Four Futures of Democratic Socialism
with Peter Frase
Or, listen elsewhere:
My conversation today is with Peter Frase, author of Four Futures: Life After Capitalism, and member of Jacobin Magazine’s editorial board.
Peter is among the most cogent writers on complex socioeconomic topics I’ve encountered. He dropped out of a sociology PhD program & began writing for a more popular, inclusive audience both through his personal website, and as a frequent contributor for Jacobin Magazine, a leading voice in radical left politics.
We spoke about:
7 min ~ What is socialism in the 21st century? What does it want?
14 min ~ John Maynard Keynes’ vision, the good and the bad.
22 min ~ If socioeconomic environments condition particular tracks of human development, how can a revitalized socialism incorporate a focus on human development? What kinds of conditions do we want to build, acknowledging that they always invert to build us?
27 min ~ Universal Basic Income
36:30 min ~ How to pay for UBI
42 min ~ UBI as the capitalist road to communism
57 min ~ What is work? Ideologies that seek to realize themselves through work, contrasted with those than want to transcend work altogether and enter a ‘post-work’ society.
1:00:47 ~ The Fordist Compromise: why the progressive left’s project evolved from chasing shorter working hours to chasing higher wages.
1:04:00 ~ How can we think about making sure the gains of automation are enjoyed by everyone, rather than the small group of people who own the machines?
1:08:30 ~ Is a post-work society achievable now? Or does it depend on the advancement of 3-D printing technology?
1:10:20 ~ What is the social contract in a post-work society?
1:11:60 ~ Why do we want more leisure time? What do we want it for?
1:12:10 ~ The need for new modes of education
1:17:10 ~ Thomas Piketty and recent proposals for progressive taxation in the 21st century
1:20:00 ~ On RadicalxChange
