Is America still capitalist?

Summary

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Today, Explained – "Is America Still Capitalist?" (August 19, 2025)

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode, hosted by Noel King, explores whether the United States under President Trump’s second term is diverging from capitalism as traditionally understood. Using examples of recent economic interventions—like governmental involvement in major corporations, tariffs, and direct corporate pressure—the hosts and guests debate if America can still be described as capitalist, and what these changes mean for the nation’s economic future.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

What is 'Capitalism' in America? (02:28–04:03)

• Traditional Definition:
  Tracy Alloway (Bloomberg’s Odd Lots co-host) outlines "classic" US capitalism as private ownership, market allocation of resources, and government non-interference.
  • “A pure free market capitalist economy is probably something that has only ever existed in an economist’s textbook... For most of history, there has always been a role for government.” (03:36 – Tracy Alloway)
• Subjectivity & Complexity:
  The meaning of capitalism is debated, and people often have different interpretations.

Memorable Exchange:
"So it is like porn."
"You said it, not me."
— Noel King & Tracy Alloway, 04:03–04:07

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Trump’s Economic Interventions: Breaking with Tradition (04:07–08:27)

• Nvidia & Revenue-Sharing:
  The Trump administration now demands a 15% share of Nvidia’s revenue if it sells advanced AI chips to China.
  • “That kind of revenue sharing agreement for market access … pretty unusual when it comes to U.S. economic policy.” (05:01 - Tracy Alloway)
• Nationalizing US Steel – The ‘Golden Share’ Approach:
  The US government has taken a controlling stake in US Steel—a concept borrowed from China’s state-guided capitalism.
  • "The golden share … gives the US government a lot of corporate control … things like where are they going to move production or where are they going to be headquartered … that gives you total control." (06:20–06:39 - Tracy Alloway)
• Tariffs & Price Controls:
  Trump told CEOs not to raise prices after tariffs, suggesting companies “eat the tariffs” instead of passing costs to consumers—a direct intervention in market pricing.
  • “The fact that, you know, it’s kind of an emergency of Trump's own making in this instance … that seems pretty circular.” (07:52 – Tracy Alloway)

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Is the US Becoming More Like China? (08:27–11:20)

• Echoes of China’s State Capitalism:
  The hosts discuss how US policy increasingly resembles Chinese industrial policy, with broader state intervention and strategic sector targeting.

“Instead, what we’ve sort of seen is that the US is moving closer to China in a number of ways... It's not exclusively a Trump phenomenon... The Biden administration ... took on a much more active industrial policy role after the pandemic.”
— Tracy Alloway (09:29–10:10)

• Global Contextualization:
  Reference to the past assumption that China would "Americanize" economically, but instead the US is inching towards “Chinafication.”

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Potential Pitfalls: Overproduction and Market Distortions (11:20–13:20)

• Problems with State-Led Industrial Policy:
  China’s active government involvement led to massive overproduction (e.g., cars, solar panels, EVs—more than 100% of global demand) and underperforming businesses.

"If you look at the Chinese stock market … it has gone sideways for 20 years … because you have a lot of companies ... not necessarily doing so at a profit. There’s an overproduction issue."
— Tracy Alloway (12:25)

• US Risks:
  Overproduction, waste, and misdirected government incentives could become US problems if the trend escalates.

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A Socialist’s Take: Bhaskar Sunkara on State Intervention (17:42–27:03)

State Involvement: Principle and Practice

• Bhaskar Sunkara (The Nation, Jacobin):
  • Supports more democratic oversight of markets.
  • Believes state intervention is not inherently socialist or anti-capitalist—context and execution matter.
  • Historical examples show right-wing governments heavily intervening in markets (South Korea, Taiwan).

“I think we often frame the free market as a conservative ideal and state intervention as a socialist ideal. But history shows it’s really a lot more complicated than that.”
— Bhaskar Sunkara (18:51)

Concerns about Trump’s “Ad Hoc” Approach

• Laments lack of coherent, long-term strategy; Trump’s approach is characterized as whimsical favoritism.
  • “My worry with Trump’s approach is that it looks more like ad hoc favoritism and punishing some industries and subsidizing others at a whim and less like a long-term plan.” (20:39)

Tariffs & Industrial Policy: Double-Edged Swords

• Tariffs justified as an industrial tool, but effectiveness depends on clear strategy.
  • Praises Biden for using tariffs to stimulate job growth, criticizes Trump’s lack of planning.

“I think there's really a place for tariff in the toolkit of creating a viable economy… But in this particular case, I just can’t see the long-term plan behind Trump’s use of tariffs.”
— Bhaskar Sunkara (20:42)

Strongman Tactics: Populism vs. Sustainability

• Trump’s direct pressure on companies to placate consumers is appealing but unsustainable.

  • “I’m not impressed because I don’t think it's sustainable.” (22:16)

• Postulates that Trump can get away with strongman tactics because of the business goodwill he built.

  • Predicts a backlash if the left pursues similar tactics.

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Comparing Left and Right: Trump vs. Mamdani (23:53–26:14)

• Debate over whether both Trump and left-wing socialists (e.g., Zohran Mamdani) are converging on state intervention.
  • Sunkara insists approaches and goals are fundamentally different: Trump extends tax cuts and privileges to the wealthy; Mamdani wants to redistribute wealth, create public goods, and help working people.

"Trump is redistributing wealth from the bottom to the top ... Zoram Hamdani ... wants to invest more in public goods ... wants to raise the floor for working people."
— Bhaskar Sunkara (24:23)

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Final Assessment: Is America Still Capitalist? (26:02–27:10)

• The guests and hosts agree the US is undergoing significant changes, but Sunkara argues that Trump’s interventions are moving America away from both his socialist ideal and a classic capitalist model—reflecting a trend toward chaotic, self-serving economic policy that could have lasting consequences.

“Trump is taking us further away from my vision of a good society and further away from any vision of a socialist society. I think … he’s going to create a backlash that makes it harder for the left to use them [economic tools] in future as well.”
— Bhaskar Sunkara (26:18)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Defining Capitalism:
  “A pure free market capitalist economy is probably something that has only ever existed in like an economist's textbook.” — Tracy Alloway (03:36)
• On Trump’s Strongman Price Controls:
  “Don’t you dare raise prices. Truth, Social, Walmart and China, they should, as it is said, eat the tariffs and not charge value customers anything.” — Quoted via Trump, paraphrased by Noel King (07:03)
• On the China Parallel:
  "The US is moving closer to China in a number of ways." — Tracy Alloway (09:29)
• On Overproduction:
  "China alone is producing more than 100% of global demand for these products, flooding markets, undermining competition, putting at risk livelihoods and businesses around the world." — Bhaskar Sunkara (12:14)
• On State Intervention and Policy Consistency:
  “My worry with Trump’s approach is that it looks more like ad hoc favoritism … and less like a long-term plan.” — Bhaskar Sunkara (20:39)
• On Socialist vs. Trumpian Intervention:
  “Trump is redistributing wealth from the bottom to the top … Zoram Hamdani... wants to invest more in public goods." — Bhaskar Sunkara (24:23)
• On America’s Direction:
  “Trump is taking us further away from my vision of a good society and … any vision of a socialist society." — Bhaskar Sunkara (26:18)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Definition of Capitalism: 02:28–04:03
• Nvidia & Golden Share/US Steel: 04:27–07:03
• Tariff Price Control Case: 07:03–07:52
• Parallels to China: 08:27–11:20
• Overproduction Risks: 11:20–13:20
• Socialist Analysis (Bhaskar Sunkara): 17:42–27:10

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Conclusion

The episode provocatively questions whether the US remains a capitalist nation as its government becomes more actively involved in directing key sectors, using tools reminiscent of Chinese state capitalism. Although interventions are not new, their scale, style, and rationale represent a marked departure from recent norms. The conversation concludes with skepticism that America is moving toward socialism—rather, panelists see the country veering into uncharted, hybrid territory, raising concerns about the long-term impacts of erratic, personalized economic governance.

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Transcript

[Tracy Alloway]

Capitalism.

[Noel King]

Two years ago on Today Explained from Vox, we ran a series on Americans deep and growing frustration with capitalism. Everything comes with a price, even peace of mind. We wrestled with this long standing idea that there is no alternative to capitalism where many people still land. But recently a leader has come along and he has begun to question our system.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

I don't think that we should have billionaires.

[Noel King]

No, it's not Zoran, it's Trump. President Trump is making some of the most unfree market anti capitalist moves in recent memory, such as rating companies based on how loyal they are to his big beautiful bill. Or talking about taking a 10% share in Intel. Everything's computer or pressuring Coke to change its formula even though people like current Coke and happily pay green American dollars for it. Coming up, are we even still capitalist? Support comes from ServiceNow. We're for people doing the fulfilling work they actually want to do. That's why this ad was written and read by a real person and not AI. You know what people don't want to do? Boring, busy work. Now with AI agents built into the ServiceNow platform, you can automate millions of repetitive tasks in every corner of your business, it, HR and more. So your people can focus on the.

[Tracy Alloway]

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[Noel King]

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[Bhaskar Sunkara]

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[Noel King]

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[Bhaskar Sunkara]

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[Tracy Alloway]

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[Tracy Alloway]

Well, my name is Tracy Alloway. I am the co host of the Odd Lots podcast over at Bloomberg, one of my favorites.

[Noel King]

All right, we're going to talk today about the ways in which President Trump is intervening in the US Economy and we're going to ask you, is this still capitalism? But before we get there, let's define the term. What is capitalism traditionally meant in the United States?

[Tracy Alloway]

This is a seemingly simple question, but I think it's quite loaded in many ways, because people have this sense of, you know, classic free market capitalism. And it's one those things where everyone has a sort of different sense of what that actually means. I think there are some hallmarks around capitalism that we can look for. So things like private ownership of production. You know, the government typically doesn't own big industries or have state owned enterprises. You have things like market allocation of resources. So in a free market, buyers and sellers come together and decide what exactly they want, and that decision actually leads to allocation of resources. In something that is not so capitalist, you would have more intervention from the government. What I would say, though, is that a pure free market capitalist economy is probably something that has only ever existed in like an economist's textbook, because for most of history, there has always been a role for government to have in the economy. I would just caution free market capitalism. You kind of know it when you see it, but also once you start digging in, you realize that actually no one's really talking about the same thing here. Everyone has a different sense of it.

[Noel King]

So it is like porn.

[Tracy Alloway]

You said it, not me.

[Noel King]

All right, so let's talk about the ways in which President Trump seems to be breaking with the tradition. The thing that we know when we see. So one of the big examples is inserting the government into the business, the actual business of a preeminent American chip maker. What is going on with Nvidia?

[Tracy Alloway]

Yeah, so this is a really interesting thing. So Trump has basically directly, it seems, negotiated with Nvidia and is basically saying, if you want to export advanced AI chips to China, you know, a country that for all intents and purposes, America really seems to treat as an enemy economically, even though it is its biggest trading partner. But if you want to sell those advanced chips to China, you are going to have to give the US government 15% of your revenue. And I said, if I'm going to.

[Noel King]

Do that, I want you to pay.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

Us as a country something, because I'm.

[Tracy Alloway]

Giving you a release, that kind of revenue sharing agreement for market access that is pretty unusual when it comes to U.S. industrial policy or U.S. economic policy. And it really does look like a pretty dramatic expansion, I would say, of the leverage that presidents have over corporate transactions. And you can imagine, and we've seen it already, that in the future, big US Tech companies are going to have to take that kind of agreement into account when they're formulating their future business plans in a way that they didn't have to before. Right. Like, this is pretty new.

[Noel King]

There's also something afoot that has had even responsible people talking about nationalization or nationalizing a company. And that is what Trump is doing in the US Steel industry. What's going on there?

[Tracy Alloway]

This one is really interesting because this one you can kind of draw a direct connection between what the US Is doing now under the Trump administration and what China has been doing for some years now. So the US has basically said the government is going to take a stake in the steel company in or in US Steel in order to get this transaction done. And it's something called a golden share concept.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

We have a golden share which I control.

[Tracy Alloway]

And basically it gives the US Government a lot of corporate control when it comes to decisions that are made for the company. So, you know, things like where are they going to move production or where are they going to be headquartered, stuff like that, that gives you total control.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

It's 51% ownership by Americans.

[Tracy Alloway]

And the reason it's such an interesting parallel with China is because the golden share concept has existed in China's sort of call it state guided economy for many, many years now. This is something that is very, very normal in China and not necessarily normal in the US until very recently.

[Noel King]

So some of these flew by me in an academic sense and I was like, oh, that's very interesting. And I would like to read a few more articles and sort of make up my mind. But there was one that I kind of can't get over personally. And it is when everyone was expecting that prices would go up because of tariffs. And President Trump just kind of came out and told CEOs like, don't you dare raise prices. Truth, Social, Walmart and China, they should, as is said, eat the tariffs and not charge value customers anything. I'll be watching and so will your customers.

[Tracy Alloway]

Well, I think I would say the jury is still out on whether that tactic will work or not.

[Noel King]

It's that he is that he tried it.

[Tracy Alloway]

Totally, totally. But I will say it's not like you've, you've never seen politicians come out and say like please don't price gouge in an emergency that that does exist. But the fact that, you know, it's kind of an emergency of Trump's own making in this instance. So he unveiled the tariffs. Then he says what he doesn't want is companies raising their prices in order to offset the cost of those tariffs. That seems pretty circular. And you're right that I guess the level of involvement of the Trump administration in the seems to be growing and in that sense is quite new.

[Noel King]

Some Number of very, very smart commentators, including one Tracy Alloway, have pointed out that some of this is reminiscent of how capitalism works in China. What, what do you mean when you say that?

[Tracy Alloway]

So this is what I, I find so fascinating about our current moment in economic history. All of us growing up for the past, you know, 30 or 40 years, we were always told that China was going to basically America, right? We're going to see America American style, shopping malls and free market capitalism, and the country was going to open its market to outside investment and all of that.

[Noel King]

The case for trade is just not monetary, but moral. Economic freedom creates habits of liberty, and habits of liberty create expectations of democracy. There are no guarantees, but there are good examples. From Chile to Taiwan, trade freely with China.

[Tracy Alloway]

And time is on our side. And instead, what we've sort of seen is that the US Is moving closer to China in a number of ways. And I don't want to say this is exclusively a Trump administration phenomenon, because the truth is it's not. You know, the first Trump administration started some of this when it unveiled its first set of tariffs against China. But those were continued by the Biden administration. And the Biden administration, in many ways took on a much more active industrial policy role after the pandemic.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

Folks, we need to make these chips here in America to bring down everyday cost and create good paying American jobs.

[Tracy Alloway]

And I think this is really key to understanding what's happening right now. You have a moment in time where you have all of these big things that are happening. There are all these choke points in our economic system that free market capitalism hasn't recently seemed very good at solving. And so that's one of the reasons we've seen governments in the US and also elsewhere in the world kind of step in and say, actually we need to intervene here. We need to think about building out capacity, we need to think about supply. And because China is one of the countries that has been doing this for arguably the longest time, China really becomes like kind of the role model for how you build out that additional capacity. From that perspective, it's not necessarily surprising that the US Is starting to look more like China in the sense that the government is becoming much more active in encouraging certain parts of the economy that it wants to see well, or certain areas that it wants to discourage. But it's still a very big departure from, I think, what everyone kind of expected to see just 10 or 20 years ago.

[Noel King]

Why does it feel wrong? Is it, is there anything actually wrong with that?

[Tracy Alloway]

So China, again, is a very useful example of this. And it is true that in the States, if someone talks about, you know, state intervention in the free market economy, people tend to have a knee jerk reaction which is, oh, this sounds really bad. This sounds like communism and all of that. There are problems with having such an active role of the government. And in China, the number one problem has been that you tend to get overproduction. Right.

[Noel King]

China has the ability to produce roughly twice as many cars as it sells at home each year. In Hangzhou, we came across hundreds of new EVs stored out in the open, many of them waiting to be sold.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

Solar panels, electric vehicles and the batteries that power them.

[Noel King]

China alone is producing more than 100% of global demand for these products, flooding.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

Markets, undermining competition, putting at risk livelihoods and businesses around the world.

[Tracy Alloway]

And this is one of the interesting things about the Chinese economy. You know, we are used to nowadays talking about China as an economic powerhouse in many ways. But if you look at the Chinese stock market, stock market has like gone sideways basically for 20 years now. And one of the reasons is because you have a lot of companies who are making stuff but aren't necessarily doing so at a profit. There's an overproduction issue. And so I think that's what people are kind of worried about. They're worried that we're going to create industries that end up being wasteful, that produce too much, that sort of lead to a distortion of incentives. You know, maybe everyone decides to get into industry X because the government is supporting it, but we should have been looking at industry Y instead.

[Noel King]

Tracy Alloway, she co hosts the Odd Lots podcast. It's very good. Coming up, what does a leading socialist think about President Trump's recent moves? Which leading socialists did they get? So run support for today explained comes from Mint Mobile, the company that's like, in this economy. Mint Mobile says they can give you the coverage and the speed that you're used to, but Mint Mobile is cheaper, says Mint Mobile. Right now, Mint mobile is offering three months of unlimited premium wireless service for $15 a month. All their plans, I'm told, come with high speed 5G data, that unlimited talk and text that you do know so well. You can also bring your own phone and your own phone number and all those contacts to your new plan. You can get this new customer offer and a three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a [e-mail] explained. That's mintmobile.com explained. Upfront payment of $45 required. That is equivalent to 15 bucks a month for three months. This is a limited time. New customer offer for the first three months only. Speeds may be slow above 35 gigabytes on that unlimited plan. Taxes and fees are extra. Guys cement Mobile for details.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

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[Noel King]

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[Tracy Alloway]

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[Noel King]

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[Tracy Alloway]

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[Noel King]

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[Bhaskar Sunkara]

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[Noel King]

Support for TODAY explained comes from NPR's Life Kit. Life doesn't come with an instruction manual and yet every day you're making choices, some small, some life altering, that shape your path. Life Kit brings you real stories, expert insights and clear, actionable advice so you can approach those decision making moments with confidence. You'll find episodes that deal with relationships, finances, parenting, health and career challenges. Get some perspective and a step by step game plan that you can put into practice. Let me tell you something. Life kit is NPR's wildest show. Recent episodes include I'm jealous of my girlfriend's dog, Should I break up with her? How can I cook with my kids and not freak out that they're very sloppy because their motor skills are a mess? How to take a good picture if you're not photogenic, and how often do I have to bathe? What else do you really need to know about NPR's Life Kit? Check it out. Go looking for an episode that applies to you. You can listen now to the Life Kit podcast from npr. You're listening to TODAY Explained. I'm Noel King Bhaskar Sinkara is not Zohran Mamdani. He is Many other things, though. He's the president of the Nation magazine. He's the founding editor of Jacobin. He's so Sochi that he actually conceived of Jacobin whilst in college, famously a time for good ideas. But then he went out and he made it real very cool. Jacobin, if you don't know it, is a magazine dedicated to making socialist ideas accessible. All right, Bhaskar, this first question I'm going to ask you, I'm not going to use, use any proper nouns at all. You're just going to give me your thoughts. What do you think about the state, the government, getting involved in private industry?

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

Yeah, so obviously as a socialist, I start from the principle that private industry should be subject to more democratic control and oversight. I don't think that the state should run every aspect of the economy. You know, I'm a market socialist. I think markets are useful as a coordinating mechanism for much of our economic life. But I also think there needs to be clear rules of the game. There needs to be moments where we say, okay, in this case, the state is going to uniformly step in, not just to regulate, but to actively shape the economy's development.

[Noel King]

Okay, so now we're going to put the proper nouns in. President Trump is taking a stake in an important American industry, the steel industry. He's inserting the US Government into an important company, Nvidia. He's gotten other foreign countries to commit like more than a trillion dollars in investment to the United States. And he says that he personally will direct the investment. Now you have seen that old school free market capitalists such as those at the Wall Street Journal are freaking out about this. Is capitalism dead? Is it in trouble?

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

You know, I wish it was dead for a variety of reasons. Like I said before, I think it's perfectly legitimate for the state to intervene in private enterprise in the U.S. i think we often frame the free market as, you know, conservative ideal and state intervention as a socialist ideal. But history shows it's really a lot more complicated than that. So in the 20th century, you had right wing authoritarian governments in places like South Korea and Taiwan using really heavy state direction.

[Tracy Alloway]

In 1987, the government supported the creation.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

Of Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company tsmc, which.

[Tracy Alloway]

Would go on to become the world's.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

Largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry in South Korea.

[Noel King]

While companies like Hyundai, Samsung, lg, Lotte.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

And Kumo have been private enterprises since.

[Noel King]

Their inception, they were hand selected by.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

The government to receive special protections and privileges. They used our tariffs, our subsidies, credit allocation, and they built out globally competitive industries and they lifted their countries out of poverty. You know, they did a lot of horrible, you know, things, you know, against political rights and labor rights and so on, but they did that to their Credit. In the U.S. we sometimes just knee jerk, just say, okay, more state intervention means that's more socialist. So, you know, for me, the real question is, is what we're doing coherent? Does it make sense? My worry with Trump's approach, and just knowing Trump, like many Americans, I feel like at this point we've seen him so much, we know him at a very personal level. My worry with Trump's approach is that it looks more like ad hoc favoritism and punishing some industries and subsidizing other industries at a whim and less like a long term plan.

[Noel King]

Where do you stand on the tariffs?

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

I have a lot of the same concerns. I, I think that there's really a place for tariff in the toolkit of creating a viable economy. I think there's a place for protecting certain industries as part of a wider plan. I really appreciate that Trump in his first term actually put on the table the toolkit of tariffs and talking about industrial policy. I didn't agree with how he executed those tariffs in his first term, but I think it paved the way to Joe Biden much more successfully being able to wield industrial policy. And at a time when other countries like Germany were losing hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs, the US Was gaining hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. So I think there's definitely a place for it. But in this particular case, I just can't see the long term plan behind Trump's use of tariffs. And I really worry that it will make the US in the long run a poorer country. And that won't be good for any sort of egalitarian politics.

[Noel King]

The thing Joe Biden was never willing to do was to call companies and say, don't you dare raise prices on Americans. This is one of those things that, again with Trump, if you are working class and you hear that the President has called a corporation or telegraphed to a corporation, the tariffs may be pushing up the cost of goods, but you are not going to raise them on American citizens. It's appealing. It's a little strong man, but it's appealing. Right.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

I'm not impressed because I don't think it's sustainable.

[Noel King]

Huh.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

And also, I think Trump was able to get away with this stuff or has been able to, partially because he is a right wing president who came in with a lot of goodwill from business, or at least initially, he delivered huge tax Cuts for them for the wealthy at least, and capital at least. Until recently, I think trusted him. I don't think the markets would have been nearly as tolerant if it was President Bernie Sanders trying the same thing. You know, it's very clear to people that he's trying to rig the game to reward friends and punish enemies. And because of that, you know, CEOs like Apple's Tim can cook, you know, feel like they have to play along and stay on his, his good side. And that's behind the very, like, awkward and kind of embarrassing and to some level, like, gauche like gift giving of, you know, you go visit the sovereign, so you better come with this kind of big, gaudy gift. It was designed by US Marine Corps corporal, a horror, one that works at Apple now.

[Tracy Alloway]

He's done well, designed it for you and the base.

[Noel King]

Hans krong.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

And it's 24 Karat Galloway. And the irony is that, you know, a lot of the American right has spent decades railing against left wing, you know, in their mind, strongmen, you know, leaders governing in this fashion. And yet Trump is really mimicking the worst of that style, your side of things.

[Noel King]

Socialism has found a very shiny new avatar in Zohra Mamdani in New York. And you'll be aware that some people who like to maybe think too much have said Trump and Mamdani have more in common than we realize. They want a strong state. They want a state that intervenes on behalf of who they say their constituency is. Right. With Trump, it may be on any given day with Mom Donna, he's been pretty consistent. You don't like what Trump is doing. Where do you stand on Zohrand?

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

I love Zoram Hamdani. I love him so much that I almost refuse to say more about my love for him because I don't want to alienate people. I think that at a more fundamental level, what they're doing just seems to me to be polar opposites. So Trump is redistributing wealth from the bottom to the top of the economy, and he's doing this through the extension of the tax cuts for the rich, through cuts to the public sector and cuts to social programs like Medicaid. Someone like Zoram Hamdani, it seems to me, you know, obviously, given the limited constraints of what he can do as mayor of a single city, wants to tax the wealthy more. I don't think that we should have billionaires. He wants to invest more in public goods. I'm Zahran Mamdani, and as mayor, I will Create a network of city owned grocery stores.

[Tracy Alloway]

It's like a public option for produce.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

And he wants to raise the floor for working people through, you know, encouraging higher wages and trying to find ways to lower lower rents.

[Tracy Alloway]

I'm freezing your rent as the next.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

Mayor of New York City.

[Noel King]

So we know. I imagine you have rubbed your hands in glee looking at the polling that shows us that Americans are frustrated with capitalism. Really frustrated with it, young people in particular giving up on it. We did a whole four part series about this. Whether you like him or not, President Trump is doing an uncapitalism. Zorran Mamdani would like to do an un capitalism. Do you think we're at a point where the left and the right are converging on America with socialist characteristics?

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

I love being contrarian. I would love to tell you, love to tell you that Trump's action is bringing us closer to being a socialist country. I'm a socialist.

[Tracy Alloway]

Democratic socialism.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

My wife is more of a mainstream liberal.

[Noel King]

Come on.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

They're also Zoran fan and she will occasionally, maybe two, three months after the fact, listen to my podcast appearances and get very angry at my contrarianism. But in this case, I honestly believe, I'm not trying to just save myself from a battle in December, but I honestly believe that Trump is taking us further away from my vision of a good society and further away from any vision of a socialist society. And I think in part because he's deploying legitimate tools of economic policy, like I said, like tariffs, like industrial policy, but in such a chaotic, self serving way, I think he's gonna create a backlash that makes it harder for the left to use them in the future as well.

[Noel King]

You sound like a depressive more than a contrarian. But. But you made your point and I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Bhaskar.

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Tracy Alloway]

Foreign.

[Noel King]

Of the nation, also the founder of Jacobin. Thank you to the Wall Street Journal's Greg ip who wrote America with Socialist characteristics. Miles Bryan produced today's episode. Jolie Myers edited Patrick Boyd and how Andrea Christian's daughter too. Laura Bullard is both. I'm Noel King. It's today.