Richard Wolff: On Bernie Sanders and Socialism 

competition is a good thing. we should compete to benefit society.

Competition has nothing to do with anything. Unless you're talking about running, or some other physical feat that has no use outside of the Olympics for the viewing pleasure of the masses. Who was Tesla competing with when he gave us just about all the technology that our present world lives on?

Not when people are treated like filth & trampled on.

Jay Johansson you sound dumb...lack of competition creates laziness. Lack of competition creates a destruction of society. Socialism has always led to chaos and a total obliteration of the economy, resulting in a country totally in the hole with everyone living in poverty. Ever hear of Capitalism, buddy? Capitalism IS competition by definition. You seem confused..there will always be individuals with motives to pursue great things however, as a society with too much comfort by the government, it just does not work that way.

That Guy A good analogy with capitalism is the game of Monopoly. What happens in Monopoly is that someone always winds up with all the property and all the money. That's the end result of capitalism, or any system of wealth accumulation: an oligarchy controlling all the means of production. Competition is stifled and society regresses into a feudal-like system of government. Today, inherited wealth has given a small number of mega-wealthy families, sixty two, more wealth than half the world's population The trend gets worse with each passing year. www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/18/richest-62-billionaires-wealthy-half-world-population-combined

Yes, or as Tadeusz Borowski called antiquity, a conspiracy of free men against slaves.

Spartaculus Jones now its kleptocracy with oligarchic

Spartaculus Jones This is perfect.

Move to europe and stop bitching if you don't like that.

Joseph Ang So you like kleptocratic neo-feudalism? Should I call you "neo-Lord" or "neo-Vassal"?

Another great man

The Absolute Boy

@MajorLeague not talking about you

@MajorLeague Well constructed and thought out argument as usual mr pleb lol

@Fred Krissman Different place altogether jeremy would be linched in USA

ArmyOfAll u and millions others

ShakinJamacian Thank you! We appreciate you for sharing us and helping us take on the money media!

ShakinJamacian I concur! :)

Kelly Pratt How very concise of him to not mention coercion.

Nathan Adamson Did you watch and listen to Wolff's explanations? Also what do you mean by coercion?

***** Teachers don't teach for free. You have to put a gun to a working man's head, extort some money and pay the teacher.

Kelly Pratt "Concise", "clear", and "Balanced" in the sense that he left out the extremely damning aspects of socialism that honest economists have proven for about a century now; in the sense that he confuses what capitalism actually is, and certainly clear about how in love with coercion and statism he is; in the sense that he clearly doesn't understand the arguments against socialism, evidently to the point where he couldn't even honestly discuss them at all. This man is either completely ignorant, or has quite the agenda to fulfill.

MrLibertyFighter Public roads, Public Police, Public Fire Department, Public Parks, Public Libraries, and The Census Bureau use coercion and statism? What arguments against socialism are you referring to?

Bigbadd Woofe watch this video on YT- 'Gary Null with Chris Hedges, May 6 2015' Gary tells the truth about your savior Bernie starting at about 20 minutes in. But you should watch the whole thing. 58 mins.

dan12959 Go back to your hole, troll.

FAT MOON INFREQUENT Hit a nerve huh ??? Did you watch the video ??? Pure truth, isn't it great ??? Did you vote for Obumer ??? ' Change you can believe in'...Yea...He gave us the NDAA... So you are going to vote for another Liberal Democrat communist who supports the zionist genocidal terrorists ???

dan12959 McCain, Hilary or Romney would have followed the same policies. The NDAA had the support of conservatives and the corporate state. As Hedges has stated, those who get elected are little more than marionettes. The DEEP STATE runs the show.

Bigbadd Woofe LOVE BERNIE AND WHAT HE STANDS FOR!

SIMKINETICS And even before WWII it was making a difference when he implemented various work projects. Specifically, my great grandparents and grandma and great aunts and uncles were living in a shack in Idaho during the late 20's and early 30's until FDR started various works projects which introduced a cement plant in their small town where my great grand father was able to get a much better paying unionized job and he immediately built a modern house complete with electricity, sewer, water works, heating, insulation, etc. Was it not for the various social compacts of FDR such as legalizing collective bargaining, Keynesian economics by introducing works programs which added electrical power by building dams, roads, ports, water works, electrical distribution, etc. our history as a country would have lost its democratic government becoming autocratic with an economy of either communistic or fascistic qualities. A terrible state of affairs. And most would have been worse off. Socialism implies democracy as well as collective and private markets. Socialism is a mixed market structure that meets the complexities of reality to optimize liberty, advances technology, and increase standards of living by ensuring such productivity gains from technology are optimally distributed among everyone in society. Where this individualistic obsession comes from is primarily nut job libertarian writings from Ayn Rand and followed by nit wits like Milton Friedman who unfortunately was accredited with In Memory of Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on consumer propensity to spend models which have since been discredited and revamped because his model was wrong, Paul Volcker, Allen Greenspan, and several other people who came to power in some form or another. The individualism attempts to tell people to be more self interested, as if that's something someone needs to be told, to be more selfish as we're inherently so. The entire libertarian individualism ideology is utterly ridiculous, and only obviously leads to tyrannical autocracy no matter the economic structure.

jmitterii2 Well written & poignant! It appears that you've seen through the smoke quite clearly. This libertarian trend has been presented as somehow projected from personal liberties to corporate liberties and a flat tax! What the evil spawn of a John Birch Society founder, the Koch brothers, are selling is ideology that only serves their class of billionaire kleptocrats & their lackeys at the expense of everybody else! The Kochs hijacked the Tea Party and more. Their brand of laissez faire means 'less fair'! As for Austrian School or the Chicago boys versus Keynes, there's a decided advantage to emphasizing infrastructure building when the economy slows to a crawl. Milton Friedman and company should be seen as business economists who seem naive about social dynamics & economics for workers. I see a great need to push the nebulous & often dated study of economics much more into the realm of science with maximum transparency. So far, economics seems more like a black art. Thanks for your insights!

SIMKINETICS We can all thank Nixon and the Republicans that have followed in power for the demise of this country. They're doing nothing but dismantling any safety net for the average american by reducing taxes on the rich, thereby choking money out of programs leaving them defunct and belly up. I want my tax dollars to work for EVERYONE'S benefit that has a need. Not for well to do individuals, corporations and more loans for professional sports team stadiums. Let these rich cocksuckers risk their own money for a change.

SIMKINETICS lol...I really hope you don't write history or economics books!

***** The question might arise whether capitalism was worth saving, or even a matter of what capitalism actually is or was. Should we consider monopolies as the inevitable result of capitalism? Should we consider the functions of the Fed to be capitalistic in nature? Is price-fixing really capitalistic? My main contention is that FDR was mistakenly considered anti-capitalist. I'd also assert that pure (libertarian) capitalism is unsustainable, and that FDR found ways to accommodate it in a hybridized form. Today, what we have is hardly capitalism in the sense articulated by Adam Smith.

Yep, and you can see it all over this comment page still.. even on videos explaining socialism, that'show bad it is.. these people are like flat-earthers, afraid to progress..

ImmaterialDigression We hope to help you detox from the money media! Subscribe for more like this - no shouting!

GRITtv Capitalist or Socialist its the same BANKERS that OWN the WORLD! THE ONE THING THEY HATE (THAT STANDS IN THERE WAY IS AMERICA) are CONSTITUTION!! THE NEW WORLD ORDER! IS AFRAID OF ARE GUNS?

Harry Stoffel If it's in capital letters, it must be true.

***** Your right I did make a mistake "are" should be"our" but you missed my point,and your statement about warheads is really fucking stupid! There is a New World Order and its coming for you, I hope you have a bunch of kids and grandkidsl They will need slaves!!

Mark Carleton YOUR RIGHT MARK HAVE SOME KIDS !!!

Pat Doyle Exactly. And they forget that we aren't pure capitalists in this country. We're a mixed market. The only countries that were pure economic structure generally are failed states. Secondly, they confuse socialism with autocracy like Russian and Chinese Communism was or is. And many one the far right don't understand, liberty means nothing without economic ability to enjoy such liberties. And economics isn't something done in self interest alone. Then there's the disconnect from what makes various markets more efficient for various sectors. Free market term is rather vague and useless in understanding what markets are efficient. The underlying markets are competitive markets, collective markets, and a mix of regulated toward competitive markets. The 3 primary types of markets work better than each other under certain circumstances that violate competitive market principles, the inevitable concentration that occurs in any market where competitiveness diminishes as production tends to consolidate without proper rules and regulation, and where essential services and sectors with economies of scale generally natural monopolies like electrical distribution, water works, sewer, garbage, transportation including roads, ports, bridges, etc. tend to do better in a collective market. Essential products and services include food and medical sector. A prime reason food sector on both supply and demand side is subsidized (socialism) in most countries including ours is that crop failure and famine usually results into a collapse in a nation. Medicine doesn't follow elasticity of demand where price influence demand, people will pay any price to not feel pain from injury, to recover from illness or injury, or just simply not die. Same with our fire services (socialism) that we do have. Even education in all countries including ours is initially collective with a choice given you have the choice with mighty pockets to pay for your own private school. People try to make things black and white, over simplification. When reality isn't that simple. You don't tell H2O to quit being so fickle in being a the universal solvent and having such ranges in acidity and alkalinity, the water isn't going to listen to how you wish the water would function, no matter how much you just say it is so, it just ain't. Mixed market socialism is the best, its a mix of private production regulated by democratic means and at times collectively owned and operated by the locality and state often being assisted by private suppliers too.

jmitterii2 Well said! A Republican friend of mine summed up the ignorance of many Americans in one sentence. He said, "We're a democracy, our government is capitalist, not socialist - read the Constitution!" No matter how many ways I tried to explain to him that socialism and capitalism are economic systems and not forms of government, and that democracy can work with either, AND to tell him that our Constitution is silent on the matter of what economic system we use, he could not see it. To an extent, I could understand. People our age grew up in a time when everyone from our teachers, to the news media often used the phrase "communist governments", and "communist/socialist nations" generally only in reference to the Soviet bloc and the Chinese, Cuba, North Koreans, and North Vietnamese. So the terms communism and socialism became synonymous in the minds of whole generations with evil dictators. On those rare occasions that a country like Denmark might make the news, no one referred to them as a "socialist state", even though they are.

+Pat Doyle "our Constitution is silent on the matter of what economic system we use, he could not see it." Perhaps he could not see past the profit loss statement if he were forced to cared about people and the environment. You are right in that Socialism has been embedded in people's minds as evil and made synonymous with communism (especially during the 1950-60s - the House Un-American Activities Committee hammered a fear that many older Americans still feel today). Times are changing - more and more young people seem to be shedding the prejudices of their elders and seeing that if we don't change our current economic course - individualist or socialist - we are all going down on the same ship.

mreclecticguy I agree 100%, and I am sad that it is my generation that seems to be the problem. Our growth seemed to go from the "Summer of Love" to the "Me Generation" in the 1970s, and it seems to have stuck there.

Is government really any better at worrying about long term consequences of...anything??

ha ha ha ha ha

These two ^^^ apparently didn't understand the video..

No

Dan Shielding Beautiful post! I would only add that "The Invisible Hand" is exactly what your post describes: how the market functions (and thrives) based on voluntary interactions between millions of individual actors, each doing what is in their own self-interests to do -- something which no planner or group of planners could ever possibly dream of doing.

Dan Shielding IT is always taken from someone else whether you make wealth in retail selling items to Americans or robbing a third world country.

Dan Shielding What would the outcome be if in extreme situations when e.g. someone owned everything at first, would everything turn out just fine in the long run?

David Stanley When a customer purchases a retail item via mutually voluntary trade, both the seller and the buyer increase their wealth. Wealth is not just money. It's anything you value. If I value the information in a book more than the $20 I paid for it, I'm wealthier as a result of my purchase. Win win. Likewise, when clients hire vendors (via mutually voluntary trade) who live in a different country where there is a lower cost of living, both the clients and vendors increase their wealth. The vendors are paid money they value more than the time spent, because that money can be used to acquire things they value more. The clients acquire deliverables they value more than the money they spent. Both are wealthier as a result. Win win. On the other hand, if vendors were forced to work by nasty people to avoid some kind of physical punishment, that would not be mutually voluntary trade. That would be slavery. In that case, the fruits of their labor would be taken against their will as you eluded to. Slave master wins. Slave loses. Win lose. Also, if the "retailer" was a coercive monopoly, using extortion to force consumers to pay for it's products. And in so doing, forcing all competitors out of the market, that would not be a mutually voluntary trade. That would be extortion. Coercive monopoly retailer wins. Consumers and other retailers lose. Win lose. Please tell me you can see the difference between these situations ;)

Dan Shielding So you are in favor of anti-monopoly laws?

dude i really wish that he had win...

BERNIE 2020!

Bernie 2020 🔥🔥

hifibrony I'd love to hear you defend that accusation. I'm afraid you're mixing central planning and statism (a requirement of socialism) with capitalism.

hifibrony Again, the language of socialism is rhetoric. Working for another's benefit, um, used to be called slavery. i guess slaves were excellent socialists, they understood the fruits of their labor were to benefit everyone.

***** Your argument is asinine. There's a difference between forcing someone to work for no pay and adopting socialist policies that ensure that all workers are paid proportionately for their work and are able to live with financial stability and security. Don't be mad just because people's attitudes are becoming more compassionate and pro-human. A society founded on selfishness is neither intelligent nor sustainable. P.S. Really, slavery is more akin to a radical form of capitalism where even HUMAN BEINGS can be seen as property.

CaptainBlackSparrow That's what you think socialism represents, compassion? If it's compassion, it's extremely misguided to say the least. How do you figure you can force someone to pay for someone else, whatever it might be, and feel justified in calling it "compassion"?

MrLibertyFighter your straw man of what social democratic positions are, does not represent the reality... no matter how often you repeat the lie.

@@fridaynightvinylfnv1271 agree

+Marvin Gershowitz Thank you Marvin! Subscribe for more learning every week!

:) Will Do!

+Marvin Gershowitz - Yes! This man's views need to be spread widely! He makes Socialism understandable and humane and shows how Capitalism is harmful.

Steve Freier Enjoy your high taxes.

Do you think it is fair for the super rich to skate by on paying a fair share of taxes when the very country they used as a platform to gain their wealth is falling apart and needs money to rebuild the infrastructure? This includes roads as well as the internet that you use daily. If you want to be so selfish why not go live off the grid in the South American jungle somewhere where you can do as you wish without any of the amenities you take for granted every day! i don't mind paying my fair share of taxes because I want to make a contribution as well as enjoy the riches this country has to offer!

Yes, why have any government at all? If someone murders your wife, just stop buying thing from him. That will teach him.

drstrangelove09 He talked a lot, with emphatic gestures, but said nothing at all.

Logic, Reason, and Evidence What I interepreted from him was basically this: *I've been in academia my whole life and don't understand shit about how the world works, so therefore capitalism is evil and we should be a feel good society where everyone is equally poor, so no one can feel better than the other*.

MagnaThor He never makes a logical argument. He argues rhetoric. The fact he is a professional economist is frightening. An economist is supposed to describe how the world works, not prescribe how they think it ought to work.

Logic, Reason, and Evidence When it comes to Econ professors, I think they just find these rare loonies to put them on tv and other media outlets. I took 7 econ classes in college (it was nearly my double major),and I never had a socialist economics professor. I also asked my friend who is finishing his masters in Econ and he said none of his econ professors have leaned left, either. It just makes no fucking sense. Basic economics will tell you a free market is the obviously better option.

MagnaThor lol

No he is not. Bernnie is a COMMUNIST!

I agree with you on this. I'm not sure why Bernie persists in defining himself as a socialists. All leftist politicians are very aware of the differences. I think the reason he embraces socialism is because he did so very publicly in his more radical younger days, and he doesn't want to have to argue these facts now.

davidfrom74 Marxism is the means of production put into the hands of the workers and that's socialism. In those countries, did workers have the means of production? No, the state did. They are state capitalist just using the banner of socialism to gain support

2020!

Their system is not the problem. What is a major problem is the US, CANADA, UK, unbalancing their economy by applying economic sanctions and trade embargos...!

GRITtv he barely touches on Bernie Sanders. This title is slightly misleading. Great video nonetheless. I particularly enjoyed learning about some of the surprisingly rich history of socialism in America.

You have audio problems. I have everything full blast and can hardly hear either of the two talking. I clicked on another video and wad blasted out of my seat, as I had forgotten to turn it back down, so it's not on my end.

Waldir Pimenta It's mostly BS.

Yvette Zarate "and wad blasted out of my seat"... lol

Yvette Zarate Thanks Yvette! I'll pass that on to the production side. - Camille

Andrew Bacon The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average salary of a University Professor was $75,430 annually as of May 2016. The lowest-paid 10 percent of all University Professors earn less than $38,290, while the highest-paid 10 percent are paid more than $168,270 per year.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average salary of a University Professor was $75,430 annually as of May 2016. The lowest-paid 10 percent of all University Professors earn less than $38,290, while the highest-paid 10 percent are paid more than $168,270 per year.

Ad hominen attacks will get you a failing grade in your final exam.

Why did you put "light a bowl" in quotation marks? Are you high right now?

***** The term "to make money" is not at all as sinister as you make it out to be. Let's think for a minute: what does it take to "make money". First off, you have to make an investment, which means you, or someone else you can convince, has to come up with money to undertake production of a good or service. So let's talk real quick about where money comes from. First, let's make sure we define money: a representation of stored wealth, accepted by the majority of people as a representation of time and energy spent to produce something productive, and therefore a valid means of exchange for a wide variety of goods and services in the marketplace. So, inherent in this definition is where money comes from -- notice it does not come from putting a nice arrangement of ink on a piece of paper or cotton and then duplicating that process millions or billions of times, it comes from productivity, it is honest. Nor does it come from the dictates of planners or well-meaning community-oriented citizens. Nor does it come from laws or taxes or regulations. Productivity. Ah, but you would be wise to notice that productivity is only one half of the equation, someone has to buy the results of that productivity with their productivity! For that productivity to do any good, it has to be of value to other people. This is interesting, because when one person values the productivity of another person, they exchange effort for effort, mutually benefiting through a completely voluntary interaction. So this brings us full circle, we have MADE MONEY. Did you see how? Even though the goal of the business owner was to "make money", this fundamentally meant that he had to please and benefit somebody else. ***It should be noted, as mentioned earlier, that fiat money does not well represent true wealth produced, as it's value can be easily manipulated by omniscient central bankers. This is a key reason why something that requires actual time and effort and ingenuity is best used as money, a good example is the mining of gold or silver, of which both resources have a number of other reasons why they function well as money. But the key takeaway here is that it is as honest a representation of productivity as one could hope for on this planet. And hopefully now it is clear as to why that is the case.

MrLibertyFighter I'm sorry that I didn't make myself clear. "To make money" I understand is not a sinister endeavor. What I meant was that Trump purposely made decisions that led to his companies down falls that resulted in thousands of lay offs. Venture capatilism example, he profited from those losses. Whenever a business lays off people due to bankruptcy or whatever, I think about the people that were providing for a family, etc. So the way I see it, Trump doesn't care about others; he only thinks for himself. He let the companies tank, and the way he said it in the Repub debates explains it clearly: he took advantage of the laws (never mind the people working for him) and made huge profits.

***** Ah, no worries! Well sure, in that case, he has generally relied on laws and regulations and government favors to get where he is. I wouldn't refer to him as a capitalist at all, maybe he's done something validly on his own, but it's a tangled web to try to unweave. Judging by what he's said in debates so far, and his actions prior to running, he has little understanding of liberty and what the proper role of government should be in defending that liberty. I've read a couple articles that argue pretty convincingly that his mindset is fascist. Not that he has a coherent belief system that guides him...that's just sort of the system that best describes his actions.

Timothy O'Brien No man is an island. Each man is to be an end in himself. The Western tradition. *WE* might agree. The Washington Establishment does not appear to know or to care to know. They are not *US*.

Timothy O'Brien Home schooling? How prey tel do you expect that to work when both parents are working to keep the bills paid? The public education system worked quite well for decades until Republicans started meddling with their standardized testing for funds, giving parents the option for school vouchers to send their kids to these privately owned Montessori schools. Basically what this is leading to is a bad education for the masses and a pro-business anti-sharing mindset for the well to do that never want for anything.

***** Home-schooled children do a lot better on average than state-schooled children in state-authored exams. Your response?

*****. I have a friend whose children are all home schooled. One just graduated Harvard last year. High schools in Camden, NJ, fail to graduate more than 50% of their seniors and a poor percentage even get to senior year.

HerzWatIThink is it that home-schooling is better or is it the fact that home-schooled kids are more likely to belong to more affluent families than public-schooled kids the reason?

Guillermo Rivas -I think it is very important that schools teach about handling money for life. It would help society.

Madam Smellypits You just brought a tear to my eye with that comment .I dearly and fondly remember him from my childhood,and he reminded me of my late beloved grand-dad!

tangerinestorm Thanks! We like it too. Subscribe for more from Laura!

PaleoAthletics you are stuck on the lies you hear. The 08 scam was due to the banks using taxpayer money. They used farmers home loans for mortgages for welfare recipients.

And corrupt Bernie Sanders. Those banks didn't do this all by themselves. Bernie should be in prison!

Pam Bass Stuck on what lies? How about you actually make a point. The bankers can print money from no where. They are backed up by the tax payer. That's where income taxes go, to pay the interest on the loans. They didn't wait till the taxes came in to loan the money. Farmers home loans? Do you know what fiat money is?

Dave Strickland You live in the equivalent of a U.S. state. When you vote your vote goes into a far smaller pool of votes then does mine. You have a far more educated society then I live in. In a free market interest rates follow the economy NOT government decrees. You didn't even understand what I said and then you say I'm lying? Reread without your tinted glasses on. Wake up a little bit and realize that size of government and concentration of power has a huge influence on whether or not socialism will work. Neither socialism NOR the free market will work when central bankers are sucking our productive capacity like a tick sucking blood. They are parasites. Lied to? You little douchebag. Shove your rubbish up your arse. Socialism that you think is working for you is only working BECAUSE of fiat money. But the loans will come home and blow your shit up just like Europe.

Dave Strickland How about you start by showing me what part of what I said is a lie. How about you use your brain and your overwhelming genius to use my argument and pointing out what part is wrong. Here I'll help you. Tell me what part of this you don't understand or WHERE I'm wrong: "U think gov bureaucrats can plan were resources should go in the economy better then entrepreneurs who saved resources????? The reason why entrepreneurs are making mistakes such as the housing and nasdaq bubble was because of cheap money from central banking. Low interest rates encourage speculation rather then savings. " Go ahead I'll be waiting.

fucked Australia well said

911 WAS AN OUTSIDE JOB!

The Bentham Affair 2Many “debunkers” maintain the erroneous belief that the April paper by Harrit et al. has been debunked. This paper of course is titled “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe” and was published in the The Open Chemical Physics Journal on April 3, 2009. I will itemize the specious “proofs” below in order of comical absurdity along with their refutation:

Millette Chip Study Debunked and Buried: RIPWhen Dr. Millette´s preliminary report first saw the light of day in February 2012 - about 18 months ago - the JREF crowd heralded the report as the ultimate debunking of Harrit et al.(2009) who document the discovery of active thermitic chips in the WTC dust. When Rev. Chris Mohr delivered the report to his followers at the JREF 9/11 debunking forum, he announced that, “..the results will soon be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal”. But the report never made it to the publishing stage, and 18 months constitute enough waiting to confirm what we have suspected all along: Dr. Millette cannot publish the report.

Willy Whitten Is Benthem a peer reviewed journal?

+Willy Whitten The vital need of roads, fire departments, the police, the military, anything public and federal, anything payed for with taxes and provided for by the government, all that socialistic stuff, right?... Why should`t healthcare and education be part of that list? Doesn`t America deserve that?

Wow Venezuelans still have internet access!

I couldn't get pass the conflation of these because it shows a belief in false premises that will undermine everything else he says.

Lavache Beadsman Hi Lavache - he describes himself as a democratic socialist, which is why we thought speaking with Dr. Wolff would be such a good idea! We're glad people are finding it interesting

What??? Lol

Lavache Beadsman "He says some vaguely negative things about the banks, but also hasn't proposed any clear solution" That's not true. He wants to break up the major banks. I don't think you need to nationalize entire industries to be a socialist. This all sounds like a True Scotsman fallacy.

***** You misunderstand me. As mainstream US politicians go, I quite like Bernie. His advocacy for a single payer healthcare system alone earns him my vote.... My point is that leftists ought not to get too excited about him, just the same. He's not a socialist. Nowhere in there does it say anything about nationalizing industry to establish a social dividend that might truly liberate the working classes. Instead, we get more of this talk of "the 1%." And again, don't get me wrong: the rich SHOULD pay more taxes. But that's a matter of justice. The fact is, even a very severe wealth tax would not generate enough revenue to make a dent in income inequality. The numbers aren't there.... When I say that Bernie is "just another liberal," that's only because he is. Dodd-Frank addresses most of the things Bernie takes issue with against the bank, and what's more is that he doesn't specify what would be done to liberate the proletariat. He's a social democrat, NOT a democratic socialist. There's a difference.

Most people think he is really a social democrat, like Scandinavia and other countries which have a very good welfare system, but preserve a well regulated free market system. I think he is reliving his more radical youth.

mrsideshow You are awake, and that is refreshing. I just wanted to let you know that albeit we few, you are not alone. These poor people will most likely never wake up or see why free everything is evil. They will still be together and talking about how great it is going to be in their new homes that the socialists promised them while they march into the gas chamber and think (a little too late) ..."wait a minute... this is not the fancy new penthouse I was promised". I still hope that some of them will give up their selfish thoughts and wake up.

mrsideshow the internet, iphones and youtube... were all created using government subsidized research through DARPA. try again.

Really? I think you are confusing socialism with communism.

dharmayourkarma Well even if he was, what would the difference be? Communism (as seen in Russia) was simply a militant let's-get-it-done-quick take on socialism.

The last President that worked to expand high trust culture was Kennedy, who said: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." LBJ aimed to create what he called the Great Society. But instead he spread a culture of dependency on the state, and it has become worse and worse. Unfortunately, Bernie's plan are not affordable in the US, given the weak economy, falling tax collections, and the rise of the culture of dependency. A pity that the debates are not focused on these issues, so that Bernie could be encouraged to morph his plans in the direction of what is practical. That is what I would like to see.

Those sorts of changes have been suggested before, and never happened. My suggestion would be: bring the Troops home, cut defense spending by half, and cut it be half again. All these cuts may be great... but they are unlikely to happen. What is more likely if Bernie wins, is mopr spending, and a larger deficit. How do you think we got into this mess?

And overspending in reckless ways that ruined the "high trust culture" of the US. Discipline needs to be renewed across the board. And will be... probably after a bigger crash