Mamdani Defines Socialism

[MUSIC] What's up, what's up everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem, I'm Dave Smith. He is Robby the Fire of Bernstein. We were just hanging out together a few mere hours ago in Las Vegas. Both jumped on some red eye flights and got home to get you to get to the studio, to get an episode out for you today. Thank you to everybody who came out in Salt Lake City and Las Vegas, man. This was a really fun weekend, I really enjoyed that Rob. Beautiful, beautiful mountain watching out there, huh? >> Yes, man, that fun run, always nice to take a red eye. It feels like a freebie for travel and I'm already back out in like 24 hours. Breathe in the road, I'll be a Texas A&M on Thursday night. That's open to the public if you want to come out. But be cool, it's the young adults for Liberty, Yolo, whatever they're putting it on. >> Nice. >> Then Friday, take a show of the porch, we're doing Austin, Texas. I'm running my FBI and Trappin's scheme, doing stand-up comedy, and the mean Scott Horden, we're going to mix it up for a live pod. We only do that once a year, this is like the third one that we're doing. It's always a good time, come out for that and then I'll do it. >> Yes, they're so good too. They're great, it's interesting, man. You guys together are great dynamic, I've really enjoyed both of them. Make sure to check that out. >> Yeah, we got into the libertarian theory behind Star Wars, then we debunked 9/11 being an inside job, and now we're going to be getting into FBI and Trappin's schemes. And then Saturday, doing Shoulderberg, and then you can go to portstore.com because there's a whole Midwest run after that, so a lot of stuff going on. >> There you go. All right, I got guys, I'm off for a couple of weeks. So go see Rob. >> Next up is Portland. >> Is that right? Oh, yeah, Portland, but the main one, not the one that's riddled with homeless. The beautiful one with the foliage. We'll be up there. That's right, our next stop is Portland main, the Empire Comedy Club, October 23rd through 25th. Then November 5th through 7th, we'll be back out in San Diego at the American Comedy Company, so make sure to come out there, love, love, love that place. Then of course, the Skankfest in November, well, you're going to that too, right? We'll be there. The Skankfest, and then what do we got, oh, I guess that's it for the year. Well, look at that, dude. We're down. This is like pretty much the end of the year. I can't even believe it. I always, every year, I take December off, because just my girls both have birthdays and we're Jewish and Christians, so basically I just, I work for 11 months to then empty it all out in December and then start all over again in January. It's a good system. Works for me. Okay, so let's get into some stuff here, Rob. I wanted to talk about this clip here. We got Mayor of New York City, Mamdani, goes on with the great Thielvon, my dear friend, and they had a conversation. I have not listened to the entire podcast because it's a, I don't know, Rob, it's difficult for me to listen to Mamdani talk about things. I really do find him painful to listen to. I don't mean, I find Thielvon is one of, in my humble opinion, one of the most enjoyable people to listen to. He's just like that. It's part of the reason why he's so successful, he's just like, he is a conversationalist that just like lowers you in and makes you want to, but Mamdani to me is like the opposite of it. But I did want to comment on this clip that was I think the most viral clip of the, the thin, where he's, he's, I suppose, defining socialism kind of. We could get it. So I'd like to get into this because it's a, I find it to be a fascinating discussion at, or a fascinating topic. And I think, you know, also kind of terrifying. But anyway, I guess I just wanted to say before getting into the clip, just that I did see that Thiel was like taking some shit for hosting Mamdani. And I did just want to say again, I really disagree with that. I don't think he should. I think it's really, I think I've always been this way, like really in spirit, anti-cancel culture and anti-sensorship, the, I'm not to suggest that like, it would be censorship for Thiel not to have them on the podcast exactly. I'm just always on the side of like more conversations, more of this, that I think this is good. But if nothing else, because I think like what people's, this is what people get upset. This is what the lefties get upset with Thiel about when he had like, Trump on. And this is what some of the, the more right-leaning people get upset with him when he has like Mamdani on, is that Thiel's just nice and cool. So he's just cool with everybody. He's just going to have a cool conversation with you. And no, he's not going to be the guy who like offers intense pushback or grills you on your economic, you know, theory, but what he does in these situations is he opens people up and he gets answers out of them. And like, I'm kind of, I'm grateful that he got this answer out of Mamdani. Because now, reasonably, reasonably thinking people like me and you can tear this nonsense to shreds. All right, guys, let's take a moment and think our sponsor for today's show, which is the wellness company, could heart inflammation after the pandemic go unnoticed? Well, a peer-reviewed review by Dr. Peter McCullough, an epidemiologist, Nicholas Holscher, warns that a subclinical myocarditis, silent heart inflammation may affect millions of vaccinated people. In some cases, fatal cardiac arrest can be the first sign. Warning signs include chest discomfort, palpitations, exercise intolerance, lightheadedness when standing up, and irregular heart rate or blood pressure. 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I mean, how much of a sucker are you to con men or how much do you think your fellow Americans are to suckered by words? Hear people out. Let them, you know, I mean, there's no reason to be that afraid of people speaking. And in this case, I'm very excited to hear the actual academia behind the way that he defines socialism and his robust plan for how that can work within our country. So I'm excited to actually hear it right from him. Well, I would just say, you know, I had this over the years with a few different people, but I guess particularly with Nick Fuentes, more than anyone else, when I would have him on, you know, people would, you know, be, why are you platforming him or whatever? And it was always, well, like, first of all, I always thought like, well, first of all, I have people on who I want to talk to. I talk to the people who I want to talk to because I think they're interesting conversations. So the first of it's just like, like, fuck you. Like, I don't know, would he be policing who I talk to? This is too bizarre. But then on top of that, you're like, well, look, even if you think his ideas are so horrible or something, like, what do you want to just pretend he doesn't exist? And the people are still giving me shit when I had him on, like, the last time or two or the last two times. And you're like, dude, he's humongous. Like, what do you want to pretend he doesn't exist? It doesn't. But with mom Donnie, he's the fucking mayor of the biggest city in America. This is what he, not talk to him, you know, we're way, you know, like, even I wouldn't even agree with squashing ideas, you know, just in spirit. But even if you did believe in that, we're way past the point of like, no, don't platform him. Anyway, and perhaps that's not just what people were saying, they were saying, oh, we should have pushed back more. But even that, I think different people have different roles and different strengths. All right, let's play, let's play the clip. Rob, what is socialism? Let's find out. Let's all find out together. I want to talk a little bit about socialism, right? Because it's a buzz word, right? Because socialism, will you define socialism for us? Because people say it a lot and don't know what it is. And sometimes those people are me. Well, I'm so happy to be with those people right now of socialism to me. It means that you will have whatever you need to live a dignified life and that it is the government's job. All right. That's all right, do you know what? Well, we're all doing really good, Rob. I'm sorry. This is what a serious adult says, a serious adult says that we're talking about in economic system and you start your start to describe it. Here he's going, hey, Theo starts with the most reasonable question ever. Just imagine what could be more of like a layup question. He goes, hey, here's the word that you call yourself. Everyone's using this word. I don't even think I know what the word means. You tell me, no, for you to start off by describing, you're describing an economic system and the way you describe it, Rob, the first thing is what, the conclusion of it. everything's great. That's why economic system, stuff works out good. What does that mean? You have all the dignity, you have all the things you need. That's what, no, wait, what? You don't just get to say that. You just get to say, oh, the end is, oh, okay, well, my economic system is that everyone get everything, mom, Donnie just said, but then a little bit more. That's what I mean by capitalism. I mean, everything, mom, Donnie just said, but more than that too. Okay, did I just win or did I just do nothing? I don't know what is this? >> Yeah, I mean, it's quite literally a pitch of magick pixie dust of, well, my belief is just that everyone born within the United States of America is automatically just owed a dignified life and dignified life is a very good marketing term because that lets you create whatever that means. Does that mean government's giving you a house? Does that mean it's giving you food? Is it giving you your health care? It's giving your education? Is there anything that you're actually going to have to contribute for it? I only think dignified when it's all being given to you might be a question, but, right, but I'm saying it's left for you to define. It's not actually, so you might think, oh, this is a reasonable answer of just core goods and services. You need for human survival or be given to you and someone else might think that government's supposed to give you more. So you get to, now he's not even qualifying what that means, being able to live a free dignified life or how that's possible. How is it possible that anyone born to this country is just guaranteed all goods and services that you would need for human survival? >> Well, also like, right, I mean, can't any, any grown up should be able to just, again, this is not a comment on whether you're a capitalist or a socialist. You could be on either side of this argument and still just be an adult and grant that for someone to just say, my system is everything works out and everyone gets dignity. Everyone has all the things they need that it's like, okay, and he thoughts on how to achieve that there champ. Like, you've added nothing. If you just say I wanted my system is everything ends up working out and everyone has dignity and it was treated really great and has all the stuff they made. All right. Just to point out how silly this answer is, if you're having a debate over what's the best system for human prosperity? And so you're on your side to go, hey, I like free markets and here's why I think free markets are better. And then the guy on the other side goes, well, I like this thing called socialism, but then he doesn't define what the system is to get you to the prosperity. If you were arguing for free markets, you would argue, here's why my system leads to more prosperity. He doesn't actually lay out what the system is, what the definition is, how that's supposed to function and just jumps to the conclusion. So he's not actually telling you what socialism is. He's just telling you what some fictional end result that he would like and can't actually achieve or give you. Right. All right. Here. Let's keep playing. Deliver on that. Okay. Right. It's it's a belief that you shouldn't you shouldn't live in a place where all you can do is pick your own leaders. You should also be able to have that power in the rest of your life, right? People talk about it. Pause it. Pause it for a minute. Okay. The extension of democracy. Okay. Let's get it. So you should not only have the power to pick your own leaders. You should have that power be extended to the rest of your life. Well, like, this is, okay, first of all, that like just just to be clear here because it's kind of he's getting into like a philosophical conversation. And these are things, these are the type of things that me and you are kind of interested in Rob. Like, that's why I guess, or at least part of the reason why we're we do what we do. So it's just as he brings this up, Rob, you know, it isn't if you think about the choice that we have in terms of our leaders, we all have so much more choice in all the other areas of our life already. You know, like, this is, this is like the least most artificial choice that is watered down to one, like, what was like 140 millionth, right? Yes. I essentially get got a choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. And I, my voice in that was worth one out of like 150 million, or whoever, however many people voted. I said this is a very small range of a choice and a very, very little tiny microscopic, you know, invisible to the naked eye amount of influence over that choice. But like choosing who I marry, who my friends are, who I work with, what grocery store I go to, what business I shop at, like choosing all the other things in my life, I have much more power. And like, either 100% control or at least like in relationship with another person, 50, 50 kind of control over it. So, you know, already one might point out how full of shit this whole world view is, the idea that the political is the realm where you really have a choice. And all the other realm isn't. And we just need to extend this awesome thing, which is politics, which we all know. This is where the most noble and decent of men are, you say. And so we need to extend this field of politics to everywhere. This is, I mean, you know, it's like, look, dude, I understand that when he says socialism, he goes, no, no, no, I don't mean Stalin, Mao Zedong style, everybody dies. And it's just hope in nightmare. But you could see where like even in that little philosophical worldview that he gave you. Yeah, that's why it turns into a nightmare every time it's tried. Why don't we just make everything democracy? Why don't we just extend the poison that is politics to everything in life? Oh, why is there this mass starvation? This is what catches my eye about that is that government being out of all the other realms of your life is what creates more freedom and more choice for you. His pitch is actually, well, I don't think everyone should have the freedom to make all those choices, but I can make life more fair for people if government takes over these industries and better distributes the wealth than the way people are doing it through their free choices. And so for governments to come in and socialize more industries where they don't currently have control, you might argue that there's a better distribution. And you and I would point to in history and that you end up just with less and that you end up with starvation. And it's just, it's a pretend pitch for lunacy that ends up with everyone having less. But you could pretend to worst distribution. Right. And you end up with less and the worst distribution to be clear. But the pitch is that through force and taking away choice, we can have a more equal distribution. It's not that it's not that a government coming in to regulate all these other industries or socialize these industries is going to allow for more choices. That's the opposite pitch. Well, it's, it's what's infuriating about it is that look, dude. It's such a, it's a, it's a bold face lie because essentially, dude, like if you want to defend government, then that's fine. You can, you can defend government. But at least admit what you're defending. What you're defending is force. Objectively, you're for force. That's what government is. Like every single your relationship with the government is them telling you what you will do. And if you don't do it, they will use force against you all the way up to literally the, like they will murder you. Like that is that that is the agreement. And not, I don't mean that's the implicit agreement. I mean, that's what they will do. Like if you don't pay your taxes, if you don't, you know, like whatever, you know, if you, if you take it to its logical conclusion, right? Like if I was just a conscientious, you know, the abstainer or whatever from government. So if I, if I don't pay my taxes, if I just refuse to pay the government taxes, they will send me letter after letter after letter. Eventually, they will come after me. Eventually, they will, you know, whatever, they'll come take my stuff. Eventually is like the next thing. You know, they'll seize my assets or whatever. Now if I, if they come for my house, let's say they go, well, we're going to foreclose your house or whatever, because you owe all this money to the IRS. And I go, no, you can't have it. This is my house. I got guns in this house, dude. You cannot have my house. They will send a police force to my house. If I meet that police force and defend myself, like if they come and they say they're taking this up. And I say, no, they will try to, they will comment, try to take me to jail. If I resist going to jail, they will murder me in front of my children. That's the game. Like that is what's about, that's why we pay the taxes. And by the way, nobody knows this more than the leftists because Rob, if I were to suggest to them, why don't we make taxes voluntary? They would be the first ones to say, but then no one will pay them. All of these social, the reason we can't make taxes voluntary is because all of our social programs will fall apart. They know that they need this, this realm is force. That's what it is. You know, when the government tells you from a speeding violation to every single law, if there's a gun behind it, this is, you are forced to do this. Government is the realm of force. And then the market is the realm of volunteerism. Now you could, with a noted caveat in there, which is the private force, which is criminals, right? So there's private criminal, like you getting mugged is force. You paying your taxes is force. Me going and buying food at the supermarket is not. That's the choice. That's voluntary. You're talking about expanding the realm of force and cracking it down on the road. Don't spin that as choice. That's not a choice. Yeah. Objectively. It's an incredible pitch thus far, doesn't define the actual economic mechanism when given the opportunity they can create more and equal opportunity for people. And then pretends that socialism is the system that allows for more choices and control over your life. Yeah. All right, guys. Let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Brunt Workwear Unbelievable Company. If you are looking for a good pair of work boots, like if you, if you need a good pair of work boots, you have to try these. They're the most comfortable work boots you'll ever own. 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Your feet will thank you for it. You can actually wear these boots to work, beat them up. And as I said, they are letting you test drive them. You can put these boots on, beat them up, put in real hours. And if they're not right for you, you can send them back. That's how confident Brunt is that you're going to love them. So for a limited time, our listeners also get an extra $10 off at Brunt when you use the promo code problem at checkout. Just go to bruntworkwear.com that's bruntworkwear.com and use the promo code problem for $10 off and you're good to go. All right. All right. All right. Let's bring it back like a few seconds, Natalie, and then let's keep playing so we can, because we are really not letting him speak, but I'm sorry, all this stuff is just too absurd. That power and the rest of your life, right? People talk about it as the extension of democracy from the ballot box to the rest of your life. What do people mean by the rest of your life? They mean your workplace, your home, things like that. So when people say, I'm sorry, I'm going to be very clear. All right. You're home. You know, by the way, I've never heard a socialist say your home. I've heard them say this about the workplace before I've never heard them say extend democracy to the home. Like do my kids get a vote like who's who's when do we hold when do we hold the elections in my house over who takes the trash out? What is he talking about? No, like I genuinely had no idea what he's talking about with extending democracy to the home. This is very, you realize like the current system we have is that marriages are consensual arrangements. What are you trying to change? What are you trying to change this to? I'm sorry, Rob. Go ahead. Okay. Two things. First is this man needs to socialize his tie because he has too much tie and other people don't have enough tie. So practice what you're peach and preach and don't have a dick blocking tie. It's fucking weird. Okay. It is a long tie. The second thing is if you can look past his nice smile and the if you can get past the snake charm of I just want to help everybody. Who on who in this country goes this democracy thing is working out so well. I need to replicate that structure in the other parts of my life. The same way that I'm able to vote and every four years I voted a person into office and sometimes again into office. And then they do the exact things that they said they were going to do who I'm just saying who in this country that voted for Biden was happy when Biden was in office. How many of the people who voted him for Trump right now are happy about Trump. We have a system of who can lie to you the best and then we suckers for it. They don't do any of the things that they said. And now that's what you want to democratize the process of every other like who looks at this structure and goes, hey, this thing's working out so great. We need to get rid of private industries and replace it with what we have with the government. It's the dumbest thing in the world. They also, I mean, look, dude, the idea of yes, as you said and you really nail it like because first of all, let me just repeat, I've never, I've heard a million democratic socialists say extend democracy into the workplace. I have never once heard of them say into your home and I have no idea what could possibly be meant by extending democracy into like our mean, our mean, my wife to have like union reps or proxy vote is like, I just don't understand. This is like two bizarre, but let's take on the workplace one. I think he might have just made this up and has no idea what that even means about the home. I think he just thought that sounded nice because this is like how much of an airhead you're dealing with. So, but let's go into the workplace one for a second because this is their big thing here. It's like, this is how they say like extend to my right first, as you know, Rob, as people might go like, what about the system of politics makes people go? This is just such a wonderful system. We need to bring this like you watch literally the DSA, essentially what they're arguing is that the DSA meetings are how all companies should be run. Like, who is this fundamentally childish? Who actually thinks big, great companies can be run like that? Why do you think no big, great companies are run like that right now? I mean, look, there are a few, right? There are a few like worker co-ops out there. By the way, they've done interesting studies on them where they all turn into oligarchies. It's all, it's never really like the decisions are being made by the workers. It always ends up, you know, creating some type of hierarchy. But look, this is the great Gene Epstein point that he makes, right? Rob, just two quick points here. This is the Gene Epstein point and then another very important blind spot that Socialists have. Number one, the Gene Epstein argument against socialism really goes as the following. And it calls them out on their bullshit here. It goes, look, man, if you really believe in this democratizing the workplace stuff, like essentially, you believe that the companies shouldn't be structured as like there's an owner and a boss, and then there's all these employees, where this is what Richard Wolff would say. Well, that's no different than a slave and a master. It's like, okay, I mean, the major difference is that you choose to be there. I know Socialists just hate, they love to blur this line about consent. By the way, we'll talk a little bit more about that today, Rob. Like they love to blur this line about like, but no, there is a difference between a job that you choose to work at and being a slave. You know, you and Rob, you can leave, Natalie can leave. If you guys want to, you can let, you're not forced to be here. Slaves are not allowed to leave. And that is literally the part that we objected to, like, that is literally the entire issue with the thing was the force. Like nobody would have had a moral issue with Europeans going over to Africa and offering wages to Africans if they wanted to come over and pick cotton and you would get room and board for this. And the ones who wanted to come come over and the ones who didn't want to didn't have to. That wouldn't be slavery. Now, would it? That wouldn't be a moral abomination. What makes it a moral abomination is that you went over there and took the people by force and forced them to do that and wouldn't let them leave. Anyway, within the voluntary, we're not forcing people, right? If you want to democratize the workplace, you don't want there to be the employer and the employees. You want it to be the workers all own this together and we all make decisions on this together. All right. Well, the numbers are something like the bottom, I think Jean said the bottom 50% of the workers control one third of American consumption. You guys can simply decide to only buy from worker owned business if the workers of America wanted to decide to only to only consume from worker owned companies, they could do it. It's right in front of you. You can have your socialist extension into the workforce, but you just can't do it by force under conditions right now, but you can do it voluntarily. You just got to actually do the work. You got to actually convince people to start worker co-op companies and put sweat equity in and put equity in and do all of this stuff. You got to do it, but you can do it if you want to. Yeah. The problem. But you don't actually want to do it and you know it'll fail. So you want to just use the power of the state to force all the rest of us into it. Because you know, you don't want to do it on your own. Sorry. Go ahead because you'll walk into a coffee shop and you'll try and order a coffee and then the worker is going to go point of privilege. He's not supposed to order before that person's post order and someone else is going to go point of privilege and go, no, this person's supposed to be the one who orders first and then you'll never actually get your coffee and be like, all right, where's an owner to tell these people to go back to work? Yep. Yep. Well, that's right. They don't want to actually do it. They know that it's not actually going to outcompete the other models and there's a reason for that. And now here's the other thing I would point out that is an absolute blind spot to socialists because they, and this is why I really do find this. I'm sorry. And I know that and I'm sure because we've been so, you know, we've been so in opposition to the genocide in Gaza and the war in you excuse me at the war and you can't, well, we are against that. The war in Iran and, you know, Israel's attacks on Lebanon and Syria and stuff like that. And so we get, you know, more anti-war leftists have listened to the show over the last few years. But I'm sorry, guys. I'm, I'm not going to not tell you what I think is right. And this is, this is what is so infantile about the whole thing is that. That you approach economics, which is a science that demands to be treated with God damn respect and nobody except the Austrians, even does anything like that, but like you guys talk about it, like it's like, I don't know, well, what about what's nice? Wouldn't it be nice, like if more people had this and more people had that and we're there? But you know, dude, there's laws of this shit. This is like trying to do physics that way. This makes no sense. Not that economics is physics, it's very different, but it's more like logic, but something like logic, you know, you got to follow the rules and follow where the logical train leads you. So look, here's one thing when you actually read about economics and like the science part of it. Here's the thing that that socialists just don't account for at all. Okay, capital investment, capital investment, the leftists who want to argue socialism with me, Google it, familiarize yourself with the concept. This is how businesses get started, okay? Businesses get started like this. Let's say someone like me, I've been working for the last few years and I've made some money. I'm going to take a big chunk of that and start a business. Let's say, you know, just to make numbers easy, I'm going to take a million dollars, I'm going to open a comedy club. This is a business I know, so okay, I'm opening a comedy club in New York City. That's my business. Rob, in order for me to do this, I got to put, I mean, I know Rogan put millions of dollars into that club when he first bought it, right? So like, if I was going to do this, I probably have to put millions of dollars into it. I got a higher a bunch of people. I'm going to have to pour a ton of work into this over the next year and put all of my capital investment into this, okay? If I don't own the company, I'm not going to do that. Why would I invest my capital into this for then all the workers to just own what you're just essentially, you've completely disincentivized everyone from investing into anything. And when people invest into something, what they're doing is they're taking the, what they've made from the pet, they're taking essentially consumption that they deferred, right? I could have with that, with that million dollars that I opened this comedy club with, I could have just gone out on a yacht and had a bottle of whiskey and, you know what I mean, just consumed, but instead I put off that consumption, I chose not to just enjoy my money. I put it into this business because the bet is that the business will make me more money and I will get more future consumption by deferring my present consumption. This is what's known as time preference. These things are important terms if you want to understand economics. Here's the thing, if there's no incentive for a businessman to invest his money because he can't get a return on the money because all the workers own the company and they get to decide where all the money goes, then he'll just consume it presently. He won't defer the consumption for the future and create the business that creates all those jobs to fucking begin with. Just to extend off of that, there was an essay I read years ago by George Reesman and great writer. The reason why this system benefits you so much is that when somebody creates a business and then there's profits, what that means is that they gave somebody something of value and they anticipated a market need. You know, it's really great about giving resources to that people, is it gives them the next opportunity to anticipate what might the market need and then to provide it to them. So like, for example, if I, you know, I don't know, I anticipated six months ago that diesel prices were going to go up and I created a diesel refinery within the country and I stock pile a bunch of diesel and now I can bring the diesel prices back on because I'm sitting on a supply of it. I might make a ton of profit, but guess what? I anticipated that the market was going to need something and who do you think you want to have the capital to make that next prediction, the guy who's actually good at it. That's the reward of fulfilling that process of anticipating people's needs and creating value is that you accumulate capital and then you can go do it again. It's the exact opposite of the way that government enforce operates where they basically take away the resources from the people who are good at anticipating needs and stockpiling capital. Like capitalism, it's a beautiful system of where people make the right bets of anticipating people's needs and creating value. They make more money and they can do more of that. And so everybody benefits. Yep. That's right. That's right. And it's exactly right. And it's like, I don't know guys, this is why socialism fails every time. I mean, listen, man, we spend all this time attacking it theoretically because empirically there's nothing left to even say. You couldn't, dude, if you were, it almost proves that the idea of like empiricism leading to consensus is impossible. I mean, if we didn't have these examples, Rob, like, let's just say we didn't have these examples. And you were like, man, it would be so helpful if we just could like, I don't know, let's say we could like split Germany in half and have half of it be socialist and half of it be capitalist. You know what I mean, Rob? Like people who are like genetically indistinguishable and have the same culture and language and religion and traditions like geography, everything. Like if we, I mean, man, man, dude, if we could run a line, let's say through Korea and have the north half try socialism and the bottom half. And then like, let's say it was so conclusive that like the people who were genetically and culturally and linguistically and traditionally indistinguishable from each other, one side of them were starving to death and the other side was skyscrapers. Imagine we had that experiment. That would just be the end of the conversation now, wouldn't it? But nope. But these reasons, these theoretical points that Rob's talking about, how capitalism really does allow resources to be allocated where they're needed and incentivizes people to move them around like that. You know that born stuff like that? That's why you're not starving to death. That's why you're living the life you're living instead. Here, let's keep playing, Mom Donnie. When people say dignity, I want to be very clear, we're talking about the things that allow you to take a breath, housing, child care, right, public transit. No one should be priced out of these things. These are non-negotiables. You need these to live. And what I think is so confusing is there's parts of life in our country that line up with this belief, right? Public education. We believe that everyone should be able to go K through 12 for free and they do. We believe that everybody should be able to read. Okay, let's pause it for a second or free. And look, man, I'll say I'm sure there's going to be a lot of appeal in his pitch of like, yo, none of these things should be unaffordable. And certainly I understand that, you know, nobody is on team. These prices should be really unaffordable. It's just kind of frustrating for a couple of guys who are just on the team of people who even know what a price is. What's a price, mom, Donnie? That would literally be my next question to him. What's a price? What is a price? Yeah, it's a market signal of information is what a price is. Why are prices so high? What has led to that? You know, if you're not even like in a, you're not even going to make a take on that and you're just going, ah, my belief is that they shouldn't be. I think, okay. Well, that's, sorry, fairly unimpressive to me. And if he wants to say, oh, and people see where it lines up in other areas like we have, we have public schools, oh, yes, yes, public schools, truly the crown jewel of our, our society really something to brag about, you know, it's like, dude, man, you know, there, if there's one thing the government does in this country, it guarantees, man, that those, those kids in the south side of Chicago who are growing up with bullets, whizzing by them every day, the kids who need, you know, it's, we're not worried about the kids whose parents can afford a good education, but the ones who can't afford a good education, we know that they're getting the absolute best. They come out, those kids are coming out reading Shakespeare and writing poems and stuff and just, you know, like, oh, I'm sorry, they can't read it a third grade level. I'm sorry, I was looking at the wrong data. They're failing our children miserably. Like the one example you can look to is fucking that and what libraries was this other thing, the thing that's been completely usurped by the internet, by the market that has provided, that has provided that library plus 100,000 billion trillion libraries on top of it for free for every child in America. Oh, that's right. The market's delivering that without a government program necessary, but homeless people can't shit on the internet, Dave. They actually can, Rob, and I will show you some websites you can get everything you need. Rob, you are so wrong about that, dude. There's, dude, but I mean, so it's right. It's just, oh, okay, everyone should have the stuff they need, everyone should have dignity. But, you know, I got to say, seeing as how there is nothing at all concrete or tangible about what he's saying. This is all an abstract theory. And it's not good abstract theory. It's just people should have stuff and stuff shouldn't be so expensive. They should have dignity. You know, maybe I'll hold off on that for the end. You know what? Let me finish them. I'll hold off on this thought for the end about dignity. All right. Let's keep playing. And they do. But when it comes to early childhood education, right? Before kindergarten, we're comfortable with people paying $20,000 a year to afford it. Because that's what the cost of the average cost in the New York city right now. That's a good deal. Yeah. They did a study that found that for a family of three to a Ford child care, they had to make $330,000 a year to live in the city and a Ford child care. A family of three. So that means only one child closet for a second. Oh, there's a unfair question to ask. And I say this as a father, I say this is somebody who for many, many, many, many years was dead broke. I mean, really, really broke for a long period of time. Is this a fucked up question to ask? And I don't think it is. Because and by the way, as you know, I'm always on team children. Like I'm kids are the most vulnerable members of our society and the most precious. And why are you having three kids, if you can't take care of them? You're telling me the government already gives K through 12 is what he's saying. But the big thing is why don't we why doesn't the state have your kids before five? Because the assumptions that the parents take care of them for the first five years, dude, what are we talking about? Look, I understand it's a tough economy. I understand that sometimes like people have to work. I understand child care is expensive, but broadly speaking, like nobody forced you to have three kids. Why are you having three kids when you can't take care of them? And you can't afford for someone to take care of them. Also, oh, sorry, a family of three meaning two parents and one kid. Okay, fine. Don't have one kid if you can't take care of them. But yeah, okay, you're right. You're right. Natalie family of three would not mean three kids. That is my mistake. Good correction. But still why are you having like why I don't understand here. I'm sorry. There is something there is something truly twisted and sick that the expect state, the expectation is that the state ought to be raising our kids. And listen, again, I'm not trying to like, it's not that I don't empathize with the economic conditions that people are under the government. We do a whole show about how the government has screwed everybody over, you know? But like also, let's get real. No, you're not like poorer than my great-grandparents or my great-great-great-grandparents or all of people for all of human history. And people found a way to have kids and raise them. Like it is very, it is doable. It is absolutely doable. And I don't think that the message should be like, no, let's have the state raise our babies. Also, you know, I'd love to have a beach front mansion. But guess what? I can't afford it. You know what else I'd love? I'd love to be able to afford a one bedroom apartment and then a place that I could do my podcast out of a studio in New York City. And guess what? I can't afford that either. So you know where I live in Connecticut. Crime me a fucking river. If you want to live in the riches zip codes on earth and you feel like it's owed to you by somebody else to make that a reality. Well, you know, when he zip codes, you know, when he zip codes, I can't live in because they become valuable real estate at that 40% of the country. Yeah. But there's a lot of the country I can't afford to live. I mean, you're choosing to live in New York City. New York City has become beach fund property. It is the most expensive place to live or one of them. Yeah. Well, I would also say a separate point, which of course, you know, just again, this is a very, a very immature aspect of all the socialist stuff is that they talk always. It's so dishonest. They talk as if there's no cost associated with their, with what they want to do. You know, like it's, it's an unbelievable little magic trick that they get to do where he goes, look, people already know they can send their kids to school for free. And they do know they don't people do not send their kids to public school for free. It is it costs $20,000 per student per year in New York City above $20,000. I forget what the exact number is that right now. But that same cost that he said about daycare, that cost is there. It's just to the taxpayer. It's just to the taxpayer of New York City. None of this stuff is giving anything to you. This is the taxpayer being burdened with all of this. It's got to be paid for somehow. That, of course, just never even comes up. It's, it's never, it's almost again, they speak. And I don't understand how any socialist can almost like argue with this. They speak as if there's no downside to the government just doing more of this stuff. There's no cost to it. Like, look, dude, we already do K through 12. Obviously, we should do more than that, right? Yeah, that's true. I don't want you to do more than that. More than that. More and more and more. Like what is there any limiting principle here? Or is it just you're a bad guy if you don't want more of this free stuff? Because why not, why not more than what mom Donnie's saying? Why not, you know, why not free daycare plus give them $1,000? I mean, plus giving $10,000 for $100,000. $100,000,000. Like what, what is the limiting principle here? More and more and more and more government services. It doesn't seem like you just unthrowed out there. Like, yeah, we should do more. All right, guys, let's take a moment to think our sponsor for today's show, which is quince. It's time to break out the fall and winter wardrobe. 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So you get top tier stuff at half the price you'd pay with other brands. And I can back that up. I have several articles of clothing from them. They're all really nice and they were all very affordable. Go check it out for yourself. quince.com/poTP is the website for free shipping on your orders and 365 day returns that's q-u-i-n-c-e.com/poTP. quince.com/poTP for free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com/poTP. All right. Let's get back him in the shop. All right. Let's keep on. Good deal. Yeah. They did a study that found that for a family of three to a four-child care, they had to make $330,000 a year to live in the city and a four-child care. Living in the city and a four-child care. A family of three. So that means only one child. Okay. And to me, that's kind of even what used to be enough money 10 years ago is not enough money. What happened? Struggles of affordability, and a lot more people. Dave, what happened? Is, um, I don't know. We didn't do a rain dance or something and the money, the money gods have been unhappy with us. And so prices are at a control, Rob. It's just completely left out of the equation. Dude, it's the same thing. They have a whole goddamn conversation about student-loan debt forgiveness and never bring up why prices went up. Why is college so expensive? They're not even interested in the question. Hey, Rob, you know, we had the biggest experiment in money printing in human history. And now everything's unaffordable. Well, gee, well, golly gee, let's just sit here and and ruminate over that, Rob and see what we could really, let's just crack our heads together until the two of us can find a causal relationship between printing trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars and injecting it into the economy and the prices of everything going up. I guess you'd have to understand what prices are, but then it would be really obvious. It'd be really, really obvious. Stated differently, there's a cost and consequence of the government just giving people free stuff. The exact example that you're talking about of how is it that 10 years ago? This was a whole lot of money. And now it's not. It's because government did the exact program that you're looking for more of, which is it gave people a lot of free stuff. And then it turns out there's a consequence of that called inflation. And then the savings that you have and the money that you're earning if you're on a fixed income suddenly doesn't get you as much. In other words, you think you think these dollars don't buy much now, Mom, Donnie? Just wait, implement all these programs you want to say. Let's say, have the United States of America implement all these programs and you'll be wishing for the strong dollar that we had today. It's called the consequence of your law and pitch of, oh, government can just give you all the things that you're looking for and they can get it to you more efficiently than the free market. And it is, I don't know what to say, man. I mean, I know, I guess I swam in these these libertarian circles for so long that like, you know, these. these terms almost get like outdated or whatever, but this is what it is just like, it's not even like socialism exactly. It's just statism, you know, it's just a worship, an irrational worship of the government, essentially like a religion. Um, I mean, we'll kind of get into that maybe in the closing of this, but here, let's, let's play a little bit. I wouldn't call this socialism. It's a Lolloland talk. Yes. Yeah. It's just, hey, magical socialism, envy what you need. No, that's why I say it's just the religion of statism. Just, yes, just the magic because he's not even saying like socialism means the, it means state ownership of the means of production. That's what it's always meant, but he's not advocating that. So instead he's just like government doing a lot more stuff and just like more stuff and some other stuff over here. That's what socialism means, government doing stuff and giving you stuff, you know, just getting stuff for free. That's socialism. So, okay. Yeah, let's keep playing ability. They apply to a lot more people than people typically think. And, and to me, when as a socialist, what I'm fighting for is that nobody is priced out of dignity. And there's, there's just a comfort right now with living in a country where the market gets to determine everything, not just luxury, but dignity too. We say, oh, I'm sorry, I don't have enough money to afford a home. So all right, I guess kind of what I wanted to get into about, look, when you just think about this, and that's why I say it's kind of like, you know, this, not even a religion maybe because I do believe in God. So maybe more like a cult with like some fake deity or some sort, but, you know, as, as Stefan Maul and you used to say back in the day, right? And somebody said in one of my favorite videos of his, where he said, uh, governments, like if we're really going to think about this in philosophical terms and we're trying to have some type of like, you know, conversation, like in the realm of epistemology or something or, I don't know, governments, this is what Maul and you would say, governments much like ghosts and goblins do not exist. There's no such thing, like government, the state is a social construct. It's not a real tangible objective thing in the sense that like this desk or this microphone is, you can't really like, I mean, there's buildings and there's, senators, but like the center is just a guy. We call him Senator. It's a construct that we came up with, you know, it's like there are things that are, I like to say this rub, there are things that are social constructs, you know, and then for some reason, the left just picked one thing that isn't and decided that it is like, like gender is not a social construct, sex is not a social construct. That is actually like a biological construct, but government, the state is something we just made. There really is no such thing as the government. What there are are men with guns and then men who give those men orders. That like objectively, that's what actually exists. What the government is in reality is a group of people who maintain a legal monopoly on the initiation of force. That's what a government is. They're the only group in a given area who's allowed to initiate force. Everybody else is within some levels allowed to defend themselves. Not completely, depending on what area you're in, but you might be able to, but you can't, you can't levy attacks against your neighbor. You'd go to jail for that. That would be considered theft. You can't start a war. That would be considered murder. You can't do, you can't, you know, if you, if you just got in your car and put a siren on and went and pulled somebody over, you'll be arrested for kidnapping or, you know, illegally holding someone or whatever. So this is, now all mom Donnie is doing here. Throughout this entire thing is saying that that realm ought to be expanded. That's it. That's the whole thing. And somehow he's going to try to convince you that that is you getting free stuff and dignity. I'm sorry, man. This is, it's almost like, you know, like they'll be like in movies, the metaphor of selling your soul to Satan. It's just always been like a thing that humans really relate to. It's, you know, there's all types of movies where that's like the plot, essentially, the, um, the Faustian bargain, the deal that you have to make. And the devil will always sell you this deal as this is going to be so great. But it all, of course, is ultimately awful and you get your wish, but that becomes your nightmare. It just reminds me of that so much the idea that he would sell you that this vision is dignity. I mean, don't get me wrong, Rob. I understand the argument that when the government has destroyed your currency, then now you can't even afford a home that that robs you of dignity. I get that. And I could even understand someone saying in that environment, I argue that the government gives you a free home or something and we could have an argument about that, but that would not give you your dignity back. Look, this is part of the thing that's that's really infuriating and infantilizing about the way socialists talk. And when we were saying, Rob, that they leave out the taxpayer entirely, they leave out the person who's providing this service entirely, they leave out the cost of it entirely. That figure, it's almost the way I say this is somebody who's raised little kids and has, you know, they're older now, but has had babies and toddlers for the last year. The work that I have to do to make the food appear for my three year old is just not even thought about. You know what I mean? All that's thought about is like, do we have blueberries? Do we have blueberries? Because I want blueberries. It's like, okay, yeah, yeah, and that's just, and that's the correct attitude for a three year old to have. You're not supposed to worry about all the work that has to go on to provide this, but that's not the correct attitude for an adult to have. And if we understand that governments don't exist, there's nothing else but people here, man. There's not some other species that's above us that does the providing for us. There's not a parent. Once you're an adult, that's it. You've graduated to the top level, adult human being. You're as adult as anyone else who's in charge here. Why the hell should there be dignity in somebody else providing me a home? Somebody has to provide it. That home was built. Work went into making it. Why would me getting it when another person, like Rob, dignity, at least I don't know, dude, my conception of dignity as a man is that I bought my own house. Now, I understand the government shouldn't destroy the currency, so you can't do that. But to pitch the idea of like getting on the government dull as dignity, because now you have stuff, I'm sorry, that is not, that is not a healthy sense of dignity. A healthy sense of dignity for any, and my God, man, you should be moving toward this by the time you're 15 years old. A healthy, a healthy sense of dignity is being independent and self-sufficient, not requiring the, no, don't get me wrong. There will be people in life who need welfare, whether from the state or from other, don't get me wrong. There is a widow out there who's an old lady who needs hip, needs hip surgery or something like, I'm not saying there aren't people who need help, but that's different than a pitch about dignity. The pitch about dignity for the entire population is that able-bodied people ought to be productive and not need to be dependent on others, right? All right, guys, let's take a moment to think our sponsor for today's show, which is Cowboy Colostrum, great company offering an amazing product. 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Well, as a man with no dignity, I'll take all the free shit, but that's not that that's called having no dignity. You want to give me a free mansion? I'll enjoy a free mansion. You want to give me a nice Lambo to go with it. I'll enjoy that Lambo too. But yes, you are right. That that's not called dignity. It is also just, you know, I mean, I do believe, you know, I do believe in treating people with dignity. And I do believe that like I understand the argument that like degrading people economically degrades their dignity. I guess it's just like getting into a conversation about dignity with all of these things. You're like, yeah, no, totally, the government should give us more stuff because a dignity. Anyway, we're 40 trillion in debt. And he thoughts, and he thoughts on that. I mean, dude, it is like we're, we're approaching a real debt crisis that's going to be coming at, you know, whether we can make it another 20 years or not, it's going to be coming. You know, Rob, when you look at those projections, we're out. We're going to be like, they're saying we're going to be like, you know, 70 trillion in debt and paying like three trillion a year on the interest to the national debt and not that long. What's that going to look like? What's going to look like the system fallen apart? But as it's going down, you know, the democratic socialist come in here to say this, now I'm sorry. And perhaps I am a bit burdened by the fact that I really took an interest in economics over the last 20 years. And I've read a lot about it. But to come along, man, after this like, after this giant experiment in big government and money printing, the biggest experiment in spending and money printing. And then at the end, you come in and you just see all of the devastation that the people like us have been warning about for all these years. And for the socialist to just come in and just be like, government should give you more stuff. So everyone has dignity. And I'm supposed to be I'm like supposed to be impressed by this. This guy is supposed to be like the charismatic new leader in our country. I just feel bad for like, just how intellectually shallow this all is. Well, you know, I guess he's a pretty good snake, charmer with that nice, wispy, smooth buttery voice, just letting you know, it could all magically be free and you can have your dignity. Let me hear. I got one. There's one more point I wanted to make where perhaps I would even throw this out as like a real question for leftists because this is one that I've for years, Rob, just never gotten. I've never heard anything even approaching a response to this from a leftist. So this is a real challenge that I'm going to lay down to them. And as I, by the way, this was only supposed to be I wanted to do half the episode on this and then half the episode on the on this Cornell thing, which is blowing up to maybe we'll do that tomorrow. But we'll end on this. And even Rob, right? This to me, I always thought this was like a devastating point that should almost convert a leftist to being a libertarian, just hearing this, okay? But I will throw this out as, as genuinely a good faith question, like I want to hear the answer that leftist socialist type think about this, okay? A lot of times when we have these, these conversations, you know, the socialist will say, hey, what we have right now is capitalism, you know, and that's why we want socialism. And then the libertarian types will point out that like what we have right now isn't really capitalism and like we're arguing for laissez-faire and they're arguing from our, but generally what we agree on is that our government is owned by interests that are not the people. Like that generally what we agree on is that small special interests, not the general interest, own our government. And this is why all the leftists will say, what's the first thing we need to do? Get money out of politics because money is poisoning politics right now. So like, again, like if I were to push a leftist, they can't say, they're not going to say no Dave currently government spending is at next to zero, right? Like they can't say that, but they can say that the capitalist class owns our government, right? Okay. So let's, let's concede then that big business owns government right now. Why is government so big? Like it up, this is the question for leftists, but I want you to really focus on what the question here is. Every single leftist says, like if I go what would happen if we deregulated the economy and slashed government spending? Look, obviously Rob, all you have to do is look at the number, how much does the government spend this year? It's going to be well over seven trillion dollars. That's more than any government's ever spent in human history except the United States over the last few years. And it's a little bit more than that, but the only thing that's even close is our government. Biggest government in world history. Objectively, the federal registry, the federal registry, you can look at it, it's, it'll stack all the way up to the ceilings. There's a huge, an enormous amount of regulation of the market. Every leftist will tell you that like in theory, if we were to cut all of that regulation and cut all of the taxes and cut all of the government spending, that that would be the best thing going for big business. So why aren't they doing that? Like if big business owns the government, why aren't we seeing them drastically cut spending, drastically cut regulations, drastically cut taxes? Why aren't they moving toward the laissez-faire thing that you seem to think would be their best friend? What they seem to, why is it that when, when, listen, I'm not saying they're doing the same government policies that you would want them to do. But my point is why is it that when big business owns the government, we get big government? Give me an answer to that question leftist. Why wasn't every, why wasn't every billionaire in the country back in Ron Paul? If he was the best thing they could have had going. Because there's only one answer, there's only one answer that you can come to from this, and this is why leftists don't have a response to it. Because the answer is that big business loves big government, because that's who benefits from it. I'm honestly wrong, we can just wrap up on this. Don't you feel that that's like a fair kind of devastating question for them? Like what is the left wing world view answer to that? I don't think they have one. I'd love to hear it. Well, I'm sure they're not going to give that much consideration. Probably not. We'll find it. Maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised. All right. Thank you guys so much. I will just sneak this in at the end. That's the thing that always just shocks me about kind of the leftist is that they're always so concerned about corporations, and they don't realize the government's the tool that the corporations are using. And without the government tool there, the only way that they make money is by actually giving you something of value that you then voluntarily purchase from them. I'm sorry. Yeah, they have a complete blind spot for the government, and they worship the state. I don't know what else to say. You people, it's like a cartoon. You said you're talking all day about worker exploitation. You support the IRS. You get your life together. What is wrong with you? Oh, I'm really worried. Are you really worried about this boss making an offer to a worker? Okay. How about the goons with guns? We'll go back 20 years and ruin his fucking life for the crime of working, the crime of being a productive citizen. You guys are a bunch of fascists. You're not socialist. You don't even have the balls to be revolutionary. You seize the means of production. So you just want a big giant fascist state. All right, that's our show for today. Catch you guys next time. Peace.