From WXXI news.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in October of 2024, when New York State Assemblyman Zoran Mamdani announced his run for Mayor of New York City.

On the day of his launch, national membership in the Democratic Socialists of America was just short of 51,000 people.

Mamdani, prominent place in the DSA and his victory in the mayoral election led to an explosion of growth for DSA across the country.

Today, the DSA has more than 120,000 members.

Their largest number ever.

They're working on campaigns far and wide.

The membership tends to skew younger, and according to an NBC news poll, 47% of voters age 18 to 29 now hold a negative view of capitalism.

So what exactly does it mean to be DSA to be a democratic socialist?

There are chapters in many places, including Rochester.

We've asked local members of the DSA to come in and explain their platform locally, to talk about what they'd like to do nationally, and to talk about what it means to them to be DSA.

Let's welcome our guests.

There are two co-chairs of local DSA with us today.

Gregory Lebens-Higgins is one of them, co-chair of ROC DSA.

Gregory, welcome.

Thanks for being with us.

Yeah, thanks for having us today.

The other co-chair with us locally is Hanna Vlasic.

Hanna, thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me.

Edwin Rodriguez is an external organizer for ROC DSA.

Welcome.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Before the program, we were talking about the fact that Bernie Sanders presidential run in 2016 is what led to the establishment of the Rochester chapter.

So Rochester's chapter is now ten years old, and the guests on the program today have all come in in the last 5 or 6 years for various reasons.

Let me just start by.

We'll go with Gregory.

We'll go around the panel here.

When people say, wait, you're DSA, what does that mean?

Do you have like a short pitch for them?

Do you have like an elevator pitch and what it means?

Yeah.

We are fighting for a better world where everybody has access to a dignified life where everyone's material conditions are met and we can overcome the profit motive, where the fact that a very few people, make most of the money, and, distribute that to the people that do actually create the wealth in this country.

Okay, Hannah, what's your pitch when you talk to people?

I mean, I would say kind of similar.

Greg, I think for me, like I say, I want a world in which people are able to live a dignified life and that they're treated with kindness and respect and, that they're that we're not putting profit over people and that people are the things that people need are actually, addressed rather than kind of not okay.

Edwin, to me, I think it has to do with, more democracy being able to decide how we're going to take the world here.

You know, here locally in Rochester, statewide, countrywide, and have more control over, what we do in our workplaces and our educational systems and our life, throughout.

Do you view democratic socialism differently than socialism?

Edwin.

I think there is a difference.

Yeah.

For sure.

I think, the biggest thing about DSA is that we are democratically run.

This is, you know, this is the way we want to see the world act as a as a direct democracy, okay?

But the word socialist is there for a reason.

Mamdani himself has said this.

But there are differences of opinion within DSA, just as there are differences of opinion within a lot of different ideologies or movements or groups or even some political parties.

For you, Hannah, does this mean no private ownership?

Is that an eventual end goal here?

I mean, yeah, like that is the end goal.

But I think like when we're kind of talking to people, it's like that's like far off down the line.

We got to talk about like, how do we improve your conditions.

Like you're not able to pay for like you might not be able to afford rent.

You might not be able to afford your Jeannie Bell, you know, how do we get to a spot where, you know, like, whether it's public takeover of our Jeannie, whether it's like public housing, you know, there's intermittent stops, but, I mean, ultimately, like, like the goal is eventually like end of private, like corporations, like the workers own the means of production.

Okay.

And you know, Greg, on that note, preparing for this program, I was trying to read as much as I could on what DSA says, how they back up their case, what the critics of DSA or critics of socialism have.

And there are plenty of critics.

You've heard those critics.

One of the things critics typically point to is that when you look at extreme poverty around the world since 1990, around the fall of the Soviet Union, around that time, 43% of the world was living in what international organizations would call extreme poverty.

So that's the Soviet Union falls.

And by 2024, that number is down to around 10%.

Now, I don't think anybody is saying this, not income inequality, but I think opponents of socialism say, what is it that drove down the extreme poverty, if not for markets and capitalism and opportunity?

What do you what do you see there, Greg?

Yeah.

I think we should also look at the people that have been lifted from poverty through, socialist countries.

I think the Soviet Union itself, in China we've seen massive the Soviet Union is a good example of lifting people out of poverty.

I do think that there were increases in production that did help many people that to, better their immediate material conditions.

Now we certainly can have disagreements, with the Soviet Union.

I think here that we are centering democracy and we can have nuanced views of, these things and nuanced conversations.

As, as far as, capitalism lifting people out of poverty, capitalism depends on an impoverished workforce to continue producing wealth.

The, wealth gap has, continued to grow, in this country as the, production, grows as, we have seen wages that have not kept up.

So I think that we're also not talking just in absolute terms about, poverty versus not being in poverty, but also relative terms between the ruling class and the working class.

But help me just so I understand, Greg.

So as a democratic socialist, what I hear you saying is for the obvious anti-democratic reasons, you couldn't support the Soviet Union because that was clearly not a democratic, system of governance, but the the quality of conditions for the people in the workers you think was better during the Soviet Union than it has been since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

I think it was better, than it was under czar ism, prior to that.

And I but I mean, after what what about the 30 years post?

Well, Russia had been completely gutted.

All of their, government owned industries were, pri privatized, and many people were impoverished as a result of that.

I think my point here is just that it is not just, that capitalism is is lifting people out of poverty.

That there are other examples of, great masses of people in these countries that have been lifted out of poverty.

Okay.

But in general, do you when I'm looking up data, I'm just trying to look at the data about how how many people are living in poverty, how many people are living in extreme poverty.

And it's multiple organizations that are pointing to, the 1990 number 43%, the modern number around 10%.

And a lot of think tanks like to point to the fall of the Soviet Union.

You seem to disagree with that as a driving cause.

I don't see how the fall of the Soviet Union is connected to the, reduction of poverty worldwide.

I would disagree with that.

Okay.

Others want to weigh in on that.

Hannah.

I mean, I would I'm not too caught up on history, so but I would I mean, I think it's kind of like, like cause and saying like, oh, because of this, it causes that.

And.

Yeah.

Okay.

Edwin, I mean, I think, I think when you talked about, capitalism as a whole, you know, there there's no disagreements.

It did bring some people out of, out of, poverty, you know, depravity.

But I think at this point in time, we've, we got to the point where we have to think about how exactly the system is working for us.

You know, you know, something that worked five decades ago doesn't mean it's working today.

And I think that's what DSA is focused on.

It's saying that capitalism isn't really working anymore.

Maybe it never did, but today is what we're focused on.

So what is it that if it wasn't the collapse of the Soviet Union that was a big driver of the decline in extreme poverty that we've seen since 1990?

What is it?

Greg?

I again, I, I think that just to point to the fall of the Soviet Union is a rather, ambiguous and unscientific way to, to say like, how how did that account for the mass, global, impoverishment that we had seen, I guess, here I think even Marx does credit the ability of capitalism to increase, people's access to material goods.

But we see that the way that that is distributed, it is distributed to people at the top whose, quality of life, whose access to material goods continues to increase at an exponential rate while those on the bottom are not keeping up.

Yeah.

So so there could be some ability for capitalism to, lift out of lift people out of poverty.

But it is also keeping them in this, dependent state where they are, getting paid basically minimum wages, sustenance wages to keep them working, as a dependent workforce to produce profit for the capitalist class.

The reason I want to kind of start here is that NBC news poll that I referenced.

If you're under the age of 30, in this country, you have just as good a chance as not to think that capitalism is a mistake.

Young people, almost 50% in this country.

And I think if you're in your if you're 29 or younger, you're young to me.

So 18 to 29, capitalism is not viewed in good regard right now.

And DSA is on the rise largely because of that.

I think that ties to the the membership, I'm sure has some, excuse across ages, but it seems to skew younger in DSA.

And there's a disillusionment with capitalism and I'm just trying to understand what is driving that, because what Greg is saying is that for whatever capitalism achieved, it is also failing in a way that you can't tweak it within the system.

You've got to throw it out, and that ultimately it is better to replace it with something else.

Is that a fair representation?

I think that's a fair representation.

I think that we can point to many problems across the world that are caused by capitalism.

I think we look at climate change, and I think that that's associated with the endless expansion and resource extraction that capitalism is dependent on.

I think we can look at imperialism, which is also a manifestation of, this, drive for world domination by a ruling class and, resource extraction from, low, impoverished, dependent countries.

Okay.

So let me ask you then about two other sort of historical examples.

A recent one is the Trump administration decided to literally in the middle of the night, go take Venezuela's leader out.

And they did that, Hannah, what would you have said about the leadership of Maduro?

I mean, did you see was Venezuela an example of a state that was doing well or a state that was in trouble because of its governance?

I mean, like, I guess this is kind of like more I would say like more.

So there's like a lot of historical kind of like knowledge.

And I don't have that.

But like, I think the thing is, is like the fact that our president was able to just snatch, an elected like an elected official out of a country, overnight.

Like, I think that's not right.

It's not Democratic at all.

Like the fact that the US has that power and ability to do that, that like, that shouldn't happen.

That's like overreach, like, and there's this course I know of, like in Venezuela, the Maduro administration and that but like overall, it's like we shouldn't be deposing, elected like leaders and countries.

Okay.

Separate to that, Edwin, do you have a view of how Maduro was doing?

I think we get too concerned and what's happening in other places and not really focusing on what's happening here.

And when we do focus on other places where policing them, you know, we were telling them this is the way you should do things.

You got to do it my way or or no way.

And we did that in Venezuela, and we did it in Latin America many times.

And the Trump administration says we're going to do that in Cuba.

Yeah.

And, you know, there and that's the way the U.S has been for a very long time.

Trump is just being more open about it.

But the U.S has been doing these kind of, you know, military tactics for a very long time.

Yeah.

But I view this as two separate issues.

I mean, I understand Hannah's point that it is in the minds of some people wild to think that you could extra judicially just send a force in and take out a leader overnight.

And what is the precedent for that?

What is what does that establish?

What does that portend for the future?

That to me is not the same as asking do you think Cuba was well governed?

Do you think Venezuela was well governed?

And I take Edwin's point that we should focus at home.

But the reason I'm asking is I'm trying to understand how you all see what is a good example of governance that you're shooting for.

Shooting is the wrong term.

Nobody in DSA would like to use that phrase.

I mean, like a hand is looking at me like meeting your aim for me, I guess for for, striving for achieving.

Yes.

Achieving.

What is an example of government?

So is has Cuba been well governed?

Was Venezuela well government?

Edwin I think the answer to that is that socialism off the bat is not going to be perfect.

I think the I think what I'm asking, if you have a perfect.

Yeah, well governed it's it to me it's, you know, people are looking for this, you know, the DSA to have this, like, solution for everything in life.

We don't we, but we do know it's that people themselves need to start taking more responsibility in what's actually happening in our governments, in our lives.

And we do that by switching the kind of, system that we currently have.

Capitalism is not going to do it for us.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, I think we can look at these governments as an example of like saying like, okay, what are our aspects that we do want to take and like, what are aspects that we don't want to have?

You know, I think our goal for DSA is that we achieve socialism through democratic means.

So that is like, you know, some might some might say, you know, we like strive for the revolution.

Others might say, okay, we start with reforms like electing people into office and eventually the opposite of using force.

Yes.

Like passing reforms, like and there's different like people within DSA itself have those different viewpoints.

But ultimately, like we all center and focus on the fact that capitalism is the issue, that is the problem.

And that that is our ultimate goal is to remove capitalism and replace it with something.

I hope it's clear to everybody here and everybody listening.

But number one, I appreciate Hannah's point there, the point that DSA is working to persuade and grow its ranks through persuasion and a movement.

DSA is not seeking to use force an overnight go in and extract some leaders they don't like and install who they do like and that that's an important point of what this is not the socialist America, this is the DSA.

And that point is well-taken.

The reason I'm interrogating the ideas is I want you to have the chance to persuade people.

I want you to have the chance to interrogate the ideas and see if if the audience thinks that they make sense.

And I want to understand them better, too.

So that's why we're doing it today.

But I also really appreciate the fact that you want to do this democratically.

Yeah.

I mean, like, again, I will say, I think like our view like DSA as a whole and membership like the viewpoints varied.

Like they're like are people who believe, like we should go down the path of reforms.

And there's other people who kind of think more so like, like through building up membership and through building a mass movement that ultimately, like we've all achieve what Marx describes as like workers seizing the means of production, you know, through the revolution.

But okay, like how the revolution comes is like different for debate.

Yeah.

So, sure.

Greg, for you, is Cuba a good example of good governance?

So, I think it's important to say, like, we're not here as apologists for other socialist regimes.

I do think in Cuba, if you look at the literacy rate, I believe that Cuba has one of the highest literacy rates in the world.

And that's something that happened after the revolution.

I think you can also look at their health care program, that often when there are natural disasters in other countries in the area, that Cuba is the one that is sending doctors, to go respond and help people in those situations.

But we also can't take this from the context of US imperialism, the fact that Cuba is under a blockade, the fact that harsh sanctions were imposed on Venezuela, the fact that we were in a Cold war with the Soviet Union, and that we're continuing many of the same saber rattling policies with China.

So I think that when we're just talking about how these countries, performed, in a vacuum without discussing the effects of the US government that has been assassinating their leaders and attacking them both militarily and economically.

Then then we're not having an honest conversation.

Yeah.

So I am not going to carry the water for extrajudicial over overnight kidnapings of foreign leaders.

I am going to ask if you agree with the Venezuelans who are on this program after Maduro was captured, who said that they are no fans of the Trump administration, but the reason they came to this country is not because the United States made their lives difficult.

It's because the leadership of Venezuela over decades has been corrupted.

And the reason that there were sanctions was a result of the corruption of their leaders, not necessarily just the ostensible evils of the United States.

Do you see it that way at all?

Greg?

I'm not disagreeing or disbelieving, their experience.

Why don't we put sanctions on Saudi Arabia, which I think has a terrible human rights record?

I think that there are many other countries that are run by authoritarian dictators that the US is very friendly to.

Okay.

So let's let's do this in a second.

I'll start taking phone calls.

I've got some emails already to share.

We're talking to members of Rock DSA.

It's Rock DSA, rock DSA, org is their website.

We'll talk about their platform coming up.

They have a platform, a formal platform.

And they've got goals that, are local in regards to policing in regards to gaining office, gaining influence, affecting the economy, creating more opportunity and lifting people out of poverty.

And we're going to talk more about that coming up here.

And if you want to call the program, it's eight four, 4295 talk.

It's toll free 8442958255263652.

Call from Rochester.

2639994.

You can email the program as always.

Connections at wxxi.org.

So Greg on YouTube thinks that I'm just red baiting questions.

Why are DSA members answering for the USSR and Maduro?

I I'm trying to establish an understanding of what they are striving for and what it means to be DSA.

Now, what's an example?

Because nobody on this panel today thinks that the current or the recent decades of American governance is a good example of how to do it.

So I'm trying to look around the world and say, what are you?

What are there good examples?

Has it succeeded?

Are there things that you would like to emulate?

You know, Hassan Piker recently, came under fire because he has praised Mao and, and so I think it's valuable just to understand historical examples.

I'm not trying to make Hanna answer anything.

No.

For all of the actions of someone else, I'm simply saying, is there an example of governance somewhere else that you like, that that gives us a tangible idea of what we may accomplish here?

By the way, since I brought up piker, here is, is Mao misunderstood or are we okay condemning Mao?

Again, like I'll say, like I'm not a super like, history buff.

Not so I well, I won't confirm or deny about that, so.

But.

Okay.

And Edwin Mao, you want to take that as an example?

I'll take a sip.

Okay.

Greg, I, I think that we are having this kind of Manichean presentation where something is either all good or all evil, and I don't think it's fair to just say, oh, was this person evil?

Was this person, a good ruler?

I think that we have to have a more nuanced understanding of history, and I think that just, condemning, people outright in the abstract is not something that's going to lead to better understanding, between anybody here or any of the listeners.

Okay.

So before we get to the phone calls, let's just talk about briefly about the local platform.

And there are a number of points and there's a number of ideas that our guests would like to accomplish.

I heard Hannah mentioned, for example, Renee, we've had programs about this.

This is something that gets people, pretty fired up.

So just briefly, what's rock DSA position on our Jenny?

We are a co-sponsor of the Rochester Energy Democracy, and we believe that there should be a public municipality for like essentially the the county should own our Jenny or the people should own our Jeannie.

Okay.

Edwin, anything you want to add there?

No, I yeah, I mean, we we we believe that if we put the power back into, those who are actually doing the work, you know, the people who are currently working RJD, those are the people that should be making the decisions along with the community and and the government.

You know, we have this our genie, entity who's extracting a lot of money off of, our pockets, for no reason.

There's there's absolutely no reason why they should be.

Greg, do you feel like there's momentum on this particular issue?

Well, on our journey particularly, I've been disappointed by the Democrats in the legislature who have sided with Republican Monroe County legislators here in the Monroe County Legislature who have sided with Republicans in blocking funding, for a study that would inform us on whether this would, be a, productive change.

I am of the opinion that it would be.

I think we talked a little bit about public ownership, previously.

And, whether DSA wants to privatize things, privatize everything.

We're certainly not coming to privatize every mom and pop shop.

And Zorn.

Mom, Donnie, actually, in New York City has caught a lot of red tape for small businesses.

But I think we do need to talk about public ownership of utilities, services and people's lives that provide, necessary need.

Things like electricity, things like health care.

And I think that urgency is a very local and very prominent example of something, that could benefit by not being motivated by profit, by not, charging people as much as they can and continuing to ask for rate increases year after year.

Well, people's wages are not keeping up and people are energy burdened.

This is an example of something that could make an immediate and significant difference in people's lives.

To be fair, you're not calling for the the government takeover of mom and pops.

Now, if you're successful piece by piece, incrementally long term, that could happen.

If you are successful, right?

We need to create a work, a world where workers have democracy everywhere.

DSA centers democracy, and we centered democracy and having everybody be participants of their government.

But we also want democracy in the workplace.

We want democracy through unions that can have a say in their conditions of labor.

And I think, we, we expand out and we make sure that everybody has those guarantees.

I think it's good that you mentioned Mom and Pops, because people think about the big employers often, and they think about what they don't often like about the big employers.

And there's lots of examples of how Amazon workers are treated, what what it's like working in their warehouses.

All of those things are well documented.

A lot of the small businesses, let's just briefly talk about that in the future.

If there are no private companies, how do you how do small businesses start?

And what does an ownership structure from the outset look like?

Who is innovating?

Who's creating from the jump there?

What's that look like?

Greg.

Yeah.

So Mark criticizes a lot what's called, utopian socialism.

And the idea that he has is that we can't just, predict, from the outset, these kind of abstract ideas.

We can't just, you know, say, this this is what our perfect world is going to look like.

We need to respond to things, as they happen, under our current circumstances and in the current conditions.

So, again, we're trying to create a world where everybody, can participate democratically.

Both in their political life and in the workplace and where everybody has access to a dignified lifestyle and can, easily, meet their needs and, and, you know, experience, many of the, the benefits and pleasures of living that come when you're not, doing backbreaking labor for, 60 hours a week for minimal pay.

So I think it's it's difficult to just abstractly say, hey, here's what, our perfect world is, is going to, to look like we can talk a bit about what that maximum program is, is as far as, maximizing democracy.

But I think we need to focus on the changes that we are demanding right now.

Hannah I mean, I think there's like the discussions of like, oh, will there be restaurants like when the like, socialism or communism happens, you know.

Sure.

And I think, like the more important thing is to look at like what is happening now.

It's like people are getting their electricity shut off.

People aren't able to afford rent.

People are like rationing insulin because they can't afford it.

So it's like I think to me it's like the more important thing is getting to the root cause and addressing the material conditions of the working class.

And then we can figure out, like, okay, do small businesses exist?

Do like little restaurants exist?

You know, I think the more important thing is actually addressing the needs of the working class, getting like improving those conditions because people are suffering.

People are dying right now because of capitalism.

But a lot of workers are in work for small businesses.

Not everybody works for a big box.

Yeah.

And I think they're wondering if those employment opportunities will even exist in the future.

I mean, it's it's hard to say.

I mean, I think for us, like we that's like through debate and discussion, you know, like it's it's for us, the people to decide what we want that future to look like.

You know, it's not, p people that we elect.

It's like the, the people will have that voice in decision.

So I think if majority of people want to have small businesses still exist, then they'll still exist.

Okay.

We're going to come back with feedback for the guests here.

You're hearing Hannah Wlasowicz and Gregory Lebens-Higgins, co-chairs of Rock DSA, the Rochester chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Edwin Rodriguez is an external organizer.

Their group now has the local group as grown just as the national organization has the DSA, especially since Mom Donna's election, which is essentially double DSA, more than double DSA across the country.

The local chapter has now 500, 550 members or so.

I mean, that's it's growing a lot.

And we're going to talk more with them on the other side of this break.

Coming up in our second hour, we've been bringing you special rebroadcast all week, focusing on the value of travel and next hour bringing back a conversation.

We had with a group of local teenagers who returned recently from a birthright trip to Ghana.

They talk about how the trip changed their lives, how it is impacted their view of the world, and their desire to travel more this next hour on Connections.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Bob Johnson Auto Group.

Believing an informed public makes for a stronger community.

Proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson focused on the news, issues and trends that shape the lives of listeners in the Rochester and Finger Lakes Region's Bob Johnson Auto group.com.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Hey Jack on YouTube is not happy with me.

Said I had to take a break because of Dawson's low grade McCarthyism.

Harping on the Soviet Union, which was not socialist, by the way, while ignoring the current examples where DSA style politics or policies rule include including, for example, Scandinavia.

A couple things, Jack, I am not.

I'm just trying to establish what we are striving for.

If we're DSA, if DSA continues to be ascendant, which it is right now, what does it look like?

Because they don't like what's happening in this country.

They're not going to point to governance in the United States as a good example, where people are doing well or where the people have true egalitarianism as they would see it.

So are there examples around the world?

And the whole idea of the Soviet Union was not to say they were socialist.

They're bad.

Condemn.

It.

It was to say, we've seen a drop in extreme poverty around the world since 1990, and a lot of people think that coincides with the fall of the Soviet Union, which led to some of the satellite states and some of the countries that have emerged from the Soviet Union in doing things very differently in opening up markets.

And so is that connected to, a drop in extreme poverty?

You heard the guest answer, but I'm certainly not trying to red bait.

And I want them to be able to answer for themselves here.

Now let's get to some of your phone calls here.

Wow.

We have a bunch here.

Let's, let me grab Richard in Geneva.

Go ahead.

Richard, keep it tight.

Go ahead.

Sir.

Hey, how are you doing now?

I have to agree with the people.

Hello?

Yeah, yeah.

Go ahead.

Yes, yes, yes.

I have to agree with the people who you've been reading on YouTube.

I think you're completely off base in your questioning.

Okay, what I would ask is, what are you talking about with regard to capitalism as a as a contrast, I mean, China is a capitalist.

No, no.

That's where a lot of the changes, that's where a lot of the changes in poverty has come from.

Of course, these are capitalist North, purely socialist.

But it seems to me that since 1990, the change in the level of poverty worldwide has happened, in part because of changes in China as they've opened up the market.

But that doesn't mean that they're either capitalist or socialist.

I think that you're setting up a really bizarre kind of, I don't know where you're going with it.

Could you tell us what you think capitalism is?

And then perhaps the guest could say how their position differs?

I mean, I don't see the United States as being capitalist.

You have governments, the government insurances, purchasing shares in company, of course.

Yeah.

So.

All right, well, what are you talking about, Richard?

It's a fair question.

Thank you for the phone call.

That to me, the simple answer is there's not a purely free market.

Probably anywhere in the world.

Governments intervene, pick winners and losers in this country, for example, we don't have a free energy system.

You hear that a lot.

But fossil fuels get all kinds of subsidy and support for the government.

And depending on where you are, what level, cleaner energy sometimes get support, it is often attacked for being propped up by the government, while oil is often propped up by the government.

So you don't have a perfect free market.

That's just one example.

It's not like capitalism is a perfect free market.

Socialism is there's no ownership.

There's gradations everywhere.

The reason that we're talking about this is DSA has very specific ideas about what is wrong with a capitalistic system that incentivizes private ownership and profit and profit seeking, according to DSA and according to critics of capitalism, is what leads to extreme inequality, bad quality of life, bad outcomes for people as opposed to a different way of governing.

But there is not a perfect system and I am not carrying water for anybody.

I'm trying to interrogate ideas here, and if I'm not doing well, that's on the host.

It's time to guess there.

We're glad that they are here now, if they want to jump in with how they see that definition and anything they want to add there, go ahead guys, floor is yours.

I think they had yeah.

Capitalism is a system that is premised on the private ownership of the means of production.

The factories, the resources, by a, a small minority of the population, who have exorbitant wealth and they depend on a working class that is kept at subsistence levels.

So they will continue, making profit.

That is extracted, from their labor and again, funneled to this ruling class.

Okay.

It's even, you know, the capitalism has gotten out of hand in many aspects.

You know, I, I, I consider myself more of a socialist lite.

I do believe that there should be some markets under, you know, some kind of socialist, government, or system, the system that we have now, though, it is, you know, based on exploitation and extracting as much as we can and there's not enough regulations that, that we can put in this current system that will stop these people from trying to extract as much as they can.

They're going to continue doing it until we tell them that we're going to stop doing this kind of system.

Okay.

I, I would say like capitalism is, system in which it is profit driven and relies on the, working class to create profit for the few, the capitalist owning class or the, the rich, the wealthy, whatever you want to call them.

And, the working class is continuously underpaid and, undervalued.

So.

Yeah.

Okay.

And if our guests were saying we ought to just to adopt a Scandinavian model, that's what we'd be talking about.

They may like a lot of what they see in Scandinavian markets or countries, but those are market economy.

Still, there's very high levels of innovation.

There's a higher social safety net.

There.

Those are market economies with strong social safety nets, stronger than we have in this country.

And if they want to make the case for it, I mean, I don't know if you guys are making the case for Scandinavian politics is that we have.

No, no, I mean, like, I, I would say like kind of to me and like my own belief, it's like we would probably transition to something like that on the way to the way to socialism.

But that's not the end goal.

Yeah.

I mean, because like you look at those countries, it's like workers are not part of a union.

You know, workers don't have democratic say over their workforce.

So they're still exploited.

So they're like, there's still that part of like workers don't own, the means of production in that sense.

Like they don't have control of, like what projects they take on what they do and that.

So, like, yeah, I would say it's a lot better than what we have in the US.

But okay.

It's not like that's not where you want to go.

Yeah.

I mean I think we should go further.

Okay.

Fair enough there guys.

I think that, hey, there's, a lot of good ideas.

Other, other, most other developed countries have socialized medicine, for example.

I think that there are a lot of good ideas, and those are immediate policies that, we would want to incorporate.

I think anybody that thinks that DSA is demanding that we go to a full socialistic economy, you know, tomorrow, that that's just not a realistic conversation.

So we do have to think about some of these, achievements that we want to aim for along the way.

All right, back to the phones.

Gary in Bloomfield.

Hey, Gary.

Go ahead.

Yes, I have a couple comments.

First off, we're the biggest drawback to Americans being able to actually, make any substantial changes in the system we live under.

Is this I guess the word would be xenophobic, concept that everybody that that we are the only ones with good ideas and that everybody else is wrong?

The only way you're going to really improve anything is to be able to open your eyes and listen to what other people are doing and what people have, you know, so some take ideas from other countries.

I mean, Japan's had a much better, the, the health care systems.

There's other countries.

I, I'm like a guy, like, I won't go to a whole list of those.

But first off, accept that, yes, we can learn from somebody else.

And maybe the way we're looking at things isn't the only way to look at things.

And the second, the second point I was, I wanted to make is that, it's all good.

I thought, with a values laid, approach.

We didn't.

Our capitalism has not had not been as horrendous.

It is as it is now.

Before I'm going to put my plug in for older, people.

But before 1980, I think it was working somewhat well.

But the problem is, as the wealthy got more and more greedy and they and the technology basically was in their hands, they utilized those things that they had exclusive use of to squeeze out others, to squeeze every, every penny.

I mean, there's now, multiple income streams, with looked at by, by industry.

They're not looking at the before 1980.

It the ethos was the purpose of a business of any business was to make life better for the entire community.

What was called the, stakeholders.

Well, just let me let me jump in, Gary, I appreciate it.

And, a lot of what Gary's talking about sort of dovetails with what Tim Wu said on this program on Wednesday about the concentration of corporate power, especially in the age of big technology.

His newest book is all about the monopolistic practices that we've seen take root in the last ten, 20 years.

In that way, I'd urge you to read it if you want to learn more about that perspective.

And then our guests want to add to that phone call there.

I mean, I would love to take Japan's train system and bring it here to the United States and, but okay, you know, I think, capitalism trends toward monopoly.

And we are going to continue seeing that, and we can't just regulate our way out of that because we see corporations are able to buy political power.

We see the social safety net being rolled back.

Well, we're not trying to regulate our way out of it right now.

We're not trying to trespass.

You're doubting that that's even possible?

But there's almost nobody.

Yeah.

Elizabeth Warren, Lina Khan, under the Biden administration, there was some sort of trust busting light, but there's not an appetite for that right now.

I agree with you that there is there is no appetite.

And certainly any regulations that we had are being stripped.

And I think that goes exactly to our point why we are aiming for something further.

Those regulations, those, improvements in the social safety net were built up through worker power that came out of the organizing in the 30s.

And 40s and, and beyond.

And we've lost union density here.

And, corporations, because of this profit motive, are going to do everything they can to, roll back, those gains that the working class has made.

So that's why we need the working class to, control the means of production.

I want to bring it back to the local platform of Rock DSA.

They've got a number of planks.

One of them is on policing.

They want no increases for Rochester police officers.

And I want our guests to tell us a little bit more about what they mean by that.

Go ahead.

Greg, I'm a public defender in my day job, and I don't think that the police are making our community safer.

I think if we want to talk about making our community safer, we provide people with reliable housing, accessible food, accessible to access to mental health resources.

And that's where our funding should be going.

I think many of the situations that I see, many of my clients, are being criminalized when I think that if there was a different response, if a mental health professional showed up to many of these calls, if they had had, the resources in place prior to the time somebody needed to call 911, then they would not be, facing incarceration.

And, the further effects that having a criminal record has.

So, we need to be diverting our resources into to programs that work.

And, that is not the police.

Do you support police abolition?

Again, I think that these are maximalist demands.

I think that when we are talking about our our perfect world, do we want prisons?

Do we want, police people running around, shooting, civilians on the street?

Is that part of our vision?

I think most Americans will say they don't want police running around shooting people.

Most Americans say they want police to do their jobs efficiently and well.

And I think that we've seen that they're incapable of doing that.

So, so you support abolition of police eventually, again, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually.

Yes.

I think that's an important distinction.

Evan, is that we're not just talking about unlocking all the doors of the jails and prisons right now.

Firing all the police officers that are on the streets right now.

But we need to build systems that are, achieving what we actually want them to achieve.

And then I think eventually, the need, for police enforcement would, would, dramatically increase.

And hopefully we could get to a point where abolition is a reality.

Okay.

And so this is, again, I want to take it beyond a thought experiment and think about it realistically.

So what DSA is not saying is they want abolition tomorrow.

No prisons tomorrow, no penalties tomorrow.

And really, what rocked you save as I've been listening for a long time on this issue is saying is they want to create a a much different sort of conditions in the world that a lot of crime is driven by poverty and inequality.

But the push back tends to be like something like this.

Even in the most perfect world that you could create, there would be violence and there would be crime, there would be theft.

There would be something that looks like the current version of violent crime.

And I know I've watched interviews in the last month.

DSA hate when this question comes up, but I have emails all day.

People saying what happens if if a rape occurs?

What happens if a sexual assault occurs?

What happens if a murder occurs?

I don't know that you can create a world where that never occurs.

So, Greg, you're a public defender.

What does that look like in the future when there is no police?

Yeah.

So I think often when, these sorts of questions come up, we're always thinking about the worst examples or thinking about the the John Wayne Gacy or the Jeffrey Dahmer's.

And I will say that that is not representative of the clients, that I, I'm not talking about John Wayne.

I'm talking about, like, 40 shootings in the last three months in this city.

I'm not talking about mass murderers who are in international headlines.

I'm just talking about the kind of violence that I know you think can be reduced.

And I admire that and appreciate that.

But if we don't see it fully reduced, even if we take 98% of it, there's going to be violence.

There's going to be some kind of interpersonal violence.

And I'm trying to understand what happens when there isn't a policing system.

I'm not opposing it.

I'm not trying to condemn it.

I want to understand it.

Yeah.

Again, I think that we're talking about a world where the conditions are different.

I think that when people's needs are met, we're not going to see those rates of violent crime.

There won't be zero.

Right.

And so I think that the way that we, are addressing crime now with imprisoning people is not working.

We can look at the recidivism rates of people that go to prison and then come back out and still don't have a foundation, to live, healthy, well-meaning life and continue to commit crime.

I think that there is an argument for, incapacitating people making sure that they are not able to harm the community, but just arbitrarily locking people up for a number of years is not, focusing on rehabilitation or trying to make that problem go away.

All right.

I want to stay on some of the themes.

I see a button that says tax the rich that Hannah is wearing there.

Yeah, tax the rich.

How much here.

So what's what's DSA want to achieve there?

I mean, we had a campaign, for the New York state budget and, I don't know, I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but I remember I think it was like, if you made, $500,000 or more, like you would increase the tax.

But essentially, like, you know, people who earn a lot of money, corporations, you know, they're making they're making a lot of money, but also paying less in effective tax than like, probably you and me, you know, so I think I think it's they need to pay their fair share and contribute to the taxes here.

Okay.

Anything to add on that point, Evan?

You don't become a billionaire by yourself.

You don't.

You you become a billionaire, by exploitation.

And we want to stop that and run around and quit.

You got to keep it tight.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Every impoverished nation on earth suffers from a shortage of competent capitalists.

What you need is more and more capitalism, not less.

You guys are crazy with your ideas and you're full of accusation arbitrarily locking people up.

People aren't arbitrarily locked up.

And all this stuff about extracting stuff from people.

There are thousands and thousands of people that had great careers at Kodak, Xerox, all kinds of places.

Bosch and Lomb.

They weren't extracted.

They had good lives.

They had good little class lives.

You guys are nuts.

Andrew, I let's let's not go there, but let's let's let Hannah, you want to jump in on the point excuse.

Kodak is not extractive.

I mean, I, I can speak from personal experience.

I mean, my dad worked at Xerox, and I think they screwed him over.

He was a carpenter there, and they eliminated his job.

Thankfully, he was part of the union there, and he was able to switch to a different job.

But like, if he didn't have the union for that, he would have gotten fired and he would have been without a job.

So like, I like, did it provide great.

But the like because of the union, I got good health care as a kid and that.

But like was from his job he was able to pay, provide a good living for me and my brothers.

Yes, but they eliminated his job.

And if it weren't for his union, he would have gotten fired last minute.

What else do you want people to understand about what you want to accomplish locally?

We're, We're trying to create a world where, everybody has a say in how the, wealth that they create is, is used.

Even even if we're going to say that workers might be less exploited than others, they are still producing wealth and they don't have control over how that wealth is spent.

And that wealth is being spent, by corporations, to in misery, a great deal of the population.

There are a number of DSA local leaders who have been elected.

I mean, on city council, there's three, there's three on city council, there's at least one in the Monroe County Legislature.

Yep.

And you all expect to see more of that soon?

We hope so.

Local elections are coming up next year okay.

Rock dsa.org for more information.

Listen, you're all welcome to come back and keep talking to us.

So this is an organization that as we said, 120,000 members nationally isn't a huge number, but that is more than double where it was two years ago.

It is definitely having a moment.

It is affecting elections, not just in New York City, not just in the bluest places rock, rock, DSA, DSA in general, these guys would love to have influence across the country, but they're focused on Rochester.

That's why we're talking about this DSA, and represented on this program, this hour by, Gregory Lebens-Higgins Hannah Wlasowicz, Edwin Rodriguez, thank you all for being here.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We got more Connections coming up in a moment.

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