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Welcome, friends, to Economic Update Extra. This is where we continue the conversations or interviews from the program that ended at the end of a half an hour and that now continues for those of you in the Patreon community that have access to it. This time we were talking about how politics in the United States supports, sustains, reproduces capitalism over time. And we pointed out that the Republicans and the Democrats oscillate back and forth depending on whether the biggest problem is the tax burden put on the middle to support the folks at the bottom or the suffering of the folks at the bottom. Whichever one is more dangerous to the system, that's the one that gets taken care of. If the middle class is rambunctious about having to be taxed to take care of those at the bottom, what? Well, then the government goes to the Republicans. If those at the bottom are more rambunctious and angry, well, then the government goes to the Democrats and it goes back and forth. And it's really neither the Democrats nor the Republicans that save capitalism. It's the very oscillation between them. Both of them are devoted to reproducing capitalism in different ways. And so which one of them gets the nod depends on which way is the more urgent the to keep the system going. Well, then, what would it mean to think about a politics that opened this space for more options than what Republicans and Democrats give us? Well, that's another way of saying what are the possibilities of a political party, a political movement that would have as its objective not saving capitalism from its rough edges, its failures, its problems, but rather responding to those failures and problems by changing the system. In other words, if we were going to talk about a transition from capitalism to socialism or something like that, what would be the politics of how that got done? I think we can pick up the story of what we discussed on the regular program in this way. Imagine a political party, unlike the Republicans and the Democrats, because in its founding documents, in its statement of what it's for and what it believes in, it says the following two sentences. One, we don't believe that capitalism is the best system that the United States could have. And the second sentence, we believe a transition to socialism would serve the people of the United States better. Since neither the Republicans nor the Democrats ever say such a thing or ever could. The answer is this is a new political party, whatever it calls itself, fundamentally distinguished by being in favor of, of a change of economic system. Well, let's see what that might look like and how such a party could grow. There is an alternative to the Capitalist system, an alternative, in other words, to the employer employee way of organizing the production of goods and services, which we talk about on Economic Update quite often. Whether it goes by the name worker self directed enterprise or or worker co op or many other names, it's basically an idea of organizing your economic system differently in a non capitalist way. And the difference is simple to describe. Instead of employers with all the power and the wealth gathering the profits into their hands and using them as they see fit, a minority, a small one at that is in a worker co op or a WSDE worker self directed enterprise, all the workers collectively, democratically, one worker, one votemake those decisions, they all together decide what to produce, how to produce, where to produce and what to do with the profits. Okay, that's an alternative system. It's not capitalism. It's changed. It would work differently. So what does a socialist party do and how could it grow? Well, the first thing a socialist party does is lay out the story I've just given you. We are a party that is committed to making a transition. And if you agree that a transition is something you would rather see than more oscillations between Republicans and Democrats both committed to reproducing to capitalism, then you should vote for us. If you are really excited, you should come and join us and work with us as an activist in the socialist movement or party or whatever the words are that this thing would call itself. Well, how would it grow? Well, it would grow actually, just like the Republican and Democratic parties once grew. It would go around, first of all, such a party and say to all the worker co ops that already exist in America and there are hundreds of them, if not thousands, we're your party. What we're going to do if we get to be elected mayor or governor or president is we're going to change the laws to make it easier for worker co ops to form. To make it easier for worker co ops to grow. We're going to have the government order things from worker co ops. By the way, where did these ideas come from that I'm explaining to you now? Because that's exactly what the capitalists did as they took over the government from the previous economic system. Feudal kings and things like that. Guess what they did? They elected people to office and got them to write the laws that are favorable for capitalism to grow, to provide the orders that are good for capitalist businesses to get to make. The school curriculums teach people that capitalism is the normal, best way of doing things, you name it. And capitalists have been working to this minute to get the government to help them, to support them, to reinforce them. And all this new party would do would be to say to worker co ops, we're here to do for you what the Republicans and Democrats have always done for the capitalists. And all we ask is a level playing field so that we can build the strength of the worker co ops to support us, just as the politicians of Republican and Democrat supported the capitalists who in turn support the Republican and Democratic party. It really isn't very complicated. Meanwhile, there will also be the appeal of this party that a transition like this, a movement in the direction of worker co ops as a basic part of the economy, if you like, a socialist sector of the economy, if you want to call it that, the movement in that direction can be articulated, can be supported by a political party with a simple argument. And it goes like if the United States is a place which believes in freedom of choice, then it should be a matter of choice for the American people as to whether they want a capitalist economic system or this socialist worker co op, democratic enterprise kind of system. And in order for the American people to be able to make that choice, they have to have in their daily life a way of thinking, about, seeing, inspecting, thinking about both of these two in order to make what we call an informed choice. So to support the socialist party I'm talking about is to support the creation first and foremost of a large worker co op sector with enough support and enough people in it to make the case for what it is about, to show you its virtues. Just as capitalists spend enormous amount of money telling you about their virtues, this other thing would tell you about its. Until we got to a point where there could actually be a choice, could be at the ballot box, a choice between the two pro capitalist parties, Republican and Democrat, and this new other party which has a different plan, a plan of transition to a different economic system. And then the outcome of the election could be, especially if we were committed to genuine freedom of choice, could be a decision made in America as to maybe you want a little bit of both. Maybe you'd like to have an economy that has a capitalist sector and a socialist sector. Having two different sectors is something societies have done in the past. It's not a new idea, it's not an impossible idea. Will there be conflicts between the two? Yes. Will they one day decide neither of them can live with the other? Maybe. But for a long time, in many historical moments, different systems have managed to coexist in the same world and often in the same country. I want to remind you, at the beginning of the United States, we had two different economic slavery in the south and something very different in the North. And that lasted for 75 years, might have lasted longer. There were special circumstances in this country that ended it, and there might be again special circumstances that end the coexistence of differences. But if we're committed to freedom of choice, if we want Americans to be able to have that, well, then a new political party devoted to something other than the capitalism we have is a necessity. It's also a response to a politics that has been very narrow in the United States. Republicans and Democrats have agreed, for their own reasons, to perpetuate their own political monopoly, that they can tolerate oscillations from one to the other. Democrats know that when they're out, within a few years they'll be in. And the Republicans know it too. They've worked very hard to make it virtually impossible for other political parties, even those that might support capitalism, to get a foot in the door. Many of you are interested, I know, because you write to me about it in the difference between the United States and Europe, in the way it organizes its politics. Europe has what's called proportional representation. Any political party can run, and it will get as many seats in the Parliament as it gets votes from the people. That's a way for small parties to begin. Small already have a voice, be able to stand in Parliament and shape the laws, be able to get attention from the media. We don't do that in the United States. We have what's called winner take all. If you win 51% of the votes, you get all the seats. And if you get 49% of the votes, you get no seats at all. That means small parties are out of the picture. That's an arrangement made for Republicans and Democrats to monopolize government for themselves and to keep out all the others. That's very good for capitalism because it means that the only real parties you allow are the pro capitalist parties. How different is that from the critiques we used to enjoy making of the Soviet Union for only having pro communist politicians. It's not that different at all. If we don't want that monopoly politics, if we want to open politics so it's more than saving capitalism from its own problems, then sooner or later we're going to have to face the reality of making a break out of our political staleness in this country, go beyond the limits of Republican and Democrat open politics. So there's really a political fight between what it ought to be, those who want to stay with capitalism and those who want to go beyond or do something different. That's a real political debate. That would really mean that we're engaged in making the decisions that are quite fundamental. And it would end the stale old politics where all most of us get to do is to choose which pro capitalist party we want to see in office, Tweedledum or Tweedledee. And being kind of caught between them, living in a society that simply goes back and forth between these two very undifferent political options. Thank you very much for joining with us today. I'm particularly grateful to our Patreon community for all your support, and I look forward to speaking with you again next week.