We've got an epic debate tonight another three-way. We've got Capitalists versus Socialists versus Communists. We've got Dan Brinton and Caleb So what we're gonna do is we're gonna start off by giving the each of these guys five minutes to open up as the Just an opening to give, you know a brief description of themselves What their position is kind of lay out where they're coming from then we'll have a five minute rebuttal for each person in order to kind of contend with some of the things they've they've heard interact with some of the material that the other Contenders have said and then we will do an open dialogue for about 40 minutes or so and then we'll have a Q&A so With that I just want to say thanks to everybody for showing up make sure and hit that like button and subscribe if you haven't already and At modern-day debate we just like to make sure that everybody feels welcome here It doesn't matter your background or your creed or or anything like that We're all just wanting to further this conversation and find out where all the good ideas are and try to Sift the rational or the reasonable from the unreasonable so with that I guess we'll go ahead and start with Dan Dan.  Awesome. Thank you very much converse for having me here today. Thank you everybody's joining us on YouTube My name is Dan Fishman. I am the executive director of the Libertarian party. We are the third largest party in the United States And we work towards personal liberty. We stand for the idea that on most issues Right and left is just an illusion the Republicans and the Democrats want you to believe that politics is a number line And that to the right camera right to the right is a Republican Party and beyond that are corporations controlling everything To the left or the Democrats and beyond that it's the state controlling everything Libertarians will tell you that number line is not true right and left is fake What's really true is up and down authoritarian and freedom Politics is not two-dimensional. It's three-dimensional that third dimension that third direction the direction is up That's the direction of personal liberty cannabis is not a right issue or a left issue It's an up issue marriage equality is not a right issue or a left issue. It's an up issue I'm here to argue for capitalism because capitalism is the ultimate of issue Capitalism has raised us up. If you look at the standard of living in the United States today Almost everybody has a standard of living that is well beyond what kings and queens had 200 years ago Hot and cold running water Electricity in your house flat-screen televisions all these amazing things that we have because of capitalism Frederick Hayek Was a libertarian philosopher wrote a book called the fatal conceit and in it He talked about the fact that if you look at our amazing world, right right here on my cell phone I have the sum of all human knowledge available to me. I Can get pineapple in Maryland in the middle of winter. There's not a pineapple tree within a thousand miles of air I can call right now and a car will come and pick me up and take me where I want to go all these amazing things are available They're available Because of capitalism they'll they're available because of the failures and successes in a modern business world In a place where there is not competition where a million people aren't trying to find a service that they can pay be paid for You don't get advancements like that right now If you want to be a millionaire in the United States all you have to do is figure out What is a service that you can provide to people that they will pay for and you'll be a you'll be a millionaire Now the problem with that of course is that it doesn't work for most people That's what makes our plan work is that it's the competition of everybody else Because you never know which idea is going to succeed which idea is going to fail We don't really know that and the idea that anybody can know that that any planned economy could know that that's laughable Everybody's online so you can look up this really easy thing called the Kingsbury commitment What's the Kingsbury commitment the Kingsbury commitment is an agreement that the government and AT&T signed in 1913 giving AT&T a monopoly over phones now Most of you guys are too young to remember this, but if you ask your parents They will remind they will remember a period when it was illegal to own a telephone in the United States That was true in 1970 in 1970. It was illegal for you to own your own telephone Why did that change changed because in 1980 AT&T said this stranglehold the government granted monopoly is Actually killing us monopolies are bad for business. We're not incented to really work hard We want the monopoly down the government said, okay, we'll break you up AT&T and they did they broke them up into Sprint and MCI Worldcom Verizon T-Mobile all these other companies and now compete and if you ask your grandparents Telephones didn't change between 1920 and 1980. They were essentially the exact same phone You think how much phones have changed between 1980 and 2010-2020 That's capitalism for you and its unintended consequences, right? Nobody knew when the cell phone came around that the cell phone would be the greatest tool ever invented for criminal justice reform But the fact of the matter is what brings more police to justice now what stops more abuse of the system? Cell phones and citizens. That's the change that really makes a difference for us Capitalism has all sorts of unintended consequences and the point of it is we can't know What's going to happen and if we tried to know we wouldn't be able to determine what's a winner and what's a loser? The only thing that gives us this remarkable success is everybody trying to succeed at once and the winner being chosen By all the people who say this one fits my needs that one fits your needs There's room for competition as opposed to a one-sided fit all Capitalism at time leaves people behind a wrap it up at times leave some people behind because they're going to be winners And they're going to be losers in the market But it is the fastest way to enable our civilization to provide the best for everybody All right. Thanks so much for that opening It looks like we got Brinton back Britain. Why don't you go ahead with your five minute opening? Sure, you can hear me, right? Yeah Okay, great So my name is Brinton Lengel. I am a writer Journalist sometimes activist did a lot with Occupy Wall Street, which is where I met Caleb Who I still consider one of my good friends and one of the smartest people that I know and I also ran into Dan online And have been following him for quite a while and I was not able to vote for you Dan But I probably would have or at least I shared your campaign Though I disagree with a lot of your ideas not all of them, but a lot of them So I am what you might call a libertarian socialist is the best Description on my best days, you know where I feel the most hopeful you might consider me something in the realm of a Democratic socialist but usually that's I'm tend to be much more radical than that my school of thought the schools thought that I most associate with is Libertarian socialism slash anarcho communism from the Spanish tradition Basically what this would come down to the way this would be contrasted with what most people think of when they think of like big C communism or socialism is I favor a stateless Propertyless moneyless society where the means of production, which is to say the large vital industry are controlled Are owned arguably by everyone And controlled and operated by the people that work within them Democratically for the benefit of themselves and the society as a whole If you want to know what my like single guiding principle is as a libertarian socialist It would be that power corrupts and as power corrupts the most important thing that we can do is keep power out of the hands of Individuals to a certain extent. I don't want no one to be powerful But I want everyone to be as equally powerful as possible. So one of the major thinkers In libertarian socialist tradition is Mikhail Bakunin who very famously said So Freedom without socialism is inequality and tyranny Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality so Really what I'm looking to do if we want to take this as a metaphor here think of a power vacuum because when a Government collapses when a society is not able to do the things that it needs to do Something has to fill that power vacuum now Traditionally human society has filled that power vacuum with several large boulders or in the case of like an absolute monarch or a dictator One big boulder one person what I would like to do is to take that power smash it up into grains of sand and plug that vacuum with a thousand tiny pebbles so What I'm looking to get it's the new for the Americans who are listening think of a society where The separation of powers is taken seriously Not simply between branches of government, but between human beings where we must collaborate and work together democratically to make sure that we live in the most just and harmonious society possible Now that's a lot of big pie in the sky stuff But to bring that down to a level that the average person can understand what I'm for I am for a Reduction in any kind of power that I that I see be it economic political or if possible charismatic That's the hardest thing to get I am for the democratic reorganization of society from below Where each person is Contributing equally with each every other person and we continue to take care of each other In such a sense that you know to actually fulfill the promise of I am my brother's keeper because if we play the capitalist game If we play the game of competition, you know I'm sorry there are just a few winners and a lot of losers and I would any time you put me in a room and you say hey Hit this button and you'll never be rich, but you'll always have what you need. I'm gonna hit that button in a second yeah, so that's my position there and We can get more into detail with it But I hope that lets you kind of know who I am and what I'm about the biggest thing that I'd say is is that you know The first place I encountered an anarchist society was when I was hiking the Appalachian Trail, Maine to Georgia and the through Hiker community Functioned on a economy that was essentially random acts of kindness from strangers and You would think that'd be very terrifying and when I first went out there I remember I carried a big knife with me and I was really worried because I'd be deep in the woods no police You know anything can happen And I found that what I found there completely rejuvenated my faith in humanity and our ability to organize without strong coercive power structures, so That's what I've got and you know we can get into that deep more deeply as we continue all right Thanks so much for that Brenton now Caleb. You want to go ahead and give your five-minute opening Sure Well, um, I want to say hello to my friend Brent who I did meet at Occupy Wall Street Always a pleasure to hang out with you And I'm really glad to meet my my libertarian opponent as well And I think we can have a very civil discussion and I look forward to it I want to say that I am primarily Motivated in my beliefs and advocating 21st century socialism and wanting to continue the tradition that began with marks and angles and continued with Lenin and continues up to this day with with China with the Bolivarian countries and with many Efforts to build an alternative to capitalism around the world. I'm primarily motivated by patriotism I love my country and I'm worried about the future of my country because huge Multinational corporations are doing to the United States at this very hour The same thing that they've been doing to people in Asia in Africa in Latin America for centuries We are living under a dictatorship by billionaires and bankers Who do not care about the future of the people in this country the future of the people in any other country? They are only concerned about their profits And I would say that what we need is a government of action that will fight for working families We need an economy that is organized to serve public good and not profits and that Capitalism was a great advance over feudalism and feudalism was a great advance over the slave economies of ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt and The slave economies of ancient, you know, Rome, Greece and Egypt was a great advance over primitive Communalism and tribalism history is like a train speeding forward and capitalism has had great advances However, capitalism is a naturally unstable system and systems of the past people were hungry because there wasn't enough food Right, there are food shortages people starve only under capitalism Do we have a system where people starve because there is too much food and let me add that, you know In systems of the past people were homeless because there was a shortage of housing But only in capitalism do people become homeless because there is too much housing the capitalist system is highly irrational and On top of that when you have great technological leaps and advances and the Ability to produce products becomes more and more efficient than ever You get you get poverty alongside of it because because abundance creates poverty because the the worker under capitalism His value is only his ability to sell his labor power and the more efficient technology becomes the fewer people are hired and Andrew Yang, I mean, I don't agree with his solution of universal basic income But he ran a great presidential campaign talking about the fact that automation is hanging over our heads We are producing iPhones and iPads and technology more efficiently than ever before in history And it's not leading to more prosperity and abundance It's leading to a global crisis of capitalism because the end of the day The worker is also the consumer and we cannot afford to buy back what we the workers are producing This is a naturally unstable system and it calls for human reason to control the major centers of economic power Banking should be controlled by the state Natural resources should be run by the state major industries should be run by the state But I also don't believe we should have a totally government-run economy. I don't think the government should run hotels I don't think the government should run restaurants But the things that are essential for ensuring economic stability and continuing economic growth These things are are things that should be rationally controlled by humans not left to the anarchy of production Or the chaos of the market and that's why I consider myself to be a 21st century socialist a Marxist Continuing the great traditions Let me add that that all debates around this topic in the United States are pretty much premised on a lie They are premised on the the notion that socialism has failed everywhere. It's ever been tried It's never had a single success. That's something that is completely and utterly false It was socialism that invented space travel It was socialism that took Russia from being one of the most impoverished agrarian countries to being an industrial superpower It was socialism that has made China at this point the second largest economy in the world It's socialism It's the reason that a tiny island in the Caribbean called Cuba is loved all over the world and studied all over the world For the achievements of its health care system there have been herment horrendous problems and difficulties most socialist countries have maintained a very authoritarian political system, you know There's many things you can criticize But the the claim that we frequently hear in the United States the communism socialism has never achieved anything is just a big fat lie there has been huge economic successes due to central planning and socialist economic development and as long as that lie Continues to be the premise on which debates continue in the United States We're never going to get ahead We need a government of action that will fight for working families that will change our relationship with countries around the world So that we're trading on the basis of win-win cooperation Getting wealthier as we make other countries wealthier instead of a win-win global system We need a government of action that will fight for working families We need an economy that is organized to serve public good and not profits And that's why I continue to uphold the tradition of Marx Lenin while you know looking back at the mistakes and looking at the achievements that Are made and seeing things in a scientific way Marxism is scientific socialism It's different than the utopian and religious socialism that came before it's rooted in an understanding of how the world works How economics works and how we can build a better life for everyone and the ultimate goal Which I think is pretty much the same goal as everyone on this panel is a world with so much material abundance and So much prosperity that a maximum amount of freedom can be created. I think the libertarians want that I think the anarcho-communists and socialists want that we want a world with so much abundance and so much prosperity But the need for a state the need for coercion can fade away I think that's a very admirable goal But the only way to get there is to organize the economy rationally and get profits out of out of command and put Human reason in control. All right. Thanks so much for that interesting opening Caleb We're gonna move back to Dan for a five-minute rebuttal just to kind of respond to some of the things he's heard and then and We'll move into open conversation after everybody gets a rebuttal Go ahead then Thanks very much friend Caleb for your considered opinions a couple things that I would talk about you know Brent talked about being on the Appalachian Trail and Awesome, they didn't need police, you know, it was this great communal feeling That's absence of government that is actually the opposite of what we're advocating for because the presence of government Implies the presence of force Laws require law enforcement, which injects fortune to our society And one of the things that Caleb had talked about he said, you know, we have this Advancement of society and each one was an improvement over the other But he talked about the slave society of the Romans being improvement over tribalism And I would disagree with that. I think that slavery is always terrible It's not something that we should ever condone even slavery for a good reason because your good reason Never outweighs the need for an individual person to have their liberty slave system Fundamentally where you are not in control of your own destiny That's bad for you and there is no other person who is more important than you The individual is the ultimate minority and we should always stand up for the rights of the minority Okay, the minority should never have their needs suppressed there may be a Situation where one person is doing something that's so terrible that everybody in the community needs say we got to stop that person Maybe that person's a murderer. They're using force against somebody else in that space The community isn't titled to act against somebody who is aggressing against community But if somebody is not hurting anybody else and I mean directly hurting them You don't get the right to take the liberty away You are not endowed by your creator with any special rights that are different from anybody else's So everybody else has the right to pursue liberty We talked about the idea Caleb talked about the idea that we all want in a world with so much abundance that we have unlimited liberty Libertarians actually believe the opposite of that we need to have the liberty to create the abundance because Absent liberty your life is not sweet, you know, if you live in a gilded cage It's not worth it. Why Angela's got it right, right? We know why the cage bird sings the cage bird sings of freedom fundamentally those are our core beliefs that we have to talk about and When Caleb talks about he wants to see banking controlled by the state I think that's a terrible idea Fundamentally if I have a business idea and the state doesn't think it's good But I can find a personal person to invest in me. I ought to be able to do that There are banks that make money by taking riskier loans charging a higher interest rate But that's on me if I want if I have a high-risk idea, but I believe in myself I might take a loan that's at a higher rate than the state would offer me It's important that we have freedom of currency freedom of banking freedom of competition and all these things when the state controls these things It's a terrible thing and you know, I do agree that Caleb is right Okay, so socialists sort of did create the space industry, right? But it was the German v2 program. It was a national socialist They have the first rocket program that's going on. I don't know that that's worth it I don't think that the society that is built with that sort of authoritarianism is worth the fact that we're able to send rockets outside of the Atmosphere for the first time so I Agree with the idea that we're talking about an argument of coercion versus persuasion the core element between all these different things is that Under a libertarian society under a capitalist society You personally can be as communistic as you want You can be as socialistic as you want you can form your own commune live according to your own rules That's freedom. You can do whatever you want and if your system works people are going to voluntarily come and join them You will have persuaded them. However under a communist system and under a socialist system. I Will be coerced People will stop me from earning as much money as I possibly can and I want to earn that money Because I want to take care of my family. I want to take care of my friends I want to contribute to the Charitable causes that I find incredibly worthwhile. That's what I work hard for. Hey, personally I don't have I don't live as a wealthy person. I have jobs that have earned me a lot of money in the past I use that money to try to make the world better And I think that we all want to do that and we all deserve the ability and the freedom To make the world as best we can in the manner that we see fit. Thank you, Dan. Great timing All right. Thanks so much for that rebuttal Britain. You want to give your feedback as well Sure, I'm gonna be putting my feedback primarily on Caleb and the and the rebuttal because I was kicked out And I didn't hear his opening statement for Dan But I've heard a lot of arguments like this So a couple of things the first thing I'm gonna mention is I will somewhat agree with Dan on the point of Roman slavery and the slavery systems being a Improvement over the previous tribal societies And I get what you're going with that Caleb because I think overall building our civilization is a good thing but there's there's plenty of evidence that the Rise of the state was not actually a good thing for a number of people you can go as far back as There is archaeological evidence that the people who still lived as hunter-gatherers during the time that the first farming settlements were emerging lived longer lives and were better fed and Healthier than the people in the cities This was when we moved from the pre-state society the so-called primitive communism to What we began to see is the rise of the state This was not a peaceful transition like a lot of people have been led to assume This was largely a slave economy that grew out of three advances. The first advance was Coins was that was actual the actual use of money money existed before this But not in the previous way that it had the second was the professional army, which was paid with those silver coins Those professional armies then would go out because previously there were armies and there were wars But what they did was they were wars of plunder you can't keep a professional standing army just based on what they can run in and steal So what did these armies do when they sacked various city-states and they brought the The mountain tribes and the hill tribes into line They turned them into slaves and suddenly you have slaves working in silver mines to mine silver coins to hand to the military To then go out and get more slaves and oh my I've gone cross-eyed So, you know, there are a number of wonderful advances that have come with civilization But there's also a number of things that we've given up and I'm not making an argument for Anarco primitivism. I don't think we should go back to primitive pre-state Communism because for one thing I like the medical advances we have both my wife and son would be dead without them But at the same time what I would really like to see is I would like to see us get to a place where we are as free as We were in the state of nature while still enjoying the benefits of civilization without having to give up So much of our souls to what is essentially, you know a giant machine and it's the not a machine made of You know metal it's not a machine made of electronics. It's a machine made of humans It is a machine constructed of human relationships, and that is the economic and political system that we live in now I'm gonna go over to Dan though here And you know Dan I would say in like a perfect Pollyanna world where everybody starts out from the same position and everyone has the same advantages and disadvantages from birth you your system of Competition would be effective. I think I really do think in theory Capitalism sounds very nice. It sounds very nice on on paper, but in real life That's not how these things play out. Not only are we all coming from different backgrounds with different Skill sets and different levels of education different countries What's also happening so the system itself is unfair, but as someone gains more and more power What happens is is that they pull to themselves the ability to rewrite the rules as they see fit? Michael Bloomberg is a perfect example, and you know he got destroyed in the last debate Thank God but the thing is is that he still bought his way up to the same level of support as Elizabeth Warren had after campaigning for over a year Money is oftentimes a free ride for Unqualified people into positions where they should never be and have no business being Because what money is ultimately like you said you want money And I understand why you want money because you said it you want to be able to take care of your family You want to be able to take care of your friends. You want to be a positive influence on your community That's a wonderful thing, but you don't actually need money to do that money is an intelligence system It's a way that we created to kind of decide What projects are worthy what people are smart enough to put our trust in? And it's even possibly considered a check and balance on the system of popular power that is democracy But at the same time, it's not actually anything money is not wealth It's not real, you know, if you burned up all the money in the world and Yeah, what would happen was we would still have all of the productive capabilities So what we need to do is we need to find a way to To collaborate with each other to provide the maximum amount of freedom for the maximum amount of people and I really don't think that we can find that Middle-ground in capitalism or necessarily the socialism that Caleb Advocates and we can talk about that later. All right. Thanks so much for that Rebuttal Brynn and we'll move to Caleb for his for the last rebuttal Well, we can all agree that slavery is horrendous But I don't think that slavery came into existence and replaced the primitive tribal system Because of anyone's ill will or lack of morality or lack of respect for the rights of others It came into existence mainly because human beings had developed a pointed sticks and rocks and had become hunters And their ability to hunt was so effective with our creativity and our brilliance We became such good hunters and we were paying attention to how How, you know, fruits and nuts were growing in the patterns We became such good hunter-gatherers and the human population Expanded and there was a scarcity and out of necessity. We began, uh, you know having agriculture domesticating animals and growing crops Taking land as private property and that was the origin of a higher social order that came into existence Because the older social order was untenable and yes, there was a huge amount of force involved And let me add that many people give the impression right that the capitalists of this world You know the the billionaires and the bankers that run this world.  They earned what they have and that leftists and socialists They believe in force and violence and want to force and orcibly take away what these people have earned with the sweat of their brow The reality is that capitalism came into existence with a mass episode of extremely violent theft Read about the clearing of the commons during the middle ages And and how people were forced off their land Read about what was done all across europe as peasants who had had a you know a spot in a feudal estate were forced to become Wage laborers mass executions for homelessness across europe Read about the international slave trade, uh, you know the rosy dawn of capitalism read about colonialism That went on read about how the land was acquired in the united states by big railroad companies You know, there's nothing remotely lacking in force about the way capitalism came into existence It came into existence very violently. Um, and let me add Uh, that that socialism socialism is simply an effort to organize the economy to serve the people And this notion that we can have an unregulated Market right and that we can somehow naturally prevent monopolies from emerging Just contradicts the the law of the market as the market proceeds Some companies go out of business some corporations get bigger and when when one group of people tends to acquire the wealth They then tend to use their wealth to influence the government to secure their wealth even more Real capitalism. This is the thing. I always hear well, it's not capitalism. Caleb. This is crony capitalism All capitalism is crony capitalism whenever wealth concentrates and i'm talking means of production I'm talking huge multinational corporations natural resources banks whenever that is acquired in the hands of a small group of people They tend to then use the government to make sure it stays in their hands and doesn't get taken away from them All capitalism is crony capitalism and the modern capitalist state has always existed Merely to serve the purpose of making sure that capitalists maintain their wealth and that the boom bust cycle under capitalism This is something that's acknowledged by almost all credible modern economists The reality of what what carl marx called it overproduction John maynard canes called it under consumption the fact that the market leads to a situation Where you have a glut of products that cannot be sold workers cannot buy back the products they produced You have unemployment and the question is how do you resolve it? And you know, you brought up nazi germany before well in nazi germany the way they resolved it is they created the first military Industrial complex and they created a system of concentration camps and created the world's first prison industrial complex And and they created a horrendous state We prop up the big corporations like krupp and tyson and it inevitably led to the second world war Which was one of the greatest disasters in all history And uh, but let me add that at this point our economy has been propped up by a military industrial complex Right the government spends money. It doesn't give it to people like me It doesn't give people get to working people it gives it to big military corporations to keep this economy rolling ahead Um and and keep churning out production because this is a naturally unstable system And with the threat of automation and the low wage economy so many young people are facing we cannot continue this We need a government that will invest in average people and making sure people can see a doctor when they're sick And making sure people have employment and building roads and building hospitals and building high speed railway We cannot afford to maintain letting our country and the global economy be left up to the dictates of whatever is profitable For a huge millionaire billionaire class We need a government of action that will fight for the people and organize society Rationally and let me just add one more point before I conclude You know, I you know that the idea that that banking should be in the hands of the state that long predates carl marx Right that that's actually in the bible right every major religion christianity Judaism and islam has forbid the lending of money at interest and the reason for that is because it leads to a Creditor class of people who have money by having money They lend money at interest and get it back and pretty soon the governments are in debt to them Pretty soon all of society is in debt to them and you you have a group of people who created wealth Without any actual human labor being involved when nothing is being created when wealth is created simply by having other wealth That leads to a situation where you have a huge gap between the rich and poor and basically the situation we're in today So let me add that All right. Thanks so much for that. Um for that interesting rebuttal as well And we will move into the open discussion. So just a dialogue here Um, maybe dan will start because he was the uh, the farthest back to speak. So go ahead then Uh, you're dan you're muted Thank you, uh So one of the interesting conversations that we could have is one of the things that brend touched upon which is What is money? Uh, and he's right money is not wealth if you burned up all the currency today in the world The wealth would still be there. Uh I like to say there are three things. There's wealth Which is your time and your health and that's it. There's nothing else that defines your wealth Then there are things of value that don't lose their value. For example, gold is always valuable gold's good for uh Gold is obviously it was used for jewelry for a long times a malleable metal, but there is no cell phone industry without gold Uh, you get the same amount of gold out of 40 cell phones as you get out of 40 000 tons of clay. Um so Reason why we invented currency though is that not everybody's labor is equally valuable I am a software engineer.  Uh, and if you want to hire me as a gardener You would be a fool to pay the rates that I charge as a software engineer The value of my labor is different based on what you want to do Medicine is like that too even though it's something that you know, I think most of the, uh Progressive socialists either or a common assistant would say that we ought to have a quality of care The fact of the matter is is that your health care is greatly determined by the quality of your health care provider I'm a person who uh, so I vape I vote but I have a smoking related illness from having smoked a pack of cigarettes A day for 13 years, uh, and I was in a spiral. I Developed a smoking related illness three years after I quit Uh, it just so happens that I was working at mass general and I got to see an amazing doctor after having seen Four other doctors who had done nothing for me. Um Is that equitable the fact that I happen to be in the right place at the right time to see One of the few doctors on the planet I don't know if it's equitable But what happened is because of the fact that I am willing to and I have the means to pay Somebody to provide me with that high level quality of service means that somebody else is going to say hey There's money over there I can provide a service that is valuable because fundamentally when you get paid in a currency You're getting paid because you are serving humanity Your service is worthwhile Now I agree with you. I agree with you guys fundamentally wealthy people should not be able to rewrite the rules 100% I agree with that The problem is The rules not the wealth Wealth shouldn't allow you to have that system It is the creation of an authoritarian system that can be manipulated by money. That is the problem Not money itself because money fundamentally it's just currency It is a way for us to reasonably exchange different things Like if you want to go to a concert and there aren't enough tickets, right? But if you're willing to pay for something you're able to get in there But there's no equitable way to distribute that, right? Not everybody gets to go see If I name a musician here, I'm gonna seem really old But let's let's take a classic example, right? If you want to go see frank Sinatra his last show Right that ticket was worth whatever it was worth to you personally You get to trade as much of your labor as you want to go see that show And I don't mean to monopolize here So since it's supposed to be the time going back and forth So maybe we can talk about that idea about the idea of currency Being the only way that we can exchange that it is you're right. It's an illusion currency is an illusion It is this idea that we've come up with but it's a way that allows us to trade disparate Values and different sets of labor for whatever is valuable to us So maybe we can talk about that a little bit. Can I get in there real quick? Okay, great. So Again, I think that the point here It's not what you're saying is in is completely incorrect. It is true in a sense But what the issue here is is it's a very simplistic way of looking at it For instance, the value of labor Being tied to the skill that that's just not the case the the value What you get paid for your labor is based upon one thing and one thing only supply and demand That's it. Nothing else. And this is a problem with our monetary system There are tons of software engineers out there who write a lot less good code than me Yeah, yeah, but that's fine. But again, and I'm sure you write great code If you can convince someone of that that you can do it But again, that would be the supply of engineers who can write good code And the demand so for instance, the democrats are always screwing around with this Like they'll say stuff like when they were ripping off papa john's they'll say better skills better wages That's literally not economically possible Because what happens is if say take for instance, everyone at mcdonald's We run a program that trains everyone who works at mcdonald's to code to the the standard that you're able to code at Well, guess what you and everyone that works at mcdonald's then will make mcdonald's wages This is not a system where our No, it wouldn't because it's not because that's not the contribution to society That's not what you are actually generating for the people that you work with So what's happening here is you've got what's going on here is this is essentially a bug in our monetary system um, the other thing that i'm going to say is Uh, you know take for instance. I hear this a lot. Um What what's um, let's make everybody like equally wealthy or something like that I I hear that a lot where uh libertarians will say that the way to to freedom is to make everybody rich through capitalism The problem is is that rich and poor are mutually dependent states There is poverty as in dearth of stuff and there is uh, like wealth is in having a lot of stuff But being somebody who is poor or rich is specifically related to Being near somebody else who is either poor or rich How much would you have to pay michael bloomberg to come over and debug your computer? How much are you going to have to pay? Um, you know or or be a waiter at your next high society function If everyone's a billionaire being a billionaire means absolutely nothing So again labor is tied to things that it shouldn't necessarily be tied to or i'm sorry wages are tied to Things that they shouldn't be tied to necessarily um So overall what i'm going to say is i'm just going to quibble with the theory that you're giving me there I think it's In a certain sense it is correct, but it it's just way too simplistic for the economy that we actually have that we live in and work in today I just want to jump in and say that I I feel like i'm not even really comfortable having this argument because i'm not opposed to the existence of Money right money existed in the soviet union money exists in vast amounts today in china and it exists in cuba It exists in every socialist society that exists and as long as there is scarcity of material goods Uh, there will be a need for some form of currency Uh, you know, i mean i'm not opposed to to having currency exist as a means of of exchanging that Of exchanging that i will say however that that currency does not create wealth only human labor creates wealth and it's it's not only Uh, it's not only marx who said that with the labor theory of value before him adam smith the main theorist of capitalism He also said it before him the roman catholic church said it right that that money only produces wealth when it is combined with human labor And we live in a system However where people are becoming wealthy not by creating things but by tearing things down You know the the opioid manufacturers got rich because a lot of people got addicted And they worked very very hard to get people addicted right We have a prison system that doesn't get rich from stopping crime right We have prisons for profit that gets rich from more people going to jail and being locked up We have a situation where corporations get rich by making other people poor and fundamental tasks That need to get done for a society to function like having water That is properly purified and doesn't have lead in it like having roads that aren't falling apart like having a functioning Uh public transportation system these things aren't getting done because there's no profit for a capitalist in it right There are millions of young people out there today who have so much to contribute The millennial generation is more skilled than any other generation in the past But so many of them are stuck in low wage short term service sector jobs because no capitalist can make a profit from hiring them That's the problem is the the market incentivizes profits for shareholders It doesn't necessarily incentivize. What is good for all of society? I do think that there's probably a point on which we can all agree Which is that Corporation such as it is is a structure That's a bad idea. Okay a corporation is Government extending its sovereign immunity To a group of people which means that they can't be sued when they do something terrible Which means that uh, you know, they have immunity for their actions That's actually wrong right the difference between a corporation and private partnership is that in a partnership Everybody can be sued okay for the brought stuff they've done wrong in a corporation You are protected through the power of the government as a libertarian I oppose that because I oppose government power fundamentally And when we talk about the other things that corporations do we talk about, you know, there's a tendency towards monopoly There has never been a monopoly in the history of the earth That didn't happen without collusion by the government It is government that creates the power. We talk about the fact. Well, what hang on government do that Why does government do it?  Uh, I might the problem is government shouldn't have that power And when and whenever if you're rich person who's setting the rules, why would you write the rules to not give yourself that power? Of course you would that's why you shouldn't allow a system of government that is so authoritarian That it can set rules for other people Fundamentally, you guys say I'm worried about all the stuff the corporations are going to do but I trust government You can't trust government government is what corporation is using government is what other people will use as well When you endow people with that much power It gets abused all power resonates from the people power to the people That's what we're talking about the people are the ones who are supposed to be in control of their own lives and destiny Not corporations and not governments Well, yeah, hang on. I have to quibble just a little bit with um, the idea that Monopolies don't happen without government monopolies absolutely happen without government It's what's called an economics a natural monopoly An example would be railroad tracks Railroads the government was hidden fist with the railroad company indeed it did but again That's not the point here. The point is you don't want You don't want whether the government worked with them or not You don't want a bunch of competing railroad tracks all over the place The same thing you don't know because for the same reason you don't want competing water pipelines running to every house So every house has 12 water pipelines. It's just a waste That makes sense for certain service But it would be good for the consumer No, it'd be bad for the consumer because how the hell are you what are you gonna do with 12 water lines? I mean you have I mean if somebody else wants to do it right if somebody wants to make the expense to do it Why would we stop them? Look at the electric because they're going to be ripping up the ground and wasting resources in a planet with limited A place where you buy your electricity from different providers Yeah, but that's only because the government forces that Well, the fact of the fact matter is though that there's competition that didn't used to do that There used to be just one monopoly for power. Well, yeah, because the company laid power lines There used to be one monopoly for water, but now when people start to have other alternatives for water That's actually beneficial because They only have other alternatives because of the state the state forces that the water still goes through the same pipe There's not like exxon's water pipe and like, I don't know some german water company's water pipe It's one water pipe. Most of the infrastructure admittedly is created by the state way back when But if you look at what's happening now the new stuff that's coming in for example Do you feel like you're hurt because of the fact that you could either get fios? or Comcast that different companies have run an electric cable a Cable to your house Is a monopoly granted its monopoly by the government by the local government We usually sells it in places where there is more than one cable provider Your cable prices don't go up that much your internet prices don't go up that much But a place where there is only one cable provider, of course Corporations will do what they can to maximize their profit through the power of government Cables are granted a monopoly by the municipal government. Yeah, but to go back to what Caleb was saying what you're a rich man Yes, why would you not build a government to then set rules to make you richer? Yeah, no, I I agree a hundred percent. We shouldn't have a government that can do that Okay, then we shouldn't have rich people that can build a government that can do that That's like saying you shouldn't have freedom I mean I agree with that you should have freedom and if you want to use your freedom to become a rich person That's okay. If you want to use your freedom to help the poor. That's okay. I don't get to Where where does freedom end? This is where libertarians always strike me as far far more idealistic than marxists and communists I can point to socialist societies and criticize their their flaws and failures But libertarians constantly talk about this ideal world where where people will have, you know Huge amounts of wealth and other people will be starving But there won't be mobs out on the street and there won't be rich You know people bribing the government to get an other end. Where has real capitalism ever existed? I mean what what society can you point to as an example of real capitalism the best example? I would say is the american west after the civil war before Come in at that point in time. We murdered all the native americans. I had to waste on theft Most law enforcement then is handled by uh, you know volunteers there might be a sheriff But usually people take care of things themselves are the people of that day racist? Yeah They were products of their time no question about it and that's not defensible They had moved on from slavery. Uh, but you know what happened to the indians is absolutely a crime No question about it But in the society that they lived in if you were to go into a western town You would find it to be pretty capitalistic people paid for what they did No doubt. I mean, I mean it certainly was I just I don't I don't see that as an ideal Um, let me add though about the point about the corporation I don't find anything particularly wrong with the concept right a corporation is basically the government and the private sector kind of working together But i've often articulated to people that the difference between capitalism and socialism is that in capitalism the corporations control the government But in socialism the government controls the corporations and that's the difference right then china You know, they've got a huge state controlled telecommunications corporation called woway makes the best phones in the world But if you look at it sure, it's technically private. It's called a cooperative under chinese law But if you look at it its main, you know business partner is the chinese military people on the boards are in the chinese military Right, uh, it does business in coordination with the you know five-year economic plan set by the chinese communist party It's basically a state controlled industry, but it brings in foreign investors It allows a lot of private companies to do business with them and be contracted by them, right? But it has woway is completely different than apple in the way that it functions because woway does what the chinese government says Whereas donald trump does what apple says right if you look at it Donald trump has declared war on woway at this point Just basically because they make better phones because apple doesn't want to compete with them And so donald trump is starting a trade war and trying to convince us all Oh my god wow ain't going all over the world to stop them in 5g doing And what our private companies can do in the west Yeah, um, if I can I I spent some time going after dan so kaleb i'm going to challenge you a little bit on this um, I I really I I see what you're saying here and I do think that there is a lot of potential in uh, coordinating an economy from the top um for If it's actually done for the people and it's actually done democratically, but I have two issues with this um the first one, uh that I that I'd like to Challenge you with is the idea that we can even necessarily do that Because again these states are controlled by small groups of people at the top And the yes, there's a bureaucracy and there's certain, um, uh, you know ways that people move up and not you know Trump is not the only person in control even though he likes to pretend like he is there are people behind him And there's a huge network holding that up Um, but the thing is is that the higher you climb in that network the less connected to the actual people you are Because you have different priorities. You have a different world going on and that can lead to uh, either malice Or a lot of problems via stupidity I mean one of the big issues with a lot of countries like, um, venezuela for instance and people blame it on Socialism, but the issue is not so much socialism as the paradox of plenty There are the same problems are going on in places like saudi arabia and russia, which is uh, you know, sadly no longer communist Um, you know, what you've got is you have these countries that have a great deal of wealth It be it in oil or gold or whatever diamond mines But that wealth is concentrated in one or two industries Which then pushes one or two families small groups of people up to the heights of power And they essentially fleece the country and run things the way they want to and then eventually As in the case of venezuela when the global price of oil drops bam The whole economy goes out because everything is dependent on one Industry the one good thing that I think capitalism really has going for it Is there is a diversity of industries where power is kind of distributed economically between You know not in great ways, but I think you and I talked about it where uh, certain political factions are Like big oil deciding to fight silicon valley Um, you know, I don't like big oil and I don't like silicon valley But I I I do like it when they're at each other's throats We're challenging the taxi industry, right? I mean that's an industry that you know It's the definition of a state sponsored industry, right the state give a specific license So that there will only be one taxi company. Yeah, we're only gonna have one water system and we're only gonna have one One system of pipes running into your house. There's only one taxi company until uber finds a way around it. Okay I think Has made it better now the company itself with that's a different issue But the idea of rye and sharing of competition in the ride service industry That's a huge benefit that happened because of capitalism Somebody found a way to be paid for the service that they wanted to provide. They wanted to provide a service to society There's nothing wrong with wanting to serve society. We shouldn't be embarrassed to buy that and there's nothing wrong with wanting to be Recompensated for serving society. Well, you know, I I want to speak to what brent talked about first And then I want to speak to the uber thing because I actually have an interesting point to make on on both of those So as far as brent and and the oil stuff, um, you know It's interesting because russia's economic model at this point, you know russia, you know the fall of the soviet union Uh, they privatized all kinds of things, right? And it was a libertarian social experiment Jeffrey sacks of columbia university went in there sold the country off under yeltsin bill clinton's best bud who we meddled in their elections and helped yeltsin get reelected everyone knows They sold it off right and there were times where in the 90s the russian government Didn't even have the the the ability to collect taxes. They would they would try to tax corporations They just say, yeah, we have a bigger army than you so they didn't even care You should watch some of these documentaries, right? You know, I mean russia in the 1990s. That is libertarianism in practice um, but but putin fixed it by nationalizing oil and gas he created two state-controlled mega oil uh energy companies ross neft and gas prom And now russia sells oil and gas on the international markets The the revenue goes into the state and the state then subsidizes other industries like uh, like steel manufacturing like titanium Like all kinds of things like they're having at this point a farming boom again And they're using they're using state controlled state controlled sale of energy and venezuela is very similar Right venezuela the government calls itself a socialist government But if you look at it their rate of state ownership is much lower than the rate in china, right? I mean, it's it's really only oil that's controlled by the government. Um oil and banking But every private company basically depends on a subsidy from the oil sector to function So it's not functioning according to the irrational chaos of the market, right? And and because of that, um You know, they were able to wipe out illiteracy in venezuela. They were able to to you know Have some bigotry, but then their loss of stem of music program was incredible. Yeah On that sector and godamia is very similar Kind of that you can call it petro socialism where the government controls it And a specific resource sells it on the international markets And then controls the economy by handing out the revenue from it, right? And that's that's a model But it's particularly weak when when oil prices drop so dramatically as they did under brock obama when the Saudis were flooding the market with oil and and bankrupting themselves, you know You know, it can cause big problems as we saw in venezuela and other countries had big problems iran had big problems It's an oil-based country Um and but it's a particularly interesting model and um, and I guess I just wanted to speak to that But it is a case where you know, if you look at, you know, what made like nigeria, which was an oil rich country It's very poor different than venezuela is when the oil was booming, you know in venezuela They were using it to stimulate all of society whereas in nigeria a group of you know A handful of people that were in bed with exxon mobile and chevron and bp were getting wealthier and nigeria's conditions Didn't really change you still have mass illiteracy there You still have mass homelessness and I think that when the government controls those resources and is using them to organize the economy That's different than when you just have, you know, big corporations, you know Buying up a country's natural resources now as far as the thing with uber You know, I've done stories. There was a cab driver here in new york city who killed himself because he had spent so many Years trying to get a medallion trying to get that license so he can make that money uber comes along and all of a sudden cab drivers are making nothing compared to what they used to make and why Uber is better than what existed before it's a technological advance to be able to call them on your phone It's better and in a rational socialist society that would be a good thing But only under capitalism does technological advance lead to greater poverty Right, that's the reality under capitalism people get poorer as technology advances This is not rational people shouldn't become more poorer because our economy is becoming more efficient That's the inherent problem of capitalism If you don't think of one thing You shouldn't you shouldn't get paid for it. I'm sorry din. Hang on one second I know you guys are ready to go. I just want to say thanks everybody for being here. Everybody looks like we've got a pretty good crowd Make sure and tag me with your questions tag at converse contender. I'm gonna put um Like some waving hands in the chat right now in case you're unfamiliar And and just go ahead and tag me with all your questions We are gonna get the questions in about 10 minutes. Okay, so we're gonna We're gonna wrap this up for about 10 minutes. We got about 49 likes if we can get 15 more likes Then we'll go for another 15 minutes instead of 10. How about that? So Definitely smash the like button and we'll go for another 10 or 15 minutes and then we'll go into question and answer So go ahead then Dan before I say anything here, I just wanted to point. Um, I get what you're saying there Caleb and I especially agree at the end what we were talking about with regard to the poor gentleman who killed himself over the cab medallion But what I was talking about primarily with the issue of the paradox of plenty is The what's worrying me about the idea of putting that much power into the hands of the government Is essentially you're putting too many eggs in one basket and when something fails in that instance You get the wrong person into power You get the wrong industry subsidizing everything it can be absolutely disastrous I think we really need a more diverse economy and a more diverse Distribution of power in order specifically to guard against that Um when everyone is powerful as opposed to just a few people it's harder to get things done But also one or two bad people with bad ideas can't screw it up so badly Really good thing about it. You know, you talked about how you said Putin fixed what was broken in communism by Essentially stopping people from being independent. You definitely said Putin fixed it Communism was gone by the time So you talked about the fact that he brought it back so now the state is subsidizing industries That's cronyism. That's exactly what you were arguing against beforehand cronyism is always bad Okay, when the state is the uh is sponsoring the industry when the state is benefiting things That's cronyism. That is crony capitalism the people who have the Benevolence from the state. They're the ones who prosper. That is not capitalism. That is cronyism The two things are different in capitalism. There is never anybody with power giving any advantage to another Uh to an organization everybody can has to compete on their on merit now a lot of times You know, there's some things that we can't control. I'm gonna buy this uh thing for my brother rather than you know The most competitive mark art or that's out there or whatever reasons, you know We might have a cultural thing where I'm only going to buy from my community instead of buying outside of it But those are voluntary. There's nothing we should do. We shouldn't stop people from supporting people in their community The state shouldn't get to say, you know what you have to buy from everybody equitably You can't just support the people that you like with your business You get to choose how you allocate your business who you're going to buy things from and that's never going to be Allowed under communism Well, what I'm let me reiterate the point I was making because I feel like there's kind of a lack of communication After the fall of the soviet union, right? You had, you know, gorbachev the communist party's forced out Yeltsin came into office and he began implementing free market policies, right? Where where he was privatizing things George Soros and uh and and and jeffrey sacks were there Implementing libertarian chicago school milton freedman economics, right? And Have ever been by the way and and it was it was a disaster, right? I mean mass unemployment mass drug addiction Uh mass suicides. I mean it was you know, I mean the people were starving on the streets I mean it was when when an economy is is just destroyed like that you have the rise of an underground economy It was very similar to what happened in pinochet's chile very similar to what happened all across all across south america When they were implementing these policies in in latin america in the 80s and 90s able to restore russia's gdp and industrial output was able to stabilize the economy By reasserting a level of state control, right? Why the underground economy the underground economy that you were talking about that developed Why did that the overall economy was demolished the american companies would buy Uh steel plants and just close them down. Um, you know, I mean it was That wouldn't be underground that would just be the economy the underground economy was people were starving And so they were finding ways to get by like sell heroin or be involved in crime And and that was that was what was happening because and that's what happened in pinochet's chile as well Pinochet, you know ended the uh ended the food subsidies He he privatized all kinds of things people were starving people were desperate And so yes child prostitution went through the roof and drug A underground economy is destroyed the underground economy flourishes that's a reality people have to survive You saw a rise in the drug trade uh in urban centers, right these people people You know when they don't have aboveground ways to survive they tend to do underground ways Yeah, I have a quick question for dan is I got a quick I got a question for you dan if I if I could break in on this here because and I I'm not asking this rhetorically. I genuinely want to know your answer here So here's the thing what kaleb's talking about or the case with a cab driver And the people that essentially get left behind the the the folks who could not afford to get the medical care they needed And so they died What is the sense In tying someone's access to the things that they need to live a reasonably comfortable and happy life Where they can go out and grab whatever piece of happiness they can find in this incredibly short time we have on earth What is the sense in tying that to their ability to get paid on the market? Why do we have to withhold necessary food housing shelter from people?  Not just the elite We can do that without coercion Okay, I mean like what what kept you safe on the Appalachian trail? What kept me? It was the community Yes, it was the people who were there people shared stuff with you voluntarily All these amazing things that happened and yet you're not willing to extend the benefit of that to society as a large When I mean I'm willing to extend the benefit of that to society as a large What I'm not willing to do is I'm not willing to extend the benefit of that to donald trump Mike bloomberg and jeff bezos All those three would see if those three found me on the on the trail with a broken leg They'd either leave me or try to turn it to their advantage Now any other through hiker in the community any of the people in the trail towns they found me They'd immediately take me to the hospital You know that I'd be settled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt that I couldn't bear There are always gonna be bad actors in every society and you know whether it's communism socialism capitalism whatever They're always going to be bad actors The question is why do we build this? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to finish what you were saying. I didn't want to interrupt you What level of authority are you willing to endow somebody with what takeaway another person's liberty? Because of that threat because really the worst thing you can do to somebody is to take away their liberty Fundamentally when you take away liberty you are approaching slavery We agreed that slavery is a bad thing. Okay The less liberty I have the closer I am to slavery. Would we agree on that? Well I would say No one in any part of the world was talking about life liberty in the pursuit of happiness until the 1700s in europe And there was a reason for that It wasn't that people were evil until then and they just suddenly became good in 1776 or whenever john lock started writing It was that we had not yet reached an economic stage that made that possible The hunter gatherer civilization was very authoritarian those tribes people didn't even have a sense of individuality Right. You had slavery after that feudalism introduced a new level of freedom where people had their little tract of land and paid their lending With that level of freedom economic advancement and prosperity leads to a higher level of freedom That is a reality and as societies become more prosperous The level of freedom increases for example in the united states I mean the level of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly that we have now I mean, we didn't really have it up until like 1969 68 the warren court rulings I mean, I could be put in jail for thing the kind of things I I was I was saying throughout most of the 50s 30s 20s, but as the usa became more prosperous and more stable Um, it became safer to allow dissidents like me to say what we say, right? That freedom and liberty is rooted in economic advancement and that there is a material basis for it And that that is absent, right that that that is a fundamental reality that is missing from all of this I don't I don't think that all of human history was capable of achieving socialism Socialism was only possible after capitalism had been achieved and capitalism that Slavery and capital, uh, you got what I'm saying. Yeah Well, hang on. Hang on. There's just one thing I want to say I I don't think it's actually correct that, uh, hunter-gatherer societies were authoritarian there may have been some But I believe the anthropological consensus on this is is that those were the freest societies in the world And even if you look at today's hunter-gatherer societies for the most part, they are not heavily authoritarian I'm gonna give you an example. You say nobody's talking about freedom, right? What about ishmael, right?  I'm leaving. Can I swear on your show converse? Oh Hey, but how about Yeah, I just came about this in You guys know the frontier thesis, right? The reason why america is different from any of the other country is because when you didn't like what was going on You moved 20 miles to the west and you were on the frontier again. You could do whatever you wanted That's freedom And so that idea that you can always go there was always freedom in old societies because if you didn't like what it was You could go somewhere else now There's not really a lot of other place to go so we have to find a way to live with each other But freedom is a much older idea Laws there wasn't very much freedom back then, uh, you know I mean, I I would look at at some of the old testament laws that that existed Uh, it was quite an authoritarian society. One could be killed for saying jojoba. I believe Places people chose to live with it, but I'm talking about ishtar, right? Okay Right ishmael leave. Where does he go? There's no authority there. Sorry, dan. Um Let's do this. Let's do this. Let's uh, let's take one to two minutes Each person and wrap up your Let's draw together some of the threads of this conversation Kind of, you know, give your your your closing remarks about what what should people take away from from your point of view and You want to maybe start with dan? Sure, um, I don't go two minutes. Uh Uh My name is dan fishman. I am the executive director of the libertarian party You can find out more about us at lp.org And if you want to sign up and become a member lp.org slash join We stand for the idea that you belong to you. We have two principles only number one You own yourself number two. It's not okay to use force against another person for economic or political gain People famously know that libertarians are in favor of legalizing cannabis We're not in favor of legalizing cannabis because we want you to get high I mean if you want to get a high, that's okay But fundamentally we're in favor of legalizing cannabis because you own your body We're not going to tell you what you can and cannot put into it And we're not going to use force against you to stop you from doing it And that's what government is government is force telling you how to live your life You are the best arbitrator arbiter of what should happen to your body What should happen to yourself? You know the libertarians famously were the people who first supported marriage equality in the country the reason why? Why would we possibly think that government should be involved in marriage, right? Government doesn't get to decide what a family looks like, you know, you look at the famous russian society They have this award the matt's ghetto end Um, the matt's ghetto end was the award given out if you had 10 children Because the russians were concerned about the ethnic breakup of their state Is that what the state's supposed to do? It's supposed to encourage population growth? No Is it supposed to define a family? No libertarians believe you get to define what works for you And like I said before libertarians believe communists can be as communist as they want Socialists can be as socialist as they want just don't force anybody else to live by your rules You know, we had a conversation a little earlier talking about religion. America has pretty good religious tolerance Hey, Catholics don't think that just because they might win an election All the Protestants now have to live under their rules Jews don't think that if they went in election all the muslims have to live under their rules But for some reason all the other political parties think that if they win an election They get to make the laws and you have to live under their rules So instead what we think let's change it so that we have a society where there's only two rules number one You own yourself Number two, it's not okay to use force. It is not okay to use coercion to get other people to do what you want to do Persuade people all you want. I encourage you to be a persuasive motherfucker All right, find a way to point across And that's the best way to win an argument. All right, Dan director LP.org Dan, thanks so much for that closing those closing remarks Uh, now we'll go to britain. You want to kind of close up and give your your your closing Sure, uh, so my name again is brenton langle. I'm a poet playwright Activist and journalist You can look me up at my website brenton langle.com I'm most famous for north to main the first play ever about the appellation trail and my comic snow white zombie apocalypse Which was just published by scout comics got a great response sold out And we are currently running a kickstarter to finance the second one I hate money because I I should be making the comic, but i'm running a kickstarter But it's doing really well. Uh, and if you guys want to check it out, there's a bunch of great rewards So, uh, just google snow white zombie apocalypse kickstarter or I believe the link is in the description Um to kind of close out my points here And I I don't want to rebut too many things but The thing is is that I hear this line of argumentation a lot from libertarians. Um, that, uh And what you need to remember is that the libertarians were There were plenty of libertarians that were against marriage equality Sometimes they'd say free people don't ask for permission in a way of saying like hey, you know gay people don't actually get marriage equality Also, you know libertarians famously opposed the bill of rights Or i'm sorry not the bill of rights the uh Ron paul hates it The civil rights legislation. Um, you know, they they supported segregated swimming pools. I I don't think dan does that Yeah, but because segregated swimming pools are created by laws and government Yeah, and also private citizens saying i'm allowed to keep people away from my lunch counter You know the the the thing is here is I think what we need to do is we need to look beyond a couple simple rules to try and live by and instead Do our best to live life in a compassionate way where we uh Enhance the lives of those around us and in turn help them bring out their potential Um, I really think that the best way to do that is to free people But you can't free people by taking too much for yourself Um An injury to one is an injury to all and there can only be freedom when we stop injuring each other All right, uh, thanks so much for that brenton and we'll move to calib for the final uh response and then we'll move into q&a So tag me uh at converse contender if you have any final questions Well, if you want to check me out. I'm on youtube. I do youtube lives almost every weekend I'm posting videos all the time. My name is calib moppin c a l e b m a u I'm at calib moppin.com. You can check me out. I've written a book on socialism called city builders and vandals in our age It's gotten a lot of good reviews Let me put it this way, you know There is a popular advocate of capitalism on the internet named ben Shapiro and one of ben Shapiro He said the strongest argument against socialism is this socialism is dumb because it says quote I owe you shit because you're breathing Well, if you think about that quote right if a baby is born and its parents do not feed it We put those parents in jail for criminal neglect because those parents owe that baby food Because it's breathing right they have an obligation to it right and that the way society generally functions We do as a society believe that we owe people a certain amount of stuff for existing That's the reality and that the the thing is human beings are collective creatures Every every beautiful thing that's been done in human history every beautiful work of art every every beautiful facility Everything is the result of collective human labor. There is barely anything Maybe there's some woodcarver out there But there's barely anything that anyone can point to and say I made this all by myself And in fact that woodcarver is probably using a knife that that knife involved five or six or seven or eight different people in the manufacturing process Everything beautiful beautiful about human civilization is the product of collective efforts by human beings We are collective creatures in our essence and since you know since the rise of capitalism We have been gripped by the ideology of liberalism and economic liberalism is free market capitalism social liberalism is individual liberty But it's this idea that the individual has It takes precedence above all else that that the individual comes first society comes last But throughout all of human existence if you look at our history We have been collective creatures and we have achieved things collectively And not only do I believe that society has an obligation to people that people are owed health care People are owed a decent job and a decent life, but I believe people have an obligation to society We need to bring back the idea that people yes should be obligated to work to build a better world People should be obligated to go out and help their neighbors. Yes that we need to think in collective terms The united states is crumbling right now. I don't even know what this kind What does it mean to be an american at this point? What does it even mean at this point? Right the country is moving in about 500 different directions greed selfishness demoralization depression We are in a mess of individualism gone mad We need collective vision and we need a government of action that will fight for working families All right. Caleb. Thanks so much for that. Um, those closing remarks So now we'll move into the q&a While i'm pulling up the questions that I Have from the chat While you're doing that, can I just I really want to apologize to dan really quick because um, I think it was I It was wrong of me to take a direct shot at you in my two minutes. So I apologize for that Yeah, it just boiled it burrowed into my head and I had to say something Yeah, I understand it's hard to summarize and and and not respond to some of the things that you're disagreeing with or out So, yeah, it's not a problem at all. Uh, also while i'm pulling these up. Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna exercise moderator privilege and ask a question myself um, so For everybody, I think I know dan's um, I think I don't know what dan's response may be but For everybody Would you rather?  Um, so maybe if you guys want to try and just give your best response and and we'll um, you know This will just be like a quick response and then we'll move on to the question Well, I guess I'll I'll begin by saying I want everyone to move up um And the ultimate goal of a world without any coercion in which the state fades away and people can just do what they need From each according to his own ability to each according to their needs That's only possible with vast material abundance when bernie sanders I like bernie sanders in many ways, but when he says abolished billionaires, I don't agree with him I want everyone to live far better than billionaires live today That's the only way we can get away from the need for class society The need for a state and coercion is with is with vast abundance where people can live Freely um in a world of economic prosperity. That is the ultimate vision of a classless stateless world of communism Is vast abundance. So I want to raise everyone to far higher levels than they're at now Awesome. Thank you merton Yeah, so your question was would I rather the rich come down and the poor go up or both the rich and the poor go up? Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no would you rather the rich come down and the poor stay the same Or they both move up It's not possible the rich and poor are like I understand what you're saying there But what you're forgetting is is that these states are directly related to each other So that what you have described physically cannot happen um A great example actually is if you look at the fact that the united states currently has enough empty homes For every homeless person to have seven to themselves We throw away and let rot 50 percent of the food that we produce and this is again because we have this situation Where wealth and abundance is not it's not a fixed pie But it constantly expands and it's not about how much someone has it is about the proportion What we need is equality and what we need to do there. So I'm actually with bernie sanders on that Eliminate billionaires because if you eliminate billionaires you will lift so many people out of poverty Um, and the closer we get I don't think we'll ever have a society that's 100 equal But and in fact, it may be a good idea to have a little bit of inequality because some people are smarter Some people are able and better leaders and are able to do things But you know, not even jesus deserves to be a billionaire There is no possible contribution to society No amount of intelligence that any human being could possibly have that would ever justify that level of power And the more we allow it that to happen the more we allow a foolish Unworthy person to get into that position and when they get into that position they hurt people. All right So, uh, yeah, thanks. Thank you.   Yeah, all right dan.   Yes, uh, cool reference as well. Um, I grew up punk rocks. Uh, I'm I definitely appreciate the reference. So we'll move on to our first, um Our first, uh question from the chat actually first we have a We have a super chat from steven steen $2 super chat. Hey comrade converse. I think that was a reference to uh, the communism and uh, I'm surprised they still let that guy in here. All right. Let's move on. Uh, steven steen again Thank you for your question question for brenton Um, how does a society operate without money? Are you proposing a bartering system? No, I'm not proposing a bartering system. Um, in fact barter was never ever actually a system That's just something adam smith made up because he was sat in a he was a You know town and city dweller in the 1700s and he looked out his window and said to himself, huh I wonder how people function without money. No, you know what honestly There's a lot of ways you could make it work without money I think what's really interesting in the technological age is what's called swarm intelligence I would highly recommend you look this up because essentially, um, they used these computer models to aggregate all of a huge number data from a huge number of people And what it wound up doing was outperforming both the vegas odds and also expert predictions And and correctly got the winner of the kentucky derby This technology functions better than markets and it functions better than expertise. You could say that, uh, calib's position is expertise That you put the smart people in charge of various industries and we plan it with a few individual exceptional human minds Dan's is the markets. Well, the problem with the experts is oftentimes They're not as great experts as they seem to think they are and the problem with markets Is is that markets are biased towards the previous actor within the market monkey see monkey do Swarm technology eliminates that bias and it can get us much closer to where Humans essentially function like a swarm of bees where the where the swarm itself is smarter than the sum of its parts So I'd be interested to see something like that. Um, I'm not a programmer So I I I can't go into huge detail, but I'm really excited by that technology But beyond that, I mean honestly if I if I just be a person like If we stopped caring about counting all of these beans and making sure that everybody gets paid and everybody gets the a certain amount of Numbers to go up into their account and just gave people and treated them that as though I am my brother's keeper and they treated us that way in return Our society would be a paradise. We have the technology. We have the We have the labor power. We have the resources, you know, the only thing that's holding us back From that golden age is fear So, you know, what I say is just toss it aside live without fear and stop Squirreling away, um, you know tokens to make sure that we don't starve It's a savage system and we need to move beyond it and also it's really annoying All right, thanks so much for that rent. Um, so we'll move on to our next question And uh, I just want to let everybody know out there if you haven't already liked or subscribed, please do so because if you're unfamiliar the way that that that we kind of judge Uh, the debates that we have is by popularity. So like if we get a, you know 200 likes on one video about religion, then we're going to want to, you know, have more religious debates But I'm actually really enjoying this Debate because each of these guys are doing so well to representing their position In a coherent manner, but also It's not a dumpster fire. They're keeping it, uh, cordial. So, um, if you like these type Yeah, if you if you enjoy this type of debate, uh, go ahead and hit that, um, that the like button that way that we can, um, You know, it'll it'll let us know and also We're going to move on to our next question But um, if we can try to pretend like this is like one of the the Political debates and I like to develop my points in full and I'm sure you guys do too But if we could just try and maybe limit it to about a minute because we've already been going over an hour and a half So, um Next question is jessie camping question for kayla. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah cast question for kayla Uh, he spoke of russia. I was there What year was he there or can he comment on living conditions in rural russia while they are becoming a technically elite? Well, I've I've been over there quite a bit and um, I encourage you to look into the economic history of what went on in the 1990s when capitalism was restored and What went on in the 1930s when the five-year plans led by the soviet government were the marvel of the whole world at what they were achieving They industrialized they built some of the world's largest hydro electrical power plants They built some of the biggest steel mills in the world an entire country was lit up with electricity Literacy was wiped out all with a centrally planned economy I you know, there's no reason no one's here to say that stalin did nothing wrong or defend human rights violations But we can't ignore the reality that socialism turned russia into a superpower Socialism has turned china into a superpower while capitalism is keeping countries all across the world like haiti like nigeria You know poor so the reality is that centrally planned economies can produce growth And what you've been told your whole life that socialism never achieved anything and failed everywhere is a big fat lie Well, let me follow a couple things about that first of all russia being lit up by uh electricity You can find satellite photos of what the world looked like at night in 1970 and you'll find russia to be pretty damn dark compared to the united states secondly, uh The idea so i was in russia in 1985 and uh since you've been there you'll be familiar with this phrase Do you have whenever you go to a russian restaurant in the in Under communism you didn't order from the menu you said uvas yes Do you have because there were so many shortages that they didn't have anything that was on the menu That was a constant thing long lines Uh, you couldn't see the visit of boris yeltsin when he came to the united states and he couldn't believe Uh, he was in houston and he went to a kroger and he couldn't believe how much food was in the supermarket He actually thought it was fake So they took him to another supermarket and said no look here it is and he said how incredibly efficient right 40 different brands of bacon dude bacon's awesome. We should always have 40 brands of bacon And we all die of a heart attack No, no, no, that's that's actually uh food. That's a government telling you that bacon's actually not that bad for you um Haiti is not an example of capitalism Jean doc duvalier is uh, probably one of the worst dictators in the history of the planet Papa doc. Thanks. Thanks so thanks so much for that. Uh, kaleb. Do you want to breathe for schwanz? Sure. Um, the fact that the soviet union faced an economic blockade and had all kinds of problems You know, uh compared to when capitalism was implemented polls overwhelmingly show soviet nostalgia is still very high Yeah, because people say life was better than what happened when capitalism went in there Um, and Haiti is a great example of capitalism in the 1990s. They signed on with nafta They've got free trade american agribusiness has put all their farmers out of business People all over the world are fleeing libertarian countries. Guatemala. That's a libertarian country. They got free market deregulation They don't even have a government post office anymore and people are trying to get out as fast as they can People are trying to flee Honduras. We overthrew the socialist government. They've got a free market regime People are trying to get out when libya was socialist under Gaddafi people from all over the african continent We're trying to get into libya to get a share of that oil Well now people are drowning in the Mediterranean trying to get out of libya because libya has joined the global free trade system And international oil companies are ruining the place and the place is in ruin Right if you look at eastern europe when capitalism was restored It was an economic disaster the socialist countries built themselves up from nothing They built themselves up from nothing and they've had really big achievements And you know, I mean the united states at this point We have total free market unregulated capitalism This is the most libertarian country in the western world And if you compare our education, you know and the quality of our education to europe where it's much more state controlled If you compare our life expectancy to countries where the government runs health care We we are in a mess of individualism here all over the world people are fleeing libertarian policies Uh, you know and and and the united states at this point is is crumbling because we have we they have this belief We believe greed is good that profits lead to prosperity. We believe this right? We believe that right? You know people aren't able to help the government people health care. You know, I've got my problem This is that's the american way and look how well it's working out for us This this country with our gap between the rich and poor. I mean this is this is capitalism capitalism is Honduras Capitalism is guatemala capitalism is Nigeria the poorest countries of the world are capitalist the poorest, you know This is the reality Countries and voting with their feet and where are they going? Well, that's not entirely fair. All right guys. I've got all the resources Market african countries are fleeing european countries that have fewer welfare states people China Guys, I think our moderator wants to say something highly developed united states Which even even the usa has more more market regulations than like guatemala does, you know what I mean? Like this is just so that we can This is a distortion this idea everyone's trying to get out of the socialist countries This is this is just this is just just hype. I've heard this my whole life and it's just malarkey, right? I mean we've all the united states and that's the whole thing if if your ideology is the state ideology in the united states In a government school. I heard the same stuff. You've been preaching your whole life Like my teachers told me the communists never works capitalism's the best thing Our state apparatus is feeding us the love for the corporations that run the state, right? I mean you're Preaching the state ideology of american imperialism. All right. Caleb. Thanks so much for that Um, just so we're fair to the audience and getting all the questions in because we got quite a bit of questions If we could um, we're gonna we're gonna try and get through them a little quicker than them You know, I know everybody's got what james calls a bullet in the chamber like around Ready to go, right? But we want to um, just to be fair to everybody else We want to try and get through as many as possible So and some of these will bring back up your point that you were that you want to say now You know, you know, whenever a question is targeted towards you. So, um Jefferson's uh spatch kuck says question for dan Are you as concerned about the? I can't I don't know what this term is Uh Oh, maybe it's coercion. Maybe it's coercion. Yes. Sorry the coercion coercion of Private power as you are of state power Sorry I am the differences though that private power coercion Without the power of law behind it Is much easier to avoid a private company can't arrest you the state can and so Yeah, absolutely. I am concerned about, you know The efforts that you know, the monopoly that facebook has. Uh, I'm concerned about their power I'm concerned about the effect of amazon on the market. Uh, but I think that the solution to that Is the market the solution is not going to be government because fundamentally Government doesn't do anything well Uh, the only thing that really government should try to be trying to do is to preserve individual liberties I'm concerned about all coercion and let's be clear. I believe in bad actors Uh, you know, they exist and it doesn't matter whether they're in government or in private life Or you have a bad neighbor or whatever the thing is there's always going to be people who are uh screwing stuff up The question is how much power should they have And if they're in the government, they have a tremendous amount of power And that's the thing that I worry about the most But I do worry about everybody using coercion It's why I want to have a system in which we have as little ability as possible To coerce people to do things and instead have to rely upon persuasion even though that's awfully inconvenient Well, thanks so much dan for that response. We actually just had two super chats come in So I want to go ahead and push those to the top of the list um Miles kinslow says hey guys, which books would best explain each of your philosophy? So we'll start with uh, maybe we'll start with uh, kaylov and we'll move down. Um, What what book best summarizes your philosophy? I guess on on the decent topics Well, if you want to understand how our global economy works at this time You should read imperialism the highest stage of capitalism by vladimir lenin That explains how banks dominate over industrial capital and a small group of bankers based in western countries Rule the world economy and keep the world poor in order to make themselves rich Um, and I guess i'll give you a shameless plug I wrote a book called city builders and vandals in our age in which I Basically laid out my understanding of 21st century socialism and continuing The effort to build a a world based on equality and justice And you should read my book city builders and vandals in our age because it'll give you a perspective that you you won't find elsewhere All right. Thanks so much. Uh, brinton Uh, for me what I would recommend you read, uh, the the very first one is uh, homage to catalonia by george orwell um, that's like the anarchist book because he's in spain with the anarcho-communists Fighting with them while he was in a marxist unit Anyway, uh, that I think that book's really great. But like if you really want to understand where I'm coming from personally Read calvin and hobbs like Um, I I think that I have been much more influenced by the artists that I've come across necessarily Uh, then by uh, the political writers that I have so so the work of bill waterson Uh, the work of thorough You know, uh, I've read walden. I read civil disobedience when I was on the appellation trail um, and um, you know if you can read snow white zombie apocalypse because um It's amazing It's a it's a dark good comic and it's a lot of fun. Um, so I would say that I would also say you should look into um, the conquest of bread by peter kapratkin um, and then, uh, there's a great book about called dirudi in the spanish revolution about my personal hero Buena ventura dirudi that's been put out by ak press Um, he's a fascinating historical figure. Um, and basically the anarchist che Guevara So if you want to know about him and his life and what he stood for and what he died for read dirudi All right, awesome. Thanks so much dan Yeah, so, uh, very simple read and it's online. You can read it for free eye pencil Uh, you can find it at g dot org very simple eye pencil. It's a wonderful libertarian book Economics in one lesson also really good. Uh, there's actually some really good libertarian fiction Uh, the hindland juveniles, uh Barnum's freehold, uh, some of the other books are really good examples of libertarianism in small societies uh, I would also, uh second brent's, uh, thing of uh On walden pond by thorough. I mean, it's just a wonderful book civil disobedience is Uh, I believe our duty, um And uh an example of everything that I think is Right about humanity our mission is to be human. Awesome. Thanks so much for that. Um, we've got, uh Thanks, uh miles again. Thanks so much for that five dollar super chat. Uh, we've got A ten dollar super chat in from our father in the green says why do I often find It that marxist will dismiss Scientific naturalism when it doesn't conform to their narratives and libertarians when it disrupts Profits to take care of communities and the ecology Shall I read that again or yeah, please that was a little long Okay, why do I often find it that marxist will dismiss Scientific naturalism when it doesn't conform to their narrative and libertarians when it disrupts profits to Take care of communities and the ecology Yep, go ahead kill Well, I'll I'll say that you know the attempt to oppose impose a political agenda onto science Which was done in some socialist countries. It was done in china. It was done in the soviet union. It was done elsewhere That's that's that's a mistake. You shouldn't do that right science is science And when you start imposing a political agenda onto it that can lead to all kinds of problems Let me also add that i'm also critical of marx in some ways I'm a spiritual person and marx was a hard materialist He believed people were only motivated by their economic Circumstances and their direct economic interests and I believe that people do have a higher spiritual Purpose and that man is not an animal human beings can be motivated to act selflessly for a higher purpose So, you know in the fact that marx was just this hard materialist invoking science That was the flavor of the times at the time, you know They were coming out of feudalism and religious freedom was very new and he saw the church as an oppressive institution And science was the exciting new way of doing things But I think we should reconsider some of the things that marx had to say regarding the issue of science versus spirituality and hard materialism And on that note, I also don't think we should be you know quibbling and trying to impose politics on scientists Let the scientists do their work. Sure. If you get a chance, by the way, and this kind of ties into the books Look look into alan watz and what he had to say about hard materialism because it's fascinating and Was mind-blowing for me. So and that's another author to look into alan watz. He's phenomenal. Yeah, this is a big This is a big community based around the great debate and and a lot of those talks a lot of people know alan watz Dan did you have something to add to that or did you want to just move? I actually I Very strongly agree with what Caleb said human beings Are called to a higher purpose and we recognize that inside of ourselves that flame is within us And we are uh, you know, washington talked about the danger of parties but right after that he talks about the fact That being voluntarily bound to each other Is the essence of what we did we talked about the fact that we are A collective I agree with that idea as well I enjoy nothing more than the company of fellow humans and working together I just don't like being forced to do it. Sure. Thanks so much for that so we've got Another super chat and thanks to everybody that hit the like button obviously People do like this because when I said that uh, you know hitting the like button helps us understand who likes If you like this or something different We went up like 40 likes at that time. So we're up to almost 100 likes now. So all right, so our next Uh question we have another super chat from the same person our father in the green. Thank you so much for your $5 super chat to add I guess to his last question To add Thought for the commies Why are you guys so autistic about material conditions?  I think he meant in this Yeah, can I take that one? Sure. Yeah, okay. Um Don't I know what you're trying to say what by saying autistic But just just say why are you so stuck on this don't don't throw autistic people under the bus but no to be uh Why leftist focus so heavily on material things? I think at least from where I'm coming from People tend to make one of two assumptions that behavior is Uh biological or that behavior is environmental and at least from where I'm sitting we I think it's both Um, but I think that our society particularly because we are a society that came out of a Protestant Calvinist Uh sex that believed in predestination. They kind of formatted the hard drive of America and large sections of the west Um, they lean way way too hard on nature and they underestimate what comes from nurture So I think maybe sometimes leftists are trying to push against that tide And individuals push a little too hard because they may see themselves as a soldier in a larger war Which is silly. I I will agree. All right. Thanks so much for that brint So we'll move on to our next question. We have one from Randolph Richardson says Question for all three debaters. Uh, so I guess maybe we'll make our responses quick because it'll be for everybody. Um What percentage of government regulation? e.g. For public safety is acceptable a percentage Rage is okay. Thanks. I think he meant a percentage rate Like what what do you consider as a percentage of government regulation? Uh, he put e.g. For public safety is acceptable Um, I I kind of reject the premise of the question that's sort of the problem of how many grains of sand make a pile um What it's going to change depending upon the industry and depending upon the specific circumstances I think what's acceptable is whatever preserves human life to the best of its ability while still allowing The industry to do the good work that it needs to do.  Uh, kale do you want to go next? I'll just say that I believe that the purpose of government is to protect the Week from the strong and in our society those who are the strongest are those with the most money And those of us who are the weakest are those of us who don't have any money And the job of the government shouldn't be to protect the rich people from the poor But it should be the opposite it should be protecting us from those who have wealth and power Does that mean a lot of rules a little rules? Does that mean massive government ownership of industry or or just restricted and regulated private industry Whatever is necessary to ensure the economy keeps moving and that we keep Going towards that ultimate goal of a stateless classless world where everyone has what they need All right. Thanks so much for that. Uh, dan Uh, my thing of how much government, uh, do I think is a reasonable regulation? So I live in an area with no police Uh, and a volunteer fire department. I would do fine. Um I uh I don't know how much but I'm in favor of reducing government by 50 every year That doesn't mean that we'd ever get to zero government But we'll get small enough where we can make a decision right now I can't even tell you let's just start shrinking it. Um, I just with one thing I do think that the purpose of government is to protect everybody equally And a tyrant is a tyrant Even if that tyrant is the majority Uh, just because 51 of people vote and say that, uh This guy is now our slave Doesn't matter if he's a billionaire doesn't matter who he is a tyrant is a tyrant even if it's the majority Well, thanks so much for that dan. Um, we're gonna move on to our next question We're gonna go into lightning round because we're almost at two hours in which i'm fine with uh Originally, I was gonna cut try and cut it short because my bachelor party starts tomorrow and I'm waking up early I'm waking up to drive to the mountains in the morning to go snowboarding and so it's gonna be really Congratulations. Yeah, thanks. You're getting married, right? You're you're yeah So, uh, it's the best. Yeah, so it's really cool. So I'm anyway, I thought you know what? I can pack and do all that stuff after this. So it's cool. I will go for a little while and um But we'll do like a lightning round where we'll start shooting through these and thanks for your brevity on that one Um, you know sometimes when I'm passionate about something my friends tell me that I'm long winded And I'm like, no, I just like to develop my points in full. There's a difference So, uh, let's move on. We have jesse kevin again question for dan Um and Caleb, maybe it says question q dan dash Caleb. So I think it's maybe, uh Correct installing capitalism Uh, let's see Caleb correct installing capitalism Uh due to misunderstanding of currency Among many as I saw in russia, how can we prevent the corrupt while setting up capitalism? I'm not sure I understand the question trying to re tree. Maybe I'll maybe I'll try and rephrase it sounds like he's saying due to misunderstanding of currency Amongst many as I saw in russia How can we prevent corrupt or maybe he means corruption? While setting up capitalism So maybe that's for dan because it says And question yeah, I was gonna say because it looks like it's for dan, but he's saying Caleb has any yeah, it's like has anybody ever really been to decide look more like Let me I'm just gonna answer the question that I want. Um, so Here's what I think you're asking we talked earlier about the fact that currency Is essentially fictional and fiat currency in particular One of the things we talked about is that wealth Is just your time and your health and that's it. There's no way to actually accumulate any more wealth Value is things that have intrinsic value like land and gold And clean water things that have value that are not diminished by other people and currency is our means of exchange You use your wealth your health and your time to acquire things of value And currency is the means of exchange through which you are able to be compensated for something that somebody Doesn't necessarily need right if i'm performing a task that you don't need There's no way that we can actually have trade because I don't have anything that you need unless we have a currency that we agree upon has some sort of value Now the problem with corruption is that absolutely you see people who uh have used uh currency In manipulative ways there are uh, you know ruthless lenders, uh people who have taken advantage of the system Using money as a weapon That is a byproduct of what we do unfortunately and There is a you know a very very old phrase and a caveat emptor You know let the buyer beware and we have to to some extent allow the fact recognize the fact that we give people liberty We give them liberty to occasionally make bad decisions and when that happens The consequence is it shouldn't be your life but uh We have a risk associated with everything that we do and the fact of corruption is one of them We will never eliminate corruption. I think all of us agree in every governmental system. There will always be corruption Yeah, though. I think you can eliminate as much of it as possible. Um, otherwise it's anirvana fallacy But yes, I agree. All right. Perfect. Thank you. So we actually just had another super chat come in from Our father in the green another five dollar super chat last question for him Is burning the guy to actually reform america? and defeat trump and Will we agree? The woke left should never again Institutional government power and then he made a correction in the chat just now. Let me see what he said, uh correction to that gain more power. Okay, so um Last question is burning the guy to actually reform america and defeat trump and will we agree the woke left should never again institutional Gain more power. I think I know what he's trying to say there So I'm I'm going to do the first question because there's really two questions. Um, all right. So the first question is is burning the guy bernie is Probably the best chance that we've ever had. Um, I mean not really since Eugene v. Debs have we had somebody who had bernie's values that close to the presidency? And what's really great about bernie is not so much bernie himself And I actually really like bernie. He's been in the thing for 50 years. He's he's been fairly consistent And I trust him more than I can trust any politician. Um, which is not to say that I trust him further than I can throw him What's great about bernie is he has been bringing together A massive movement of people who have previously not engaged with the system And he's bringing them out and they haven't engaged not because they're stupid Not because they don't want to or they're just lazy They haven't engaged because the government does not represent the people in the united states of america And bernie has given them the hope that they can change that When bernie gets in and I think he will trounce trump if he if he goes up against him Uh, if we have a president sanders, he's not going to save everything because we have this massively corrupt system But the people that are behind him the people that are phone banking right now the people that are knocking on doors The movement itself That is something that can shift american politics in a titanic way and break this 50 50 deadlock that we have lived in All of my life and probably all of yours. I mean you go back and you look and I'll be very quick here But the election of donald trump and hillary clinton Donald trump got about 23 24 of the electorate hillary clinton got about 25 percent 51 of people in this country have registered of eligible voters did not vote And bernie's goal is to go to that 51 percent and bring 5 percent 10 percent to the uh table And if those people come in and if they take responsibility for themselves and their communities That's how we defeat climate change. That's how we restrain wall street.  Those people are awful However, that's not everybody and there is like there are people who genuinely have some serious grievances That way we need to listen to and deal with we we could all stand to be more compassionate And that's what's really important here The people who approach politics and life from a place that is not a place of compassion They need to be kept out of power. All right. Thanks so much. We have a super chat just came in from stripper liquor $2 super chat Thanks so much for your uh $2 super chat question already submitted But great debate. All right, so they they did have a question and it was a good question Question for all the panelists. How does the Pareto distribution of wealth work into your governmental and economic viewpoints? Um, is everybody familiar with the Pareto distribution or should I give kind of a rundown? um Petsy shoes, uh, jordan peterson and a lot of people use this uh to kind of talk about How things are are distributed. So like there's this thing called the Pareto distribution. We're basically like The majority of uh, the top 20 percent of stars or whatever grouped in one, you know in the certain In the sky, right the top 20 percent of people Own the most wealth the top 20 percent of almost everything you can think of it's not just economics it's It's all kind of scientific values and things, right? It's it's the stars and it's it's you You name it there's all all kind of things even in nature where the top 20 percent have the resources and things like that, you know So I guess what he's asking with that is is what do you think about the Pareto distribution? It's typically used in a way to say like hey look this may have some type of evolutionary um thing where uh, the cream rises to the top or the top 20 percent are like Or like how You know bill gates, you know came up with microsoft or something like maybe that I think that's what he's trying to ask and I could be wrong be sure to clarify if I am wrong on that, but I think that's what go ahead So fundamentally the way wealth distribution Works right now is warped by the government and we saw a couple great examples of that in the last 12 years in 2008 Uh, if the government had let AIG fail If they let the banks fail You would have seen a tremendous amount of wealth threat redistribution The poor wouldn't have lost that much because they didn't have that much to lose But the wealthy would have lost everything that would have been awesome. That's what we want to see happen That's the way things are supposed to go. Um Fundamentally though That level of redistribution Only happens when you have a truly free market when the government protects the wealthy Wealth redistribution never changed. It's why we shouldn't have a powerful government All right, thanks so much for that. Uh, somebody just clarified in the chat that um, and I think this is this is correct Um, in regards to economics, I think it's the top 20 percent own 80 percent of the wealth and then so another one is something like, uh From memory like, um, the top like there's 20 of people like in a group of people who does uh labor Let's say the top there's a 20 margin that does 80 of the lay of the labor Right, so I think that that kind of rule That governs these things. I think that's what he's trying to get at is like You know, maybe there's more to the human involvement than just, uh, you know numbers But if there's nothing else you guys want to say about that, we can move on I just want to say that I want to clarify that a lot of the conversation about socialism Capitalism in the united states seems to revolve around Redistribution of income and the redistribution of income happens in every society to some degree or other I mean the roads outside my house are paved with tax money from people like me But socialism is fundamentally not about the redistribution of income It's about the the redistribution of the means of production It's about the redistribution of the banks factories and industry and it's about control of even the private banks factories and industries that exist Um, and that fundamentally the goal of any socialist society is to maximize Personal income. We want to maximize personal property. We just think that that private property What we refer to as as major centers of economic power that are used for no other purpose than making money Those things should be controlled by the state to work in the benefit of all But but ultimately the goal is for people to have as much prosperity this notion that oh Socialists want to raise everyone's taxes and give it to people who are unemployed and and make it fair I learned in school that socialists want everyone to get paid the exact same wage no matter how hard they work Uh, this is just simply not the nature of reality. It's about control of the means of production not redistribution of personal income All right All right, thanks so much for that. We did just get a uh Um stripper liquor did say uh converse contender good explanation of the concept I'm surprised the panel did not know of it because the distribution is partly known as Known economic factor, but thanks now. We did just get a uh, I um address that by the way Yeah, go ahead because I actually had something that I wanted to say about that So I'm not familiar with this. I don't know if it's a factual concept or anything and I will look into it more after this um, but this I would recommend anybody who Uh follows this type of argument from jordan peterson to read mackayl bakunin's what is authority It's a short essay. You can find it online. It's like panarchists. I think marxist.org also hosts it Um, and this is really important. Um, because when he talks about what is authorities? What is authority? Is it um Lord i'm gonna mangle this Essentially what i'm seeing here is saying is this 20 percent a natural law It's the same thing is is this hierarchy natural because lobsters um The thing is is if something is actually a natural law We can't actually change it at all. Um, however that we can work within those Within those bounds to make it the best possible And the fact of the matter is is that if 20 percent is ruling the country right now And that it's right that 20 percent should rule the country Well, then what we need to do is to put pressure on that 20 percent to stop doing it crappy because like honestly these the people in charge of our society are morons And they have been running us into the ground for years and years and years And the the the fact of the matter is is that there are easily better ways to do this We can Distribute the food. We can put the people into the empty houses. So I would say if it's inevitable Okay, it's well, let's make it but let's make it still make it as uh equitable as possible within that inevitable 20 percent or whatever it is. All right Thanks so much for that. Uh, and we'll go to our next question. It looks like we've got Uh, hang on one second. I actually I do have the um Pareto distribution pulled up It was by an engineer not uh, so jordan peterson uses it not just him other people use it, but I can't even start if you start going down it. It's nothing but formulas You know, it's written by an engineer when the whole thing is just nothing but formulas for like No one has any idea All right, but anyway it from what it says I did kind of it is a basically what I said, so anyway, we just had a Super chat come in from louis romero 200 mx's I'm not sure what currency mx is, but I guess maybe mexican, but I'm not sure I could be completely wrong about that But uh, whatever it is. Thanks so much for that. Uh, 200 Paces that's not uh, yeah Right Money away, let it I'm I'm happy you're throwing anything at all. Thanks so much for that Caleb, how did chai? It says how did chinese boom Happened without economic special zones that have corporation friendly laws and what did uh Xi Xioping Mint jumping wasn't jumping. It means staying shopping. Oh, what is jumping? Mint with it doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white as long as it catches mice Well, look, um, the reality is In china in the 1970s They were trying to have a purely what they thought was a pure Communist society right and they argued that you could get to that final goal of a stateless classless world Without raising the level of material abundance the gang of four Were chinese leaders who said you could transition to communism in poverty and deng xiao ping took power And launched the reform and opening up because many chinese intellectuals Scientists educated people were being stifled by that gang of four system the way they were running things in the late 60s and Early 70s was economically problematic and deng xiao ping said we need to use market mechanisms We need to have you know market zones, but we're going to control them right and He made very clear that socialism is superior to capitalism. They needed to maintain five year economic plans Um, but he said poverty is not socialism But to be rich is glorious and that they were going to allow a market sector to exist But control it and utilize it for the benefit of the society overall and if you look at it, uh, that has been very successful They were talking about making similar moves in the 80s Uh in in the soviet union, but the soviet union wasn't able to bend so it broke China was able to bend and adjust their socialist system And what they have now is the system they refer to as socialism with chinese characteristics where the government controls the major industries And banking and regulates the private sector and there's kind of an alliance Uh between the government and corporations and the public and they're all kind of working in the overall interest of economic growth And making a better country overall and it's it's different than that old soviet model where everything is completely state run You need a market sector. I mean i've heard stories from the old soviet union about you know a doctor You know would get paid sure he got paid more than everybody else But he couldn't spend his money on anything so he'd have just piles of currency in his house He couldn't do anything with you obviously need and and north korea cuba The vietnam have adjusted closer to that chinese model and and obviously you need um, you know, you need a market sector to some degree I like worker cooperatives though, you know worker cooperative Not only is it better because no one's exploiting anybody else But also it's more efficient because instead of getting a wage every worker is getting a share of the profits they produce So they're going to work as hard as they possibly can because they want to maximize their share So I think having worker cooperatives in your private sector is ideal But you need some kind of market sector in a socialist society I think in the 90s china's market sector got a little out of control and I think president shijian ping He's leading kind of a socialist revival emphasizing the socialist goals of china um to try and stop what kind of got out of control in the 90s In the 90s, you know things there was a lot of corruption there people have heard You know stories about things that went on in factories that shouldn't have gone on and they're Reasserting the socialist aspect and cracking down on some of the corruption they cracked down on corruption. It's very fascinating But let me fundamentally say this right? I don't want to talk too much about all of that because I'm an american And when we have socialism here, it's going to be american socialism It won't be socialism with chinese characteristics. It won't be russian communism won't be bolivarianism We're going to have something that's uniquely american designed to address our unique circumstances here in this country Overcome historic injustices here and be based and rooted in the long legacy of progressive and democratic struggles Carl marx was an advocate of opposing slavery a big supporter of abraham lincoln Um, you know communists and socialists were key in fighting for women's rights to vote and that that when socialism comes here It will be a uniquely american socialism designed to serve our own conditions No one and I would I would be the first to oppose applying the chinese system to america I'd be the first to oppose applying soviet communism to america I want an american form of socialism to address our specific conditions and and and solve the problems We're facing here in this country with runaway greed and rampant capitalism. Well, there's a great essay on that Called uh, if america should go communist by leon trotsky. I'm not like a trot or anything, but um, like It's a good essay. So yeah read it Dumb tales of what kaleb's saying I'm just All right. Thanks so much for that. Um, there's a interesting the interesting feedback. So we actually have a We're trying to get through these last few Quickly here. I see a lot of people just came in the room We've got a huge amount of support for this stream. So they're loving it And I see a lot of people that just came in they must have just left another hangout Please hit that like button and subscribe if you haven't already We have a five dollar super chat from subtracted another one of the usual suspects Says hey, kaleb. Do you think there's a way to defeat the bankers and the uh, Cooperants who uh, I'm sorry the corporates Who run the world? I think it just says corporates Probably meant corporations. Yeah, they run the world Popular power. Yes. The people need to be brought into motion Uh, there's a big effort and always has been on the parts of the elites to push people out of the political process Make people think politics is too complicated for them You know get people to to not look into the facts and the reality But but you know revolutions, uh, and that's the awakening of the public, right? Generally happens, uh in in in times when there is a crisis when people are, you know, drawn into the political process They can't escape it politics is everywhere There are problems that need to be addressed and the current order cannot address them And let me emphasize that I am fully in favor of a peaceful transition to socialism I do not support a violent revolution would never advocate one and that genuine revolutionaries have always opposed Violent revolutions. That's punchism. That's blonkyism. That's what they call left adventurism But but violent revolutions in history have only happened when the people have tried to organize peacefully And the peaceful means have been cut off and revolutions that that do become violent are acts of great self defense Where people have no other choice.  They always advocated a peaceful democratic transition to socialism Violent revolutions only happen because the capitalists don't want to allow the democratic process to lead us towards socialism All right, thank you 150 on board with that as well. I think you need to fight uh for this to be peaceful until the absolute last moment When you can't do anything else. All right, let's get dan in here. We've got a question for dan from uh from Kilo doggy one says dan Has there ever been a true capitalist society that doesn't have any fake crony capitalist qualities? Probably the best example we talked earlier about the uh, the old west But actually there's a lot of true sub capitalist societies um, and probably the best one is uh, if you look at The way, uh, I mean for those of you who are old enough to remember When drugs were illegal, uh Your local weed guy He was like the ultimate capitalist. Okay. He knew his customers. He knew what you liked He was important. He had wanted to make sure about availability But he also had competition. Uh, he knew that there were other people around selling things That motivated him to make sure that he checked on you that he was delivering his service to you We have a lot of regulations that are in the way at various points of time. There's a lot of cronyism But there is fundamentally in our society The ability at least for a little while to find