{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"<iframe src=\"https://embed.acast.com/$/9a03fe9e-1ff0-4dcc-b3f6-50bd1f016ea4/f964bca8-9cae-4b90-b6f4-ab85eb28f798?\" frameBorder=\"0\" width=\"700\" height=\"250\"></iframe>","title":"President Bernie?","thumbnail_width":200,"thumbnail_height":200,"thumbnail_url":"https://open-images.acast.com/shows/6195701f2eacc3a36070252a/619570bccb3c660012e3d206.jpg?height=200","description":"<p>We talk about socialism in America: where it comes from, what it&nbsp;means, why it's so associated with Bernie Sanders and whether it can&nbsp;actually reach the White House.&nbsp;What's the difference between&nbsp;democratic socialism and social democracy?&nbsp;How would the workers gain&nbsp;control of businesses like Facebook and Amazon?&nbsp;Who are the workers&nbsp;these days anyway?&nbsp;Plus, we ask what a Sanders vs Trump contest would&nbsp;actually be like.&nbsp;With Adom Getachew, from the University of Chicago,&nbsp;and Gary Gerstle.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Talking Points:</strong></p><p><br></p><p>In the U.S. context, is there a meaningful difference between democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders and social democrats like Elizabeth Warren?</p><ul><li>Warren is more focused on politics: reforming the Senate, imposing taxes on corporations, etc.</li><li>Sanders sees socialism as a revolution, but his actual aims are fairly modest: strengthen labor, etc.</li><li>Warren wants to break up Amazon; Sanders wants to empower the workers to take on Amazon themselves.</li><li>One key difference is that Sanders comes out of a grass-roots, movement-type politics. Warren does not, and she’s explicitly denied a commitment to socialism.</li></ul><p><br></p><p>Can you have socialism without a labor movement? What takes its place?</p><ul><li>In 1935, 35% of American workers belonged to a union. Today it’s only 11%.</li><li>There have been a number of strikes during the Trump presidency, such as the teachers strike.</li><li>We need to reimagine who the working class. It’s not the industrial working class anymore. It’s the service sector, and these are historically unorganized labor forces.</li><li>Today it’s the precariat, not the proletariat.</li><li>How does a labor movement speak to a radically altered working population?</li></ul><p><br></p><p>For many young people, the Occupy movement was a moment of political awakening.</p><ul><li>The establishment seemed unable to deal with the crisis, and this opened up a new sense of political possibility.</li><li>For many young Americans, who have grown up in the absence of a real Left, Sanders represents an authentic commitment to a different kind of politics.</li><li>There may be some problems for Sanders. For example, his reluctance to support reparations opened him up to criticism about a blindness to racial justice.</li><li>A socialist in the U.S. has never become a major party nominee. The historical role of socialism in the U.S. has been disruptive, pressuring centrist candidates to move left. Can Sanders break that mold?</li><li>The American political project is designed to be slow. To have big change, you need a mass movement outside of politics too.</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>Mentioned in this Episode:</strong></p><ul><li><a href=\"https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13336.html\" target=\"_blank\">Adom’s new book, <em>Worldmaking after Empire</em></a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-editor-of-jacobin-on-the-evolution-of-american-socialism-bhaskar-sunkara\" target=\"_blank\">Isaac Chotiner interviews the editor of <em>the Jacobin</em> on American socialism</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>Further Learning:</strong></p><ul><li><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/05/opinion/sunday/middle-class-shame-american-politics.html\" target=\"_blank\">Alissa Quart on the “precariat”</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/23/american-socialism-bernie-sanders-eugene-debs\" target=\"_blank\">More on the history of American socialism</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.talkingpoliticspodcast.com/blog/2018/131-talking-politics-guide-to-the-us-constitution\" target=\"_blank\">The Talking Politics Guide to… the U.S. Constitution</a></li><li><a href=\"https://www.talkingpoliticspodcast.com/blog/2019/145-green-new-deal\" target=\"_blank\">Green New Deal?</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>And as ever, recommended reading curated by our friends at the LRB can be found here: </strong><a href=\"http://lrb.co.uk/talking\"...","author_name":"David Runciman and Catherine Carr"}