Bhaskar Sunkara

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1,609 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Dec 2022 last heard Dec 2022

Bhaskar Sunkara’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Lex Fridman Podcast · #349 – Bhaskar Sunkara: The Case for Socialism · 22 Dec 2022 podcast

Now, on the question of polarization...

I guess that implies that this polarization, this distinction, is a distinction that isn't real in society and that is kind of being manufactured or generated.

So in certain populist distinctions, the...

the division is basically arbitrary or made up, the us versus them polarization, depending who the us and who the them are.

It's truly something that's manufactured.

But capitalism itself as a system, as a system based on class division, whether you support it or oppose it, I think we should acknowledge it's based on class division, that is the thing creating that polarization.

Now, I think what a lot of what socialists try to do is we try to

take bits of working class opposition to capitalism, to their lives, to the way they're treated at work, and so on.

And yes, we do try to organize on those bases to help workers take collective action, to help them organize in political parties, and so on, to represent their interests, economic and otherwise.

But the contradiction is,

exist to begin with.

And if anything, this system, which I'm proposing, democratic socialism, would be kind of a resolution of this conflict, this dilemma, this thing that has always existed since chieftain and follower and so on.

We've had class divisions since the Neolithic revolution.

I think this is a democratic road out of that tension and that division of humanity into people who own and people who have nothing to give but their ability to work.

So I'll play devil's advocate, which is that maybe one could argue that in its purest, earliest stage, capitalism was based on a stark,

But then since then, two things have happened.

One, a bunch of socialists and workers have organized to guarantee certain rights for working class people, certain protections.

So in our system now, there are certain safety nets, less in the U.S.

than in other countries, but in a lot of countries there are pretty extensive safety nets.

And all those things are...

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