Dr. Cornel West on Socialism | Joe Rogan

Do you think that much like this country is an experiment in self-democracy, a very recent experiment? When you look at human history, right, hundreds of thousands of years that we've been human, there's really only been a couple of years, a hundred years of this. Do you think that that's maybe the lens that we should look at something like democratic socialism through? Not that it can't work, but that it hasn't been implemented correctly before. That's exactly. That's what we got to get beyond the ism. You're absolutely right. See, what makes, not just the United States, there's been democratic experiments all around the world in various circumstances. We become central stage because we become a world power that understands itself as a democracy. With all the contradictions that go hand in hand with that. Begin as a settler, colonial enterprise, still got slavery, patriarchy. Workers don't have the right to engage in collective bargaining in the United States until the 1930s. Argentina had it in the 1830s. Argentina's not known of being on the cutting edge for social justice. Love you down there in Argentina, but they know that, but they had collective bargaining. Why? Because our robber barons and our power elites were so powerful. You see, Rockefeller and Company had private militias that were bigger than a lot of public armies to make sure workers were not able to engage in collective bargaining. I was in San Francisco just yesterday at the Commonwealth Club, which is now lodged in the Longshoremen's Association, which is fascinating. Commonwealth is well-to-do, ruling class. Harry Bridges, Longshoremen's strong union. Jack London, another great socialist there in Oakland, right? And what are they trying to do? They were just trying to ensure that ordinary people gain access to jobs with a living wage, decent education. This is one reason why I spend so much time with my dear brother Bernie Sanders, right? Because it's a democratic project that simply says, how come poor children can't have access to some of the things that the children of the wealthy do have? They have the same value. And of course, as a Christian, for me, they have exactly the same value, right? So how will they get it? Well, here come socialist movements that say, first thing they want to do is, we're against child labor laws. That's the jungle. That's Upton Sinclair. He's a socialist. Tried to be governor of California, right? And what were they doing? What were these capitalists doing? They're hiding these kids at six years old, seven years old. They were dying at 30. There were no laws against child labor. And working seven days a week. So the labor movement brought us the weekend. And I'm not talking about the singer from Canada. God bless him. I'm talking about the two days we have off. Because if we didn't have that from the socialist movement and the labor movement, they'd have been working young kids seven days. They did that year after year, decade after decade. That's greed. Right. That's greed. There's no accountability, you see. That's where that whole idea of the, let the market decide falls apart. Because the market just wants profit, right? Absolutely. And that doesn't mean that markets cannot be used in democratic ways. But they need to be ethical. But they got to be ethical. You got to have some accountability and regulation. Child labor laws were very important at breakthroughs at that time. But there are other, you need to have laws to make sure the water was clean and the food was regulated and clean and so forth. There's a narrative that you get from poor people often, or people that are lower middle class that are against the concept of socialism because they equate it with people that want a free ride. They equate it with people that don't want to work hard. That's right. And that's a strange narrative when you consider all the things we talked about already, like what we need with the fire department and the police department and all the different ways that socialism does form utilities and all the different ways that socialism does form a part of our culture and our community. Why do you think that that is this narrative? And how does that narrative get reshaped? Because that narrative of that the only reason why people want socialism is because they want a free ride. Right. Right. Oh, that's a wonderful question. But the one is that you had, first we had to listen very closely to our right wing brothers and sisters and conservatives and middleers because oftentimes, I mean, they're human means like anybody else and they've had their own arguments. I don't think they have strong ones, but they have their own arguments. So the first thing you'd say about that is, what makes you think that the well to do don't have free rides? What is inheriting wealth all about? Well, inheriting wealth is free rides. Absolutely. That's all it is. What is, freak the connections of getting into the prep schools and the Ivy League schools and so forth, even though they work, it's still a kind of free ride. So if they're preoccupied with this issue of being free ride, we tell them, let's make sure that people do work hard and sacrifice and therefore in some way deserve what they have. Now, if just based on that principle, the upper echelons of American society would be indicted, deeply indicted. And it's not a matter of hating the rich because I don't believe in hating anybody individually. I hate greed. I hate injustice. I hate white supremacy. I hate anti-Jewish prejudice. I hate anti-Palestinian prejudice. I hate patriarchy and so forth. But the human beings where these ideologies filter through are still human beings. Yes. You see what I mean? So that's the beginning of it. Now, of course, part of the question here has to do with, they'll say, well, we wasted this money on the poor. You say, well, wait a minute. Donald Trump just passed a $750 billion military budget. Democrats voted for it too. How much waste is in the military? Why is 60 cent of every $1 coming out of the federal budget tied to the military? Why is there no close oversight and accountability of it? How come American people don't know about the four countries that we are bombing or assisting other countries in bombing? And we can go right down. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, absolutely, Mali, Niger, Somalia, Iraq. I mean, we can go on and on and on. How come we don't know about the 4,800 military units, 587 around the world? We got US special operations in 128 countries, only 197 in the world. What about the soldiers who die? Hardly any talk about it. What about the innocent people we kill? Hardly any talk about it. What about the drones that we're still dropping? And not always on military combatants, but innocent people. Almost primarily on innocent people. Sometimes even disproportionately. Those are precious people too. They have the same value as anybody in Ethiopia, America, Chicago. Do you feel that drones are particularly insidious because it doesn't even seem like it's really happening because it's a robot doing it? Absolutely. And it's done remotely. Long distance, remotely, no human sensitivity at all. Apparently the PTSD that suffered by those remote drone operators is pretty profound too. You can understand that. Yes. You can deeply understand. And yet, no serious public conversation about it in the country. I'll tell you, I was on the plane the other day and the pilot says, I hope you all are able to take a few minutes of your time because we've got a family outside waiting for the body of someone just killed in Afghanistan. It was an Italian family in Chicago. One of the saddest things you ever want to see in your life, man, is a family lined up and they're bringing the body out. And you say to yourself, how come there's no public spotlight on that? And you see, when I was growing up in the 60s, Walter Cronkite, Vietnam, we saw the bodies. Well, during the Bush administration, they made it illegal to take photographs of flag-draped coffins. That's exactly right. Which is unbelievably insane. That's exactly right. And continued under Obama and company. And you say, well, wait a minute. They're paying this ultimate cost and the... They changed the narrative. And the tears of the families. And they can't even put a public spotlight on it. My God. And then, of course, they lie to us as, well, our drones are not in any way killing civilians and they end up killing an American. And they have a press conference the same day in economic compensation for the family the rest of their life. I agree with that. What about the drones that are killing folk in Yemen and Somalia and Pakistan and Afghanistan? Oh, they deny they're even killing them. You say, quit lying. That's John Brennan and company using both Bush and Obama administration. You see, how do we keep track of those in the name of what? Democratic accountability. That's not socialism. Socialism is democratic accountability, but there's been socialism without democratic accountability. And what do you get? Tyranny. It's a union and company. But when you get capitalism with no democratic accountability, what do you get? You get a predatory capitalism with gross wealth inequality and everyday people, the masses of poor and working people fighting for crumbs. And there's also this denial of it amongst the most patriotic. They don't want to consider it. They don't want to factor it in to what we think of when we think of America the great. You don't want to factor in those innocent people. What was the last time we checked? It was in the 90 percent, right? Of people that are killed by drones are actually innocent. Some insane number.