So, as I indicated in the previous article about Bernie vs Williamson, I started reading this book, and was fairly impressed with it. Despite whatever ideological differences I have with sanders, I believe he's genuine and speaks with conviction, and that he knows what he's talking about in pushing his ideas.
Introduction
His introduction was very strong, and as I said, I almost didn't care that I had significant ideological disagreements with the guy. Although to be fair, he comes off as more moderate than his supporters, not really advocating for an end of capitalism, but significant reform in line with FDR's second bill of rights. My major deviation from that list, by the way, is the right to an income vs a right to a job. I believe people have a right to an income, but believe the right to a job is silly. I mean, jobs exist to do things, and just because we've created all of these layers of subjective social meaning around them does not mean that we should keep trying to prop up such a crappy institution in the first place.
Chapter 1
Chapter 1 discusses his campaign, how the democrats screwed him, and his heart attack. Bernie truly is a genuine guy, and the fact that unlike the rest of the party he doesn't just write off demographics that don't typically vote left is refreshing, in my opinion, being a dude who outside of my college education, should statistically vote republican. The democrats dont connect to mainstream americans a lot of the time because they're too urban (and even then big city urban, as opposed to blighted rust belt city urban), too focused on minorities and identity politics, blah blah blah. Their message doesnt resonate. But Bernie actually does make an appeal to reach other americans, and as an ex conservative myself, I respect that a lot. I'm very clearly drawn to anti establishment democrats like Bernie and Yang, who have these unorthodox messages and appeal to other demographics, as opposed to standard "team blue" politics.
I really didnt understand how bad his health situation was at the time. I remembered it wasnt even called a heart attack at the time. He had a stent put in, and that was that, he was back on the campaign trail. I didn't realize how much he had to work just to get back to where he was physically. Kind of concerning. But that's why we shouldn't be electing people nearing or are in their 80s any way. Same arguments we're hearing with Biden, really. But yeah. I respect him for how well he bounced back.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 he goes into his negotiations with the Biden administration and campaigning for Biden to stop Trump. People gotta understand, no matter how important ideology is to us terminally online people, a lot of these guys in Washington have relationships with each other, and tend to be friends outside of politics. And despite how polarized stuff gets online and in public, generally speaking, there is an air of civility and compromise among people in Washington. And that includes Sanders. Don't get me wrong, this is actually a good thing, unless you wanna go back to the days of "caning" people who you disagree with on the senate floor. I just dislike how circlejerky democrats are with this stuff sometimes.
And yeah, Biden did make a good faith effort to accommodate Sanders and his concerns. Granted, he kinds fails a lot of my own sniff tests, and that's perfectly justified for me, a voter to have such standards. Just because sanders and biden agree on things doesn't mean me, an outsider who votes based on conditions and optics, has to go along with that, but to be fair, I have noticed that Biden did fairly accommodate sanders in his build back better ideas, and he did do some progressive things, which is why i backed the dems in 2022 and am kinda giving Biden more soft balls than I normally would of establishment democrats going into 2024. The fact that Biden has, kinda sorta addressed some of my concerns is worth noting, and is being taken into consideration in my 2024 calculus.
Bernie also mentions how even before 2020 Trump was a major threat to democracy. I'm going to be blunt, until Jan 6th happened, I considered Trump's talk to be talk. He talks a big game, he's a sore loser. And I figured if he didnt really leave there would be people that could escort him out, in cuffs, if need be. But I really didn't think he could do what he did. The fact is, the dems have been crying wolf on trump for years. They screamed about him in 2016, they screamed about him in 2020. And that's what the democratic machine does. They make the case for the democrats....in part by going on about how the opposition is so bad and OMG WE CANT SURVIVE 4 YEARS OF THIS GUY. Well...we did. But given his actions upon leaving, I wouldn't wanna risk it again. There is some legitimacy to these complaints deep down, and that has been made loud and clear. I just didn't accept it because the dems were LITERALLY crying wolf over the guy since 2015, even playing pied piper tactics to elevate him to make the dems more electable by comparison.
Honestly, I've said it before and I've said it again. The dems really do need to work on their outreach. Like out here outside the beltway, all we see is a party screaming at the top of their lungs is that the opposition is so bad and is a threat to democracy, all while intentionally ignoring wide swaths of their voters, and refusing to acknowledge my concerns. When I look at the political environment surrounding elections. The obnoxious, intentional suppression of people like Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang, is more real and tangible to me, than any hypothetical threat from Trump. For me, the democrats were an immediate obstacle to my goals, using their position within the two party system to hold the system hostage and try to strong arm us to vote for them, rather than actually connect to people on the terms that connects with us.
And the same is true now in 2024. The dems are REALLY getting off on the wrong foot. And despite being open to support biden and not wanting to let trump (or desantis) anywhere near the white house again, the dems really are rubbing it in in a way that makes me wanna go "you know what, screw you guys." I'm talking about them voter shaming me for daring to see the world differently than them and being willing to vote differently. I'm talking about them aggressively trying to suppress Marianne Williamson's campaign in the crib and act like she doesn't exist. The dems really dont come off as arbiters of democracy despite all of their virtue signalling, because they aggressively suppress any left leaning choice that isn't them and tries to force us to support them regardless.
Quite frankly, for someone like me, they'd be better off just being honest actors, and you know, connecting with us in the way Bernie connects with us in this book. Really, let Bernie lay out his case and make it for us. He talked about being in meetings with scholars about ways trump might try to hold onto power. Why the frick wasn't any of this public for the rest of us? And let's be honest, voting democrat seemed like a bad deal, given the actions of the party was to ruthlessly suppress competition and then say we had to support them. If they did LESS of that crap and more of letting democracy speak for itself, and abide by its results, then maybe people like me would've been more able and willing to take them seriously in their screaming about trump being bad. But if all you have is trump bad AFTER basically suppressing all better alternatives, well, you dont really have much room to talk. Just saying. Anyway, that's all I'm saying on chapter 2. Onto chapter 3...
Chapter 3
Chapter 3, Bernie goes into Build back better and the congressional fights for Biden's agenda and how much of a crap show it was. And this is actually kinda why I'm kinda lenient on Biden. I know he wanted to do some progressive stuff. I love his climate plan, after checking out every alternative I could in the main stream political space. And he did some good things like $1400 checks and stuff. But....Bernie laid out a lot of the problems we all know and love, including the filibuster shutting everything down, the parliamentarian saying "WeLl We CaNt Do ThAt!!11!", and other members of congress, often being bought out by big money, just shutting crap down. How Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and sometimes others logjammed the entire process and how it just watered down the agenda.
And, I do appreciate Sanders laying blame where it belongs. I know during the Truman administration he had that thing on his desk that said "the buck stops here" and it was supposed to be this cool saying of saying that the president takes responibility and doesnt blame others, but i think that's just macho BS. Obviously, the blame should be laid where the blame deserves to go. Name and shame, my dude, name and shame. And name and shame he did.
Naming and shaming is important because if we want ANY stronger agenda, we need to identify the weak links in the process holding the tides of progress back and get rid of them. We need to primary people, we need more progressives in congress. We need to throw the corporate democrats onto their butts and replace them with democrats who vote the right way. And obviously make inroads with the republicans too.
This is actually why I'm respecting Biden. He still wanted to do far more than congress let him do, and the blame lies not with him, but with those elements of congress. Even if we had president bernie sanders, or marianne williamson, or andrew yang, we'd still ahve to deal with these corrupt elements of the process, and again, name and shame, so the voters can throw them out. If you cant pass your agenda, you gotta name and shame. What is a symbolic support for an oppositional presidential candidate going to do when the problem lies with congress and the courts? When Obama dealt with oppositional leaders in congress, I said that he needed to use the bully pulpit and go straight to the american people and say "give me a congress I can work with". Well, that's what Bernie does with this book. he has his agenda, he discusses, in detail, the process we took to get where we are, and I think we should use that info to lay the blame where it actually belongs. The reason I turned on the dems in 2016 and 2020 was they pulled this massive circlejerk of "We CaNt Do AnYtHiNg". TRY. THATS ALL I ASK. Bernie is blameless here. Biden, eh, hes a bit moderate for my tastes and fails a lot of my ideals himself, but he's still trying to a reasonable degree. The problem lies with congress. SO LET'S FREAKING BLAME THEM.
I'm to the point, we can worry about what comes next in 2028. In 2024, let's just keep the dems in power and expand their influence where possible, and if they end up screwing it up by alienating us progressives again, well, that's their own freaking fault. Onto chapter 4...
Chapter 4
In chapter 4 he started getting into policy and stated that "billionaires shouldn't exist". I kinda sorta agree with him, but at the same time not really. Like, the logistics of unregulated capitalism is such where some people end up poor and average income stagnates while the billionaires get so rich they literally make so much money that you could multiply your income by itself and they still might have a higher net worth. It's kind of messed up that this happens. And I understand it's a bit of a systemic issue. But for me, how we solve it is paramount. IN the past, we reduced income inequality significantly by taxing the rich at insane rates to force them to put their wealth into their companies instead. Unions and government regulation also kept a fair amount of relative income equality. My own ideas are a bit different, I'd tax the rich at laffer curve levels and provide a UBI. I wouldn't be opposed, in theory, to a wealth tax, estate tax, and other taxes bernie mentioned either. Although I often use those to fund things other than UBI such as healthcare, housing, or free college. Just in case why my UBI doesn't have a wealth tax in it. That tax goes toward healthcare in my ideas.
To some extent, a reasonable level of income inequality is important to me, because we we know, money is power. Having enough money to meet your basic needs without being coerced into work, is the only way that we can truly liberate the working class under capitalism IMO. And it isnt good for the rich to have virtually unlimited amounts of money, because after some point, it just leads to them having insane corrupting influence in society such as buying out politicians, as bernie would mention.
Like, I'm playing fallout new vegas, and i know that isn't a good analogue, but I've eventually gotten to the point that I've basically broken the game. I got like 64000 caps, and many gold bars from that horrid dead money DLC. I can buy anything in the game, and money is no object by this point. It's absurd. Another thing that also made me stinking rich was progressing in the story and then going all homicidal on the legion fort. The amount of caps I got from looting the legion is disgusting. I get high level guns that sell for like 6000 caps each, and ugh. Why bring this up? because when you start out the game, yuo start fairly poor. You get to new vegas, and passing the credit check of 2000 caps feels like a massive amount of work. Accumulating that much wealth as a new player is just difficult. But eventually i get to the point that 2000 caps is nothing. I could lose 2k caps and not even notice. Oh noes, i got 62k instead of 64k the horror. Anyway, that's what being a billionaire is like. Except the scale is even more broken. Again, multiply your income by itself, that's the amount of money we're talking about. Like...$50k*50k is...$2.5 billion. And jeff bezos is around 50x richer than that. It's disgusting.
However, if you notice something, Jeff bezos' net worth wouldnt even pay for my UBI. If I took his entire net worth and redistributed it to every adult citizen in the US, each would get like $500. Which is...significant for one person, but yeah. Obviously we need to tax more than just billionaires to get a UBI. At the same time, if we divided it by the amount of amazon workers in the US, we'd get like $80k. So yeah, maybe amazon workers do deserve a raise and maybe worker coops are a good idea. Maybe there is a valid point to the surplus value argument, when the value is on such absurd levels.
Now, despite Bernie's rhetoric, he actually isnt that socialist. Like calling for worker coops above or confiscating all of his wealth and redistributing it goes beyond what Bernie wants. bernie is still a "capitalist" by my metrics. He complains about unfettered capitalism, and his policies are relatively moderate compared to his online fanbase these days. Most of his solutions involve taxing the rich and paying for social programs...something I'm not opposed to. I mean, that's what my whole thing is. I'm just an extreme "welfare capitalist", even by Bernie's standards to some extent.
Like that's the weird thing, I feel like I'm more extreme than bernie, yet despite this, i get a lot of crap from the left simply for identifying as a human centered capitalist and not a "socialist." I swear, most of bernie's fan base online cares more about aesthetics than policy. They get so wrapped up over the word "socialism" and whether someone is a "socialist", as opposed to the policies they support. And that's actually a long term concern I have with his movement. I've watched his fan base radicalize from being reasonable in 2016 to being nutso in 2020 and beyond. ALl because they "read theory" and now want literal socialism.
It's wild, in some ways I am left of bernie in this book. I support most of his solutions here, AND I support a UBI funded by insane taxes that hit the rich the hardest in practice, AND i support worker coops in theory at least, and I always get crapped on for not identifying as a "socialist". It's insane. Bernie says "no one who works 40 hours a week should be in poverty", and I say "no one should be in poverty" period.
Anyway, I digress. But yeah, Bernie seems pretty reasonable and even moderate to me here, despite the bold statement about billionaires not existing. I dont think his ideas would end the idea of billionaires existing, and neither would mine. And that's fine. As long as the rich pay their fair share, and as long as we get income inequality down by unleashing the power of labor one way or another, I dont care if rich people exist. Like, I just want everyone else to have a piece of that, you know? Ideally in the form of a "dividend" or UBI. But also in terms of higher wages too, yes. On to chapter 5...
Chapter 5
Chapter 5 talks about healthcare, and here, he comes out swinging and sounding like me, going on about how the purpose of the healthcare system is to serve people and not rich billionaires, yet we have a system that serves rich billionaires. he also talked about how dysfunctional our healthcare system is and how it's a massive bureaucratic mess. He talks about wanting to expand healthcare, while cutting costs. He discusses how the student debt crisis is actually linked directly to healthcare issues as the price of healthcare is insane. He discusses how tying healthcare to jobs is a dysfunctional system that keeps people stick in jobs they hate. He talks about our declining life expectancy, how rich people tend to get the care they need while poor people don't, and how people can't afford healthcare in this country in general. it really is ridiculous. Then he goes on about how in many other countries these arent problems because they fixed them.
I know, I discussed a ton of that at once, and honestly, none of it is really much of a surprise to me, but I do enjoy when someone makes a thorough case for healthcare. And yeah, I agree completely in principle. I support medicare for all, generally speaking. Quite frankly the only thing pulling me in a more moderate direction is the costs after implementing a UBI, so I seek more mild plans such as medicare extra for all as a compromise.
But assuming you aren't trying to fund a $4 trillion UBI plan, medicare for all is based. ANd even if you do, it still could be seen as worth it as many of the costs are redundant and simply one thing replacing another for most people. The net benefit to Americans would be massive. And the savings in the system would be good too. Bernie estimated M4A would save like $600 billion a year in this book, that's like 15% of our overall healthcare costs. And honestly, if we ever got our spending down to like the rest of the world, we could be saving up to 40% or 1.6 trillion. Because let's face it, we spend 18% of our GDP on healthcare, and most countries currently spend 9-13%.
Bernie talked about how he would accomplish his medicare for all. Now, he didn't discuss funding numbers, we have that on his campaign site, but he talked about another important feature that was often criticized and that was rollout. Basically, Bernie wants to expand medicare for cover more stuff, eliminate out of pocket costs and then gradually lower the age. Every year, reduce it by 10 years. So if it's 65 this year, 55 next year, 45, the year after, etc. It's...not a bad plan. I mean, it's a way of doing it. And that's probably why Biden theoretically supported lowering medicare to 55, although he planned on stopping there.
Of course, medicare extra takes a different approach. It would consolidate medicare, medicaid, and other programs into a single program and then cover everyone on it. It wouldnt eliminate out of pocket costs, but it would tie them to income to ensure that people are paying reasonable amounts for healthcare, with the poorest citizens getting free care. You could argue it's not as extreme, but it IS a lot cheaper from the governmental standpoint, although it does outsource costs to the private sector. Anyway, either approaches are fine by me, it's just a matter of what works with UBI. I prefer M4A Bernie style in principle, but if I have to sacrifice on one priority or the other, I'm sacrificing on M4A and backing the public option model. My public option model is still way more aggressive than most of the 2020 candidates. It was closest to Harris's, and there was actually a debate about whether her plan was M4A or not. And that's kind of the thing with it. It opens up the possibility to expand it to a proper M4A system later, but it doesn't HAVE to be. It's a choice. And for me, it really comes down to "can we afford it given what else I wanna do?" But I digress. Bernie is based on this topic.
Chapter 6
Chapter 6 switches to talking about workers, and it is called "which side are you on", which is a clear reference to the old union song with the same name. This chapter was...frustrating to me. Because this dude is so close to getting it, but then jobism gets in the way. He uses language and rhetoric I would about how under capitalism people hate their jobs and are subjected to this inhumane process and have no control over their lives, and he talks about how under this form of capitalism people don't have real freedom, but then he just...goes in his weird jobist direction, going on about how most people wanna work and it provides meaning and dignity to their lives and blah blah blah.
No dude, no. You are SO CLOSE, but you miss it. One section is called "unfettered capitalism will never make work humane"....uh, unfettered capitalism is a problem, but socialism, unions, whatever are mere band aids. The only way to make work humane is to give people freedom as the power to say no, not just to any job, but all jobs.
Anyway, I do wanna quote many things from this chapter and respond, so here I go:
Work has
the potential to make us happy and satisfied, or depressed and anxious. The
real debate is not about whether people will work or not. The real debate is
whether we will be able to say, “I want to go to work” rather than “I have to
go to work.”
and the only way to guarantee that is to give people the ability not to go to work. Which I provide, but Bernie does not.
I don’t pretend to understand everything about human nature but I
believe that, very deep in the souls of most people, is a desire to be a part of
their community and to contribute to its well-being. People want to be
productive and have a positive impact on the lives of their families, their
friends, their neighbors, and, ultimately, on their country and their world.
Work is a manifestation of this desire. That is true for a janitor. That is true
for a teacher. That is true for the president of the United States.
For most Americans, holding a job is about more than “earning your
keep.” Human beings crave that sense of accomplishment. It gives them
self-respect and a deep satisfaction that they are integral parts of their
communities.
I'm gonna try to deconstruct this crap the best I can, but let's be honest. This is just a bunch of well meaning BS. It's the whole "but but people wanna work!", uh...you're not really allowed, scoially speaking, to say you don't. Because that's being "lazy", and being "lazy" is one of the worst things you can be in society. Not wanting to work, in our society, is a sign of a moral failure with that person. A good work ethic is akin to godliness, sloth is one of the seven deadly sins. We're living in the shadow of protestant christianity and it's insane work ethic, and this work ethic secularized is what makes the american work ethic what it is. Much of the rest of the industrialized world has a work fetish too, but at least they seem to realize people work to live, in America you live to work. And that's fricking backwards. So I'm gonna say what I believe a lot of us know deep down but don't have the courage to say. I don't want to work. I want off of this crazy train. If you guys wanna waste your life working, fine, but I would consider myself "too good" for that. I don't mean this as a knock on workers or to say Im better than most workers. I'm not. We're all humans and all inherently equal. BUT....if you HONESTLY believe that you work is a good thing and you wanna structure your life around it, I believe you've internalized some serious propaganda. As I see it, americans are a society of people conditioned to be slaves that seem to be employers for the right to work for them, and it's sick.
All of this stuff about work being good and great and a matter of social meaning and blah blah blah, is all social conditioning. We set up society and our social structures to define meaning and value around work, and we have a culture where we shun people who don't want to work. It's actually very messed up and very inhumane, if you're one of the people who is actually honest with themselves about this nonsense.
A job has to be more than just a job. As a U.S. senator and a candidate
for president I have traveled to workplaces in almost every state in our
country. Along the way, I have visited with thousands of workers from all
walks of life. What I’ve learned is that yes, of course, workers want good
wages, good benefits, and good working conditions. But I have also learned
that working people want more—something that most of them are not
getting today. They want dignity. They want respect. They want a voice in
the decision-making process. They are human beings and they want to be
treated as human beings.
And again, a lot of that is deeply cultural. I'll tell you what i want. I WANT FREEDOM. I want to be left alone, I want to be treated not for what I do, but inherently as a human being. I dont care about work. Screw work. I wanna be left alone to do my own thing. But the second I suggest this, I'm told I'm selfish and lazy and it's not fair other people have to provide for me. In a society governed by the principles I support, people would be free to live as they want, and to self actualize how they want.
The worst thing about dealing with other people, for me, is the people. They have their own little norms and moral compasses and circlejerks that they use to judge other people, and i wanna be free of that. The worst part about work, jobs, whatever, is in part, other people. Being subject to their whims, and their own moral standards that I don't agree with. Quite frankly, I view being subjected to this system as a form of spiritual violence. Bernie ironically has a quote about this too:
The sad reality is that there are many millions of Americans who not
only feel powerless as regards their work but are in jobs they actually hate.
It’s painful to get up in the morning and go to work. They do it for the
health care. They do it just to survive. They know they’re exploited but they
have no alternative. Their lousy job impacts their health and their selfworth. They would like to be able to say, “Take this job and shove it.” But
the economic reality is that they can’t. They need the paycheck.
Dostoevsky was profoundly correct when he wrote, “If one wanted to
crush and destroy a man entirely, to mete out to him the most terrible
punishment, all one would have to do would be to make him do work that
was completely and utterly devoid of usefulness and meaning.” And that,
tragically, is what life is like for millions of Americans. They feel crushed
and destroyed by their jobs. They have no hope for their future.
Uh....DUH! And that's how I feel. I am going to be blunt, I am basically an absurdist and a nihilist on the concept of meaning. THERE IS NO MEANING, MEANING IS BULLCRAP! But...then these do gooder authoritarians want to try to subject me to their moral systems and impose their ideas on me. And to me, that feels like spiritual violence. Jobs feel to me, like sisyphus rolling a rock up a hill. Not only is it forced on me, but it feels pointless. At my level of spiritual and moral development, a normal day job feels like slavery.
I wanna give a couple quotes from Karl Widerquist's books on this subject, as a counterpoint, to bernie's pitch here.
Eventually, a band of philosopher-legislators
starts a nonviolent, democratic revolution. They take over the Big Casino and rebuild it
as the Big Cooperative in which everyone works together for democratically chosen
goals. They intend to build a democratic Big Cooperative that distributes its products
fairly according to what they believe to be an ethically sound theory of social justice,
which might be equality of income, the difference principle, welfare egalitarianism,
resource egalitarianism, meritocracy, or one of many others.
Unfortunately, the philosopher-legislators find that the gambling tables are infused into
every part of the economy and that removing them is costly. Although removing some
casino elements is purely beneficial, removing many of the casino elements either
decreases the economy’s ability to turn effort into welfare or decreases freedom (by
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decreasing the choice of goals and actions available to individuals). They find also that
no possible structure eliminates the casino element. Even a system of strict
egalitarianism, in which everyone does identical work for identical rewards, implies
good luck for those who like that work for those rewards and bad luck for those who
don’t. And even that ideal is imperfectly achievable. The philosopher-legislators have
to make tradeoffs. The Big Cooperative prohibits many of these things people did in
the Big Casino, to the resentment of everyone who liked to do those things, and to the
benefit of many who were burdened by those things, but no matter what they do, the
Big Cooperative is still, in part, the Big Casino.
Not only do the philosopher-legislators have to decide what goals to pursue; they have
to decide which of the casino elements to trade off for the purpose of achieving their
conception of fairness. To some extent the Big Cooperative still rewards luck and
irrelevant characteristics, and still stacks the deck in favor of the
House. However, the democratically chosen philosopher-legislators decide that the Big
Casino is good enough and fair enough for everyone who does not want to starve to be
obliged to work for it. No one has access to the resources they need to maintain their
existence unless and until they work for the Big Cooperative. Depending on its rules
and your luck you might eventually be able to earn your independence in several years;
or it could take a lifetime.
Unfortunately, you are one of the people who don’t fit in. Perhaps the Big Cooperative
is meritocratic, and you’re an egalitarian. Perhaps it’s the other way around. Whatever
the goals of the cooperative project, they are not your goals. You don’t like the work,
the terms, the rewards, your place in the hierarchy, or the lack thereof. If you can’t
command better terms, you’d like to be left alone. You go to see the Cooperative
Complaints Review Board, but ahead of you in line is one of the people least advantaged
under the old Big Casino regime.
The review board tells the least advantaged person, “Congratulations, you are no longer
exploited! You would have been right not refuse to participate in the old
Big Casino. But the New Improved Big Cooperative Casino is reasonably fair and
shares its fruits with you. All jobs are good jobs. Your reasons for wanting to quit have
all been eliminated.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t tell me, as a disadvantaged person, that I’m no longer exploited.
I’ll tell you. You show me the jobs, and I’ll tell you when they are good enough.”
The Cooperative Complaints Review Board replies, “We’re not interested in your
individual opinion of justice; we’re interested in true justice. We’ve made the
determination in terms of abstract, objective principles of social justice that have been
endorsed by the democratic process. We’ve imagined what your perspective is like and
we’ve given your position top priority as we formulated the imaginary contract upon
which the Big Cooperative Casino is based. We created a list of great job opportunities
for you to choose from. Therefore, you must choose one of them.”
“If you’re so much on my side, why do you want to force me work for you just as much
as the bad guys did? If you really want to help me, why not let me decide?”
“Society is based on mutual obligation. Now that you’re exploitation has been
eliminated, you have a duty to reciprocate to others. We appreciate your
disadvantages, but if you won’t participate, you must just be lazy.”
Seeing how things went for your less advantaged brethren, you drop your case. You
find that, like the Big Casino, the Big Cooperative doesn’t directly force you to serve.
If you don’t want to serve, the Big Cooperative will leave you alone, but without food
and without a place to sleep at night. If you want to be left alone with enough resources
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to build a decent life for yourself and to follow your own goals, you have to fulfill their
understanding of your obligation to serve their goals first.
You cannot ignore the Big Cooperative any more than you could ignore the Big Casino.
You are not free. You are not free to pursue your own goals until you have made it in
the interest of the Big Cooperative to part with enough property to let you be
independent. The laws of the state say that you are a free person, but the property rights
structure and system of social duties enforced by the state force you to serve at least
one member of the ownership group; the laws effectively put you into involuntary
servitude. The philosopher-legislators represent the majority and act on what they
believe to be fair principles; but they are not you, and you are still bound to their service.
You neither agreed to the decisions that brought about these circumstances, nor are you
allowed to decline the role ascribed to you in this situation. You are still unfree. Your
position neither follows from nor preserves your freedom.
The revolution failed to make you free because it failed to deal with the root cause of
your unfreedom in the Big Casino—propertylessness. When resources are owned
(privately or publicly), individuals without property are obliged to work for at least one
member of the group that controls property before they can achieve even their bare
subsistence, much less a decent life. Whether that group is a capitalist class or a
democratic majority, you are its subject. As long as there are people without access to
enough resources to maintain independence, there will be people who are unfree.
THis passage is from Karl Widerquist's "Independence, propertylessness, and basic income: a theory of freedom and the power to say no." It is from the introduction, which is called the big casino. It starts off by describing capitalism as a big casino that you dont technically HAVE to participate in, but that you're effectively forced to serve due to lack of alternatives. And then it had THIS passage, about socialists coming in and trying to change the game and make it more just.
But, the socialists just miss the point. They impose a NEW system on people, which is no more just than the last, and when pointing this out, the person who JUST WANTS TO BE LEFT ALONE basically has the system imposed on them and tells them that the system is just now and they dont have any right to refuse.
That's nonsense. And this is what's fundamentally wrong with Bernie's message.
Bernie is so close, talking about how we're not free under capitalism, and the tyranny of work, but his exegesis is just fundamentally off. And this is the problem that most "anti capitalists" have these days. Hell, it's the problem r/antiwork has at this point, given its more mild direction and descent into bog standard "leftism" after Doreen was forced out.
Leftists talk a big game about capitalism, but they fail to understand that the core problem with capitalism is the coercion. I don't want "better work". I want NO WORK. I dont want full employment, which bernie explicitly calls for (quote: "America Needs a Full-Employment Economy"), i want to move in the direction of full UNemployment, as John Bentley would say (and whose approach to the subject is the basis of my own).
Now, despite calling for a JOBS GUARANTEE, which is the polar opposite solution I call for, he does have some good arguments. he talks about how the reason the economy went to crap since the 1980s was the destruction of unions. But I say, what would do more to give people the power that unions had on an individual level, but a UBI? A UBI could be seen as a universal strike fund for unionists giving people more freedom and flexibility to hold out for better working conditions.
I mean, I'm going to be honest, there's a lot of this chapter where Bernie almost gets it, but him, along with other old school lefties, just seem to miss that one crucial ideological difference. Bernie is 90% of the way there, and has a lot of strong rhetoric that remind me very strongly of my own. But then there are times when he just...misses the point. Again, it's because leftists like him have a bad exgesis of the problems under capitalism, and their views are outdated. If work is a necessary evil, then work is a necessary evil. But work is a means to an end, not an end in itself, and the purpose of work is to make things that we need, not to give people purpose. Any purpose derived from them is secondary to their core purpose.
I'd say Bernie and I agree that the economy should work for people, not the other way around, but we fundamentally disagree on the question of work. I say work is a means to an end, not an end in itself, and he still believes it is an end in itself. Bernie uses the language of human centered capitalism and even market socialism at times, but then he just ends up dropping the ball much like Yang, we have much different views on work.
To be fair, I agree with Yang more on solutions, but Bernie has still influenced my policy. But this is that one area where we have a fundamental difference in ideology, despite whatever other overlap we have.
Chapter 7
In chapter 7, I continue to litigate the issue of the value of work and find myself with some fundamental disagreements with Bernie here. He basically goes andrew yang here and talks about the future of work, but he seems stuck in his dated way of thinking.
Don't get me wrong, he has a lot of interesting solutions here, a robot tax (sadly he wants to use the money to fund job retraining rather than a UBI), 32 hour work week, and worker cooperatives, but still, this guy's fixation on work tends to be his downfall. he's still stuck in that old socialist/labor tradition where he seems more fixated on siezing the means of production and workers being in charge and blah blah blah. And I'm more like, screw work.
Now, to be fair, he has some good points. Like, long term if we do transition away from work, we probably will need to shift to some form of socialism in order to stop our system from just going full oligarchy. And he basically proposes the same mechanisms that I've supported on that front like codetermination.
But...despite our similarities, I really think we just have fundamentally different ideas on work. I think he kinda sorta realizes that work is basically de facto slavery as he sold his 32 hour work week on the idea of giving workers "more freedom", but I wish that he went all the way on that.
Chapter 8
In this chapter, Bernie talked about education. He discussed free college, but pointed out that there was a lot more to his plan than that, and he talked about a bunch of other small fixes to implement on the system. I have no real feelings either way, but they seemed good to me. One that did stand out was his stance on how to fund education. We tend to fund it through local taxes in our country, and that is a huge reason it leads to such unequal outcomes. poor areas get little revenue leading to bad schools, rich areas get lots of revenue leading to good schools. And the cycle continues. He envisions moving to a system like finland which provides more work life balance, and also has a philosophy of all schools being good schools.
Bernie also talked about the value of education in molding good citizens. And this nails it on the head. I know some others like Yang dont value free college because it won't lead to better EMPLOYMENT outcomes, but education is important to make us into good citizens. We have a severe ignorance problem in the US and education would help fix that. I mean, keep in mind, statistically I should be a trumper and I grew up conservative, but here I am. Education works.
Chapter 9
This chapter should be required reading for like everyone. Here he talks about the media and corporate media control. He discusses a lot of the difficulties he had with getting taken seriously and how debate moderators asked him loaded questions and stuff, and yeah, it's a lot of the same stuff I talked about on here. Corporate media is a joke. They exist to protect the establishment and have strong ties to them.
Bernie talked about the concentration of ownership of media, and how that poses problems, and how local media is dying, and how that causes problems. He talked about wanting to subsidize local media to keep it viable, and organize it into a worker cooperative model to make it more democratic. Being a socialist (and the good kind of socialist), he really does want to democratize a lot of our institutions. And I know I crap on socialism a lot on here and how its overprescribed for everything, I AM open to the kinds of socialism Bernie talks about here. If anything, he's proposing just about the only models I think have potential to work. And while I don't always see eye to eye with him, I respect him a lot.
Between chapters 8 and 9, I really think he hit an undercurrent of America's current problems that is missing from Yang's analysis and that whole philosophy I normally drift toward inherently, and that is how uneducated our citizens really are. As I said in my chapter 8 reaction, Yang, in deemphasizing free college, tends to gloss over how higher education is important in molding people into good citizens and how many of our problems stem from collective ignorance. Chapter 9 really continues to hammer this point home, as corporate media control shapes how americans think and keeps them in the dark. I mean, I know a lot of people think I'm an arrogant butthole for suggesting most Americans don't know what they're talking about and how their opinions don't matter much (especially in regard to how this tends to favor establishment candidates and narratives), but it really is true. The media shapes how people think, and what the acceptable range of options are. And the reason to mainstream normies I probably sound really out there, is because they literally have been brainwashed not to think as I have. BUT, having gone through my various existential crises in life, I have shed these traditional ways of thinking and left "the cave" and that's why I tend to think as I do. I mean, I really did deconstruct virtually every belief I've had that I'm aware of and challenged them, and rebuilt my entire perspective from the ground up.Most people have never done that. it's like most people use MS edge and here I am running some highly customized browser with tons of functionality most people don't have the wherewithal to understand. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here. if anything, I want to share this knowledge, which is why I made this blog. And I really do have to highlight what Bernie is saying in these two chapters. This man be spitting. He gets it. He understands the big problem we have is that our perceptions of reality are controlled by relatively few people, these people don't have our interests at heart, and they tend to control how we think.
Chapter 10
In his final chapter, Bernie summarizes his vision for change. He calls for a new type of politics that revolves around working people and democracy, and then he outlines some solutions. I will admit, he seems a bit high minded here as many would require a constitutional amendment to accomplish, but I can't say he's wrong. To discuss each briefly:
Get money out of politics- This would require either taking over the courts to overturn Citizens United or a constitutional amendment. It's something that needs to be done, but it's something not even Yang would tackle because of the difficulties of doing such things. I support it in principle but think it's difficult to accomplish in practice.
Guarantee voting rights- Basically, pushing back against republican efforts to do the opposite. There are ways we can do this. I wouldnt mind universal voting registration and automatic mail in ballots and stuff like that.
Make the constitution relevant to the 21st century- I mean dont get me wrong, our constitution is WAY outdated and problematic, but in practice this would be difficult. And if we did ever hold national hearings on rewriting it, I could imagine the right giving us an even more flawed and messed up document in its place.
Abolish the electoral college- I support in principle but difficult to accomplish in theory. Also, needs to go further, one thing that annoyed me was I didn't see Bernie advocating for ranked choice voting here.
Rethink the US senate- I mean, yeah, we should. It's a stupid and outdated concept.
Rethink the supreme court- here I would toy with the idea of 18 year terms combined with staggering appointments every 2 years to ensure a constant rotation of justices. Having these unelected people there for up to 40 years is way too long. Especially given how the only public pressures they seem subject to are rich donors subsidizing their lifestyles (see: clarence thomas).
Revitalize american media- He focuses a lot on the media desert thing. I think we need to embrace online as a new wave of media and be more open with platforms to give people more choice.
End all forms of bigotry- good luck with that. I know that this is often pushed but i think to some extent this is human nature. I think focusing on equal rights under the law and legal protections is better. Bigotry is often a heart issue, and while we should teach people to not be discriminatory, I think ultimately some people inevitably will be. The point is, however, to keep such "personal values' out of the public square where it doesnt influence policy.
Treat workers rights as human rights- Dont get me wrong, I agree, but his solutions are a bit dated for me. We need to stop thinking of people as "workers" and treat them as people. We need a society where work is a means to an end, not an end in itself, and we strive to liberate the working class from working.
Democratize the future of work- I mean, he has a lot of interesting ideas here. If I learned anything from his book, it's the fact that yeah, as we transition from work we need to democratize our institutions to keep them accountable. I do support some mild forms of "socialism" here, like Bernie often proposes. I just dont see them as the end all be all of everything.
Healthcare is a human right, period- Right on, Bernie. I admit I'd be ok with a public option but we'd still accomplish even with a strong public option with universal opt in. This or single payer are both worth mentioning. The question is which one fits better with our overall policy direction. I may have some disagreements with bernie here as he doesn't embrace UBI.
A new business model for the pharmaceutical industry- I mean, yeah. I often hear from people who defend capitalist healthcare that without it businesses wouldnt have money to invest in new cures and progress would stagnate. But then we just gave the industry billions to make a COVID vaccine for us and suddenly we're privatizing it and allowing them to make billions off of it. I support public investment in healthcare. But I also support healthcare being public. Really I think the way we handled covid shots was a good model for what all healthcare could be. You just show up, show some ID, fill out some forms, and BOOM, free care baby. Or very cheap and affordable.
Protect our children- Nah he's not pulling a Mrs Lovejoy here but talking about ending childhood poverty and giving people parental leave and stuff. I agree. Although i kinda feel like bernie acts somewhat like a means tester in how he focuses on the working class, and children, and the elderly in this last chapter. We need universal stuff for EVERYONE. NO ONE should be insecure economically. PERIOD. Bernie tends to kinda shy away from pushing that, and I kinda find it to be problematic, as this is a huge difference in our philosophies.
Protect the elderly and disabled- Sure, but protect everyone.
Social security benefits must be increased- uh, my UBI does just that, dude.
Provide affordable housing for all- basically we need to build more housing and he talks about public land trusts. I approve generally speaking.
Make billionaires pay taxes- Sure
We must save the planet- Yes, yes we need to. Although we may differ somewhat in approaches due to our fundamentally different ideas for work.
Honestly, going over this section of the book, I kind of realize how different I am from Bernie at times. In political reform we think similarly, but I tend to be closer to yang in solutions. Same with economics. We need crap like ranked choice voting and UBI, which are absent from this book. I think a lot of bernie's ideas are good, but some might be a bit too difficult to accomplish in ANY reasonable political environment as many would require massive supermajorities to pull off. I think yang focuses on much more immediately doable solutions. Heck his forward party is already working on his solutions at the state level in many states. I might disagree with him over how he removed UBI from his platform there, but on political solutions, yeah. I find yang's approach a bit more refreshing.
On economics, I'd say Im split between bernie and Yang. I did mention above I feel like yang neglects stuff like reforming education and the media at times, and I think bernie does a better job there. But at the same time, bernie is stuck in this old "working class" mindset where he's too focused on socialism and the future of work, when for me, my vision for the future is closer to yang's human centered capitalism, but with a more anti work bend where work is less central to our lives. Bernie, on the other hand, is stuck in the old left which is stuck thinking about things in terms of the labor theory of value (implicitly here) and how we need more and better paid work and blah blah blah. I fundamentally disagree, my dude. If anything, one thing that irks me about reviewing a lot of literature about the future of work is that more books and writers dont openly embrace a future of less work. Even Yang, and a lot of the UBI supporters tend to struggle with the concept. It's frustrating seeing how I seek, in the long term, the abolition of work, although in the short term I'd focus on just less and more voluntary work.
From then on he tackles another issue that is close to my heart, and that is the state of the democratic party. He envisions the democratic party as I want it to be, back to its working class roots, and not writing off people in rural areas or people they dont fit into their demographics statistically. Really, I cant tell you how offputting I find the dems at times. Im TRYING to work with them in good faith this time, and then I come across insufferable dem apologists and biden bros that make me just wanna be like F U F U F U F U! Like, really, I DESPISE these people. They are so offputting and the dems have a major image problem, he skewers the democrats good for kind of doubling down on their failed 2016 strategy and how they need to embrace FDR more. THis dude sounds like 2015 me, as at the time, I spoke in the same terms about how we needed a new new deal and the democrats had to embrace FDR. Instead the dems are focused on winning over upper class suburbanites. I understand the logic, but to just write off rural people and people who dont normally fit into the party (like white men) completely is really a problem with modern politics. I genuinely wanted to come over after 2012 and at first I felt at home, but the dems really do have an impeccable knack for alienating the everloving crap out of people. Bernie has similar stories yang had, where when he said he was a democrat peoples' tones changed with him, because the democrats never did anything good for them. He also points out how the republicans have swooped in with a politics of resentment (quite frankly both parties use identity politics to create resentment politics toward various identity groups that dont normally associate with their parties). As I like to say, unless the democrats can push a strong economic vision that appeals to everyone, they're gonna lose as people remain divided.
He mentions, though, that as tempting a third party is, right now we gotta focus on reforming the democrats, especially as the alternative right now is fascism. I...begrudgingly agree. The GOP has gotten too dangerous where working within the dems, despite their institutional screwery, is going to be better than going third party. Normally I'd say, with the way the dems are, that we need a third party, but given that the two party politics of spiralling lower standards has gotten so bad the dems can actually say "vote for us or you get the fascist"....eh...even I have to be like...yeah...ok. DOn't get me wrong, I HATE this, and I HATE that we're here and that the problems were allowed to get this bad, and the dems did a good job digging this hole, but at this point, it literally is we back the dems or risk the destruction of democracy altogether. So sadly, I have to begrudgingly support Bernie here.
And let's face it, with Yang, as much as I like ranked choice voting, his forward party is...kind of a joke. And I've kinda soured on alternatives to democrats in recent years too. The greens are to bernie's left and too extreme for me (Bernie/Yang are about where I'm at), and forward just recreated what i hated about the democrats in the first place.
So...yeah. We need to focus on the democrats this election cycle. I'll support williamson in the primary, as she's running on bernie's ideas, but in the general, I'll likely just back biden if/when he wins.
Overall thoughts
Overall, I thought his book was pretty good. I've heard a lot of criticisms about it. First I heard that Bernie is like a dinosaur and that he pushes the same old solutions and blah blah blah. I have to admit, I kind of agree. Bernie has a lot of good ideas, but I'm going to be honest, I've distanced myself from his politics in the past few years, and shifted closer to where Yang was in 2020. Still, Bernie does have some ideas Yang lacks, and he has that fiery passion that defines my own politics that yang, quite frankly, doesn't have. But yes, on the ideas of the future of work and jobs at least, he's a dinosaur stuck in the 1930s. he has a lot of good ideas and I have a lot of positive things to say about him, but yeah, I will agree to disagree with him at times. The second criticism I heard was that he sold out because he encouraged people to work with the democratic party. But honestly, I feel like Bernie kind of towed that line perfectly. I mean, he's an outsider, he's anti establishment, and I liked how he discussed the details of negotiations in washington and wasnt afraid to name and shame and propose his own bills and stuff. Bernie is kind of how I wish all democrats were, how they actually fight for their ideas as they're able. Even if they need to compromise at the end of the day, they tried, and that's all I ask. I guess the problem with the leftists criticizing him here is they aren't happy with that, they want him to lead a revolution outside of the party against it. Which...again, if the dems arent willing to listen, I see the point they make, BUT....sadly since 2016 politics has gone in a direction where the GOP is once again regaining their footing and morphing into something even more dark and evil, while the democrats are kind of the victims of their own decisions and kinda need a bailing out right now, or we will be going in dark places. So...I understand where Bernie is coming from, and it's the same place I'm coming from in recent months.
Beyond that, I feel like this book was pretty solid. he outlined his vision, his worldview, his experiences, and it was very solid. I dont always agree with the guy, but I respect him far more than most in politics. I think he's doing the best he can. I just wish he was a bit more yang like. Like, sorry Bernie, but ideologically, I've shifted more toward Yang's 2020 platform in the past few years, and I'm more in line with his human centered capitalism than Bernie's democratic socialism. Even though in reality, despite the rhetoric and some different policy solutions, both are very much the same and have that same humanist quality I resonate with. I just chalk up the ideological disagreements as some legitimate policy differences between the two approaches. I still respect the dude and consider him a major influence of my own politics.
And yeah, that's my overall thoughts.
