Bhaskar Sunkara: Socialism and Communism | Lex Fridman Podcast #349

The following is a conversation with Bhaskar Sunkara. He's a democratic socialist, a political writer, founding editor of Jacobin, president of The Nation, former vice chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality. As a side note, let me say that this conversation with Bhaskar Sunkara, who is a brilliant socialist writer and philosopher, represents what I hope to do with this podcast. I hope to talk to the left and the right, to the far left and the far right, always with the goal of presenting and understanding both the strongest interpretation of their ideas and valuable thought-provoking arguments against those ideas. Also, I hope to understand the human being behind the ideas. I trust in your intelligence as the listener to use the ideas you hear to help you learn, to think, to empathize, and to make up your own mind. I will often fall short in pushing back too hard or not pushing back enough, of, uh, not bringing up topics I should have, of talking too much, of interrupting too much, or- or maybe sometimes, in the rare cases, not enough, of being too silly on a serious topic or being too serious on a silly topic. I'm trying to do my best and I will keep working my ass off to improve. In this way, I hope to talk to prominent figures in the political space, even controversial ones, on both the left and the right. For example, I hope to talk to Donald Trump and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to Ron DeSantis and Barack Obama, and of course, many others across the political spectrum. I sometimes hear accusations about me being controlled in some way by a government or an intelligence agency like CIA, FSB, Mossad, or perhaps that I'm controlled in some way by the very human desire for money, fame, power, access. All I have is my silly little words, but let me give them to you. I'm not and will never be controlled by anyone. There's nothing in this world that can break me and force me to sacrifice my integrity. People call me naive. I'm not naive. I'm optimistic, and optimism isn't a passive state of being. It's a constant battle against a world that wants to pull you into a downward spiral of cynicism. To me, optimism is freedom, freedom to think, to act, to build, to help, at times, in the face of impossible odds. As I often do, please allow me to read a few lines from the poem If by Rudyard Kipling. "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too; if you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don't deal in lies, or being hated, don't give way to hating, and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise." Even this very poem is mocking my over-romantic ridiculousness as I read it. The meta-irony is not lost on me, my friends. I'm a silly little kid trying to do a bit of good in this world. Thank you for having my back through all of it, all of my mistakes. Thank you for the love. This is the Lex Fridman podcast. Um, to support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Bhaskar Sunkara. Let's start with a big, broad question. What is socialism? How do you like to define it? How do you like to think about it?