01:14:58.200 Now, does every leader do that?

01:15:02.160 No, not at all.

01:15:03.300 Right.

01:15:03.520 Most most guerrilla fighters are incredibly unethical.

01:15:07.360 You know, like they mostly do whatever the hell they want.

01:15:09.560 Right.

01:15:10.120 Now, then we could say, what did Mao do when he was in power?

01:15:12.760 Right.

01:15:13.420 What Mao did when he was in power is a very similar to Stalin.

01:15:17.120 Right.

01:15:17.260 He said, we need to get the entire country organized.

01:15:20.320 The state is going to be the major employer.

01:15:22.640 But we're going to do something that's never been done in China, which is we're going to

01:15:27.080 make sure that everyone has the basics.

01:15:29.600 OK.

01:15:29.780 In China, this is called the iron rice bowl.

01:15:32.000 Right.

01:15:32.580 It's a bundle of guaranteed consumption goods.

01:15:36.360 OK.

01:15:36.920 That never, ever existed any time in Chinese history.

01:15:40.420 Right.

01:15:40.740 So the very and, you know, this is among the first things that are done.

01:15:45.700 Right.

01:15:46.300 Even while the economy is still emerging from the wreckage of, you know, tens of millions

01:15:52.620 of people died in the fighting, in the invasion of the Japanese and so on.

01:15:57.440 Right.

01:15:58.260 Mao immediately turns toward improving the lives of the very poorest.

01:16:02.360 Right.

01:16:02.840 These are things that I certainly admire and I think anybody should admire.

01:16:07.460 Right.

01:16:07.600 I mean, like if you care about the fate of the poor, the fate of those who are the least

01:16:12.820 advantaged in a society.

01:16:15.020 Well, this is a leader who put their needs very much, you know, near the top.

01:16:21.360 Right.

01:16:21.500 Now, I'm not going to say at the absolute top.

01:16:23.400 Right.

01:16:23.500 Because every leader has the same challenge, which is how do you keep power in a world of

01:16:28.620 hostile nations?

01:16:30.280 Do they want to eat your lunch?

01:16:32.080 Do they want to depose you?

01:16:34.080 Absolutely, they do.

01:16:35.540 Do they have more power than you?

01:16:37.020 Yeah, they do.

01:16:37.900 Right.

01:16:38.500 We can see this.

01:16:39.580 You know, the United States supported the KMT for decades after they fled to Taiwan.

01:16:45.080 They said, well, that's the legitimate government of China.

01:16:47.240 Right.

01:16:47.400 So, you know, we're not dealing with an equal kind of playing field here where the capitalist

01:16:53.400 powers say, oh, yes, well, whoever ends up running the country is fine.

01:16:56.340 No, not at all.

01:16:57.640 Right.

01:16:58.300 We are dealing with a war.

01:17:00.480 Right.

01:17:00.720 That war is the working class versus the bourgeoisie.

01:17:04.800 So, you know, it's interesting.

01:17:07.740 I'm sitting here thinking, I'm like, this guy has never written a book.

01:17:10.240 One, you should write a book because communists would love to.

01:17:14.680 I hear that from people, actually.

01:17:16.020 But thank you for saying that.

01:17:16.960 Very nice.

01:17:17.360 Here's you.

01:17:18.080 You sound so devout to them.

01:17:20.620 Like you're such a true believer.

01:17:22.860 I'd leave.

01:17:23.600 When I spoke to Slavoj Zizek, he had some doubts.

01:17:26.080 And he was questioning certain areas of communism that maybe didn't produce the results that

01:17:30.860 he's more skeptical today than he was before.

01:17:33.600 I talked to Richard Wolff.

01:17:35.100 He's more socialist.

01:17:36.120 He's not a full-blown communist at your level.

01:17:38.540 He's a little bit different than you, although some similarities.

01:17:42.820 You know, I just pulled up something right now.

01:17:44.980 I type the most evil dictators of all time.

01:17:48.220 OK, number one is Mao, 49 to 78 million deaths.

01:17:52.000 Number two is Stalin, 23 million deaths.

01:17:53.820 That's what the site says.

01:17:54.740 Give or take, you know, is what it is.

01:17:57.600 I'm curious, just purely out of curiosity.

01:18:00.100 What do you think about Hitler?

01:18:02.720 Well, Hitler is a fascist monster, you know, somebody who committed genocide, somebody who

01:18:08.860 is a would-be imperialist.

01:18:11.300 Yeah.

01:18:12.160 Hitler did not focus his imperialism on Africa as the other capitalist powers did in the late

01:18:18.200 1800s.

01:18:18.820 He focused his imperialism on Russia, right?

01:18:21.560 I mean, the drive was to go east to give the German people living room, Lebensraum, right?

01:18:27.680 I mean, that was the German phrase.

01:18:30.380 Now, they did that under the understanding that the Slavs and the Russian people were subhuman,

01:18:36.020 you know?

01:18:36.740 Now, they had a little bit of a problem ideologically because, you know, they had a white supremacist

01:18:40.920 ideology.

01:18:41.420 And they did recognize that the Slavs and the Russians were, or at least some of them

01:18:46.460 were white, right?

01:18:48.100 But they used this very old kind of mythological idea that said that the Slavs had black bones.

01:18:54.380 And I mean, it was just utter bullshit, right?

01:18:56.380 So, what you have here is you have fascist nationalism, which seeks to conquer territory

01:19:03.140 based on racist ideology, right?

01:19:05.880 Now, I think that that's pretty well established by history, right?

01:19:09.700 The result of that is that tens of millions of people died, okay?

01:19:14.100 That's unequivocal.

01:19:16.080 Now, people like to draw equivalencies, anti-communists do, between Hitler and Stalin.

01:19:22.360 Now, there are no equivalencies, right?

01:19:25.660 None of the things that I mentioned apply in the slightest to the Soviet Union, to any

01:19:32.240 socialist country.

01:19:33.180 They don't apply to China.

01:19:35.460 Saying Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, and then saying something after that just advertises your ignorance,

01:19:42.700 right?

01:19:42.880 There is no point in saying anything further at this point.

01:19:49.560 You crack me up.

01:19:52.360 Now, in terms of Zizek, doubt makes a good philosopher, and Zizek's a great philosopher.

01:19:59.300 So, is it appropriate?

01:20:01.000 Yes, right?

01:20:02.180 And Richard Wolff, look, he's my mentor.

01:20:04.700 I love him.

01:20:06.400 We have some maybe differences of opinion, but I think we just have a different style is

01:20:10.840 more like it.

01:20:11.560 I think the differences of opinion are minor, actually.

01:20:14.960 But we have different areas of emphasis, let's say.

01:20:17.580 You know, I have a style that's a lot more unequivocal, right?

01:20:23.100 Because I'm acting as more of a kind of ideological warrior, you know, than I am as a kind of academic

01:20:30.320 and, oh, let me weigh each side and da-da-da.

01:20:32.760 I do that in my written work.

01:20:34.240 But, you know, I'm here as a popular figure, not as a scholar.

01:20:37.400 For what it's worth, for what it's worth, I thought you were going to be a lot more antagonistic than you were.

01:20:43.320 I have to tell you that.

01:20:44.140 I thought you were going to be a lot more coming from a place of this thing was going to get zero to piss stuff.

01:20:52.040 I did an interview with, what's his name?

01:20:55.060 What is his name?

01:20:56.140 Lucian Truscott.

01:20:57.300 I don't know if you've ever seen it or not.

01:20:58.520 If you're not, if you want to entertain yourself, he is a great, great, great, great grandson of Thomas Jefferson

01:21:04.120 who wanted the statue to be removed.

01:21:06.400 If you want to be entertained, just watch the first minute.

01:21:08.600 You'll crack up.

01:21:09.280 It's a 27-minute interview.

01:21:10.700 I'm going to do a quick speed round with you.

01:21:12.180 I'll give you a name.

01:21:13.060 Tell me one word that comes to mind, and then we'll wrap it up.

01:21:15.960 Any word that comes to mind.

01:21:17.180 Or you can say skip with any name.

01:21:20.040 So, Churchill.

01:21:21.080 What's the word that comes to mind with Churchill?

01:21:29.280 I mean, you know, I think of Churchill with the Bengal famine, really, you know.

01:21:35.780 And if you want to look at a leader who intentionally starved people, I think that's who we're looking for.

01:21:41.200 We're not looking at Stalin or Mao.

01:21:42.560 We're looking at Churchill.

01:21:46.220 Bernie Sanders.

01:21:48.780 Bernie Sanders.

01:21:49.580 I like Bernie.

01:21:50.460 You know, he seems like a figure of integrity, although I think he's burning a lot of clout right now because, you know, embracing the Biden administration and going towards incrementalism, you know, started off saying Medicare for all and now is saying lower the eligibility age.

01:22:13.160 You know, this is the kind of thing where what I had always said about Bernie is Bernie is the furthest right that I'm willing to go.

01:22:19.960 You know, you know, I consider him to be a right wing leftist because he's not saying, oh, you know, let's expropriate the rich.

01:22:30.660 He's not saying that.

01:22:31.460 Right.

01:22:31.580 He's not saying let's end capitalism.

01:22:33.780 He's saying, oh, we can tinker with it and make it work better.

01:22:35.800 I don't believe in that.

01:22:36.580 Would you say the furthest right wing or the furthest socialist?

01:22:41.100 You know what I mean?

01:22:41.840 Like furthest socialist right wing.

01:22:43.820 Bernie is a social democrat, right?

01:22:46.940 He's somebody who favors a reformed capitalism that has higher wages and more benefits or whatever.

01:22:53.080 Right.

01:22:53.720 That, you know, I consider that to be a good result.

01:22:57.340 But I think the only way you're going to get to that is through socialism, basically.

01:23:01.480 You know, like I and that's what we've seen historically as well.

01:23:04.960 How about AOC?

01:23:07.660 AOC, I think, you know, it's a figure that a lot of us had high hopes for.

01:23:12.980 And, you know, it's exciting and whatever to see a socialist.

01:23:15.740 But this is somebody who is, first of all, became way more famous than their power, you know, sort of merited, right?

01:23:26.640 Like AOC as a freshman congressperson, basically no power, you know.

01:23:31.380 Your power as a congressperson depends on what coalitions can you build, what committees are you on and so forth, right?

01:23:37.080 And AOC had basically none of that, but she became, it was just catapulted to fame because she's young and, oh, a socialist and whatever, you know, Fox News really made her famous.

01:23:48.020 And then becomes, oh, this is the lion of the left.

01:23:51.940 But, you know, leftists look at her and be like, what has she actually done, you know?

01:23:56.240 What policies has she done that actually improve people's lives?

01:23:59.300 And the record there is non-existent.

01:24:01.060 So, you know, I like AOC, you know, she seems like a good person, whatever.

01:24:05.560 But, you know, it's like you throw a handful of sand at an oncoming tidal wave.

01:24:11.440 You're not really going to change the result there, you know?

01:24:13.880 Elizabeth Warren.

01:24:15.760 Well, Elizabeth Warren, I put in a very different position.

01:24:18.160 Elizabeth Warren is a very opportunistic politician, in my view.

01:24:22.460 Somebody who, you know, Bernie's out there campaigning in 2016, talking about Medicare for all, talking about the $15 minimum wage, talking about everyone should have a job.

01:24:32.780 What's Elizabeth Warren doing?

01:24:34.020 Deafening silence, right?

01:24:36.260 Then endorses Clinton.

01:24:38.180 Then comes and adopts that program without a word.

01:24:41.400 Like, what the hell is that in the 2020 campaign?

01:24:44.480 I mean, and the entire Democratic field adopts all of Bernie's proposals.

01:24:50.060 Why don't, if you guys support the proposals, then you should be supporting Bernie, right?

01:24:53.420 But none of these people did that.

01:24:55.160 I just think it's opportunistic.

01:24:56.460 And, you know, it's a lot of my colleagues in academia, you know, love Elizabeth Warren.

01:25:03.340 And so maybe I will end some friendships by speaking to Miller.

01:25:07.220 But at this point, I think probably nobody cares.

01:25:11.120 You know, I just think it's, it tells you whether you really support a program, though.

01:25:16.120 You know, like, do you support it rain or shine?

01:25:18.920 Or just shine, you know?

01:25:20.280 I don't think she's a true believer.

01:25:21.620 I think, like you said, she's an opportunistic.

01:25:23.320 That makes sense.

01:25:24.500 How about Fidel Castro?

01:25:27.140 Well, Fidel Castro is an interesting one because Fidel Castro started off as a revolutionary,

01:25:31.260 as a nationalist revolutionary, not as a socialist, interestingly enough, right?

01:25:35.240 So Fidel embraces socialism later, right?

01:25:39.800 It's just sort of, it's on the fence for a little while, right?

01:25:42.800 It's kind of the U.S.'s response that pushes Fidel to socialism.

01:25:47.580 But once he does that, he very much embraces it, right?

01:25:50.540 So, you know, one of the first things that they did, I just wrote about this for a new

01:25:55.240 publication called The International.

01:25:56.820 If people are interested, you can Google that.

01:25:59.060 I wrote about the economic achievements of Cuba.

01:26:02.540 One of the first things that they do, they expropriate the land, right?

01:26:06.900 So like I mentioned, in Cuba, similar to lots of places in Africa and so forth, you had

01:26:12.300 most of the land being owned by a very small landowning class.

01:26:17.320 And, you know, the Castro and the revolution, they said, look, we're not going to do that

01:26:23.160 anymore.

01:26:23.560 We're going to turn the land over to the peasants.

01:26:26.120 It then became state property.

01:26:28.480 The state section went to about 80% of the land.

01:26:33.560 And they also had individual peasants also owning their land individually.

01:26:38.540 So they had a kind of mixed system.

01:26:41.140 But, you know, in general, I think I am very favorably inclined towards Castro and the revolution

01:26:47.360 there also generated very good results.

01:26:49.940 I got two other names for you.

01:26:51.160 Noam Chomsky.

01:26:53.960 Noam Chomsky.

01:26:54.800 Yeah, a big figure on the left, not someone I've ever really been a fan of, just because

01:27:00.840 I don't see him as having a very good answer to like the question of what should be done.

01:27:06.840 You know, Noam Chomsky is somebody who has good critiques, you know, like he critiques

01:27:11.260 that his critiques of the media are very solid, right?

01:27:14.400 Critiques of imperialism, good, right?

01:27:16.800 He knows a lot about the history of U.S.

01:27:19.380 imperialism.

01:27:19.900 I mean, that's very good.

01:27:22.260 But does he have a very good vision of what should be done?

01:27:26.020 You know, you said, hey, Noam Chomsky, you can write your ticket.

01:27:28.280 What would it look like?

01:27:29.700 I don't think so.

01:27:30.680 You know, he doesn't have a system that.

01:27:32.340 So that only takes you so far.

01:27:34.040 As a critic, you need to have a positive vision of your own.

01:27:38.560 And last but not least, our current president, your president, my president, Joe Biden.

01:27:44.340 Well, Joe Biden is just the next iteration of Reagan.

01:27:50.360 You know, I mean, like we've we've had a Reagan government since Reagan.

01:27:54.240 I mean, that's that's what we've had.

01:27:55.860 You know, Clinton, the masterpiece of Clinton is that he rebranded the Democrats.

01:28:01.120 You know, he said, we're Eisenhower Republicans now.

01:28:03.700 I mean, this is literally what he said.

01:28:05.280 Right.

01:28:05.860 So, you know, Clinton and the Democrats since Clinton have been very much in that vein.

01:28:11.880 I mean, the Republicans have gone in a very different direction.

01:28:15.700 Right.

01:28:15.800 The Republicans have gone toward a kind of, you know, nationalist and fascist kind of

01:28:21.860 direction.

01:28:23.160 The Democrats are the ones now saying we are the technocrats and we are the ones that will,

01:28:28.140 you know, tinker with the capitalism and make it work better and whatever.

01:28:32.380 I personally don't believe in that.

01:28:34.200 I think that's the that's the kind of Keynesian vision again.

01:28:37.420 Right.

01:28:38.560 But they also do this with a very aggressive militarism.

01:28:41.580 You know, the the U.S. military machine costs about one point two five trillion dollars

01:28:46.400 a year once you add everything up.

01:28:48.280 That's a stunning amount of wealth to spend on killing people.

01:28:52.340 I got to tell you, I enjoyed having you on.

01:28:54.660 Appreciate you for answering questions and working and going back and forth.

01:28:58.880 This was a blast.

01:28:59.700 Like I said earlier, I enjoy doing these things.

01:29:02.620 We're going to put the link to both your YouTube channel.

01:29:05.980 There's a video.

01:29:07.420 I think there's 10 criticism you give of capitalism.

01:29:09.640 Some I think I don't know what the title is.

01:29:11.880 We'll put the link to YouTube channel below.

01:29:13.620 Somebody wants to watch it.

01:29:14.660 We're going to put the link to your Twitter as well below.

01:29:17.080 If anybody wants to go send a tweet at him and I, I would love to hear what you took

01:29:21.380 away from today's interview.

01:29:22.700 Having said that, Doc, appreciate your time.

01:29:24.620 It's been good having you on.

01:29:26.040 Thank you so much.

01:29:26.720 And, you know, I'd love to come back.

01:29:27.960 So if you want to have me back on the show, let's have dinner sometime.

01:29:31.380 I am paying.

01:29:32.860 No, you're not.

01:29:33.580 I will take you up on that often.

01:29:37.140 I definitely look forward to it.

01:29:38.160 Appreciate you.

01:29:38.540 We'll definitely have you back on.

01:29:40.220 All right.

01:29:40.840 Thanks, buddy.

01:29:41.360 Take care.

01:29:41.760 Bye-bye.

01:29:42.480 So when's the last time you saw a communist and a capitalist sit down together, have a

01:29:45.320 good conversation at the end.

01:29:46.520 One of them says, hey, I'd love to take you out to dinner, especially the communists.

01:29:49.900 We made history today.

01:29:51.000 Anyways, it was a great conversation.

01:29:53.060 Curious what you took away about what he had to say.

01:29:54.740 He made a lot of strange comments.

01:29:58.200 Again, if you're watching this, Doc, a lot of strange comments were made.

01:30:03.100 What'd you take away from it?

01:30:04.140 Comment below.

01:30:04.620 If you enjoyed it, put a thumbs up.

01:30:05.920 If you haven't subscribed to the channel, please do.

01:30:07.680 So I got two other videos I want you to watch.

01:30:09.980 One of them is with me and Richard Wolff.

01:30:11.440 If you've never watched it, he's a number one socialist professor in America, according

01:30:15.560 to Forbes.

01:30:16.500 Click over to watch it.

01:30:17.620 And the other one is an interview I told, you know, a satire about is Lucian Truscott.

01:30:23.360 Well, within a minute, he got pretty upset.

01:30:25.460 If you haven't seen this one, you want to be entertained.

01:30:26.960 Go watch my interview here.

01:30:29.420 Take care, everybody.

01:30:30.080 Bye-bye.

Valuetainment - August 25, 2021

Communist Professor Defends Stalin & Mao’s Legacy - Heated Debate

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