Bhaskar Sunkara

I think you could reward people who make innovations and who improve lives for everyone through their innovations by giving them, let's say, even more consumption, even that level of inequality, while still making sure that there's not people in poverty and suffering, and while making sure that, hey, we're going to...

give these people who want to work that extra 10 hours or 20 hours or want to apply their hard work some extra benefits, but that these benefits would be not the extreme disparities that you have today.

I think it's wealth and resources, yes, but it's also power.

And I guess one way to think about this is some thinkers on the right, like Hayek, they would say in their most generous moments talking about socialists and socialism, they would say socialists want to trade some of your freedom for equality.

And that's them trying to just accurately describe what socialism is trying to do.

The way that I would put it is a little bit different.

Socialists are proposing a trade-off, but it's really a trade-off between freedom and freedom.

And by that I mean, let's say you set up a successful business.

And you set up a business right here in Austin, Texas, some sort of firm.

It's producing some widget or whatever, and it's producing a good that people really want and demand.

But you have some competition.

You decide to hire 20, 30 people to help you.

You entered into a free contract with these people.

who under capitalism, of course, we're not living in feudalism, have the option to join any other firm, but they like you and they like this firm and they like your offer and you're paying them, let's say, $20 an hour for 40 hours of work per week.

Now, if the government comes along and says, okay,

okay, there's now a new minimum wage.

The minimum wage is $22 an hour.

And also there's a maximum work week, 35 hour work week.

And if you work someone over 35 hours, even if they agree, you have to pay them time and a half.

Now, that, of course, is now an abridgment of your freedom as an entrepreneur, your freedom to set certain terms of employment and to engage in a contract with free people.