Last week, we caught Joe Scarborough sounding like Bernie Sanders as he banged his desk in frustration, inveighing against "billionaires" and wondering how the Democrats could possibly have missed the "layup" of beating the Republicans in November's election, given the disparity in income between those billionaires and working-class Americans.
On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough made it clear that he has signed on to the project of rebuilding the Democrats. He brought in two critics of capitalism: Kurt Andersen and Daniel Chandler. The former wrote Evil Geniuses, a book condemning conservatives who want to reduce taxation and regulation. The latter has written Free and Equal, a book recommending that the Democrats embrace the philosophy of John Rawls--which at its core calls for the redistribution of income.
Scarborough claimed to be a "proud capitalist" and then came the "But." He added "But I am a proud capitalist with guardrails that capitalism used to have. And I understand, people don't want to talk about income redistribution. I'm not a big fan of income redistribution. I'm especially not a big fan when the income is being moved from middle class Americans to billionaires."
So if the middle class flock to Amazon for their shopping, is that a "redistribution" of income to Jeff Bezos? Or is that the middle class finding the best price? Scarborough thinks just like the Democrats, that letting people keep more of what they have earned is the same as welfare programs taking money from those who have earned it and giving it to those who have not.
Hey Joe: does "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" ring a bell?
Andersen expressed nostalgia for FDR's New Deal, a form of soft socialism.
Chandler spoke little of the specifics of the Rawls philosophy, or of his own. But exploring Chandler's beliefs, it becomes apparent that he would remake our economy and society in radical ways.
- He claims to support free speech, but only the kind that helps us develop "our sense of what is fair and how to live.” And since advertising, in Chandler's opinion, plays no meaningful role in helping us figure out how to live a good life, such speech can be limited.
- He would restrict private money in politics. Government-funded elections, really? You worry about the corruption of money in politics? Just wait until politicians and bureaucrats are in charge of it!
- He would establish "worker cooperatives" in which “workers decide how things are done.” Sounds a lot like the proletariat controlling the means of production: i.e., Marxism.
- He would abolish private schools. Ah yes, subject all children to the indoctrination of government schools and the unions that control them.
- He would impose heavy estate taxes to limit the intergenerational transfer of wealth. Lifetimes of hard work taken away, to be redistributed to the more deserving, in Chandler's opinion.
The one note of reason in the discussion was Richard Haass, the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. Haass expressed discomfort with all the talk of the redistribution of income. He suggested that Democrats should focus on public education -- but can't do so "because of teachers' unions."
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
12/24/24
6:00 am EDTJOE SCARBOROUGH: There's been a massive redistribution of income since the 1980s from working class and middle class Americans to the richest .001%. And until we take care of those two things, we're going to continue to have our social fabric tearing apart.
And you talk about how this has been a long time coming.
KURT ANDERSEN: Yeah, Joe, it's been 50 years coming. And the thing is that happened in the 1970s. Two things happened at once, which is to say, the rich corporate right, the Republican elite donor class, people I call evil geniuses, had built this new counter-establishment, starting with the Heritage Foundation and all the rest.
And they kept their eye on this prize in that sense and for the party, which is: no taxes, anti-tax, sign the Grover Norquist Pledge, all that stuff. No, less regulation, just across the board, less regulation. We don't like unions. Reagan, bust the unions, we're good.
The Democrats, meanwhile, the new Democrats, like Gary Hart, were saying, and most of the new Democrats that were the stars of the 70s and then in the 80s, were saying, yeah, the New Deal's over. The whole New Deal thing is over. And by extension, the Democratic party's connection with working people and labor unions is over, pretty much.
So by the end, pretty much, you have the Democrats and the Republicans do, by the 80s and 90s and front of the century, become the same, close to a uniparty, as they were being charged of, economically.
. . .
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: So also with us, economist at the London School of Economics, Daniel Chandler. He's the author of the book, "Free And Equal: A Manifesto for a Just Society." He wrote a new piece for the New York Times entitled, "The Democrats Are in Trouble. This Man Can Save Them."
So tell us about who can save the Dems.
DANIEL CHANDLER: It's good. The New York Times people: they do a good headline. So, you know, in a way it might surprise you because the person who I think can save the democrats is a philosopher rather than a politician. So the person that my article is inspired by, and the same is true as my book, is the philosopher John Rawls.
Who, you know, he's not a household name, but he is by far the towering figure of 20th-century political philosophy. And, you know, he completely revolutionized liberal thinking. But my interest in Rawls and why I think he has a lot to offer now is not, you know, this is not historical or intellectual, it's political.
And I think what you get from Rawls is a hopeful and constructive vision of what, you know, a more fair and just society would look like.
And, you know, picking up on the conversation so far, I really agree with most of the, you know, all of the discussion so far. But, you know, most of it is, the discussion has mostly been diagnostic. You know, there's a kind of analysis of how and why the Democrats have ended up in the situation where they are, where they have alienated working class voters, where they lack
a kind of constructive vision of where they want to go.And in a sense, that's where my article and my book, Free and Equal, picks up. It tries to sort of say that the future of the Democratic party rests not on just assembling the biggest possible anti-Trump coalition, but on kind of reclaiming their soul, on finding a sense of what it is that they stand for. And I think Rawls can help them do that. And then what we need to do is connect, you know, abstract philosophy that you get from thinkers like Rawls with practical ideas for how we could actually transform America's political and economic institutions for the better.
MIKA: This is Richard, I don't think agrees with the Trump that I --
RICHARD HAASS: Let me say one thing. I mean, what's the great ladder in American society? It's not necessarily redistribution. A lot of this conversation doesn't leave me wildly comfortable.
It's opportunity. It's making the American dream real. Its opportunity. You want to do it? How about improving the quality of public schools? That is the principal ladder in American society. And when did the Democrats in this election, maybe I missed it, Donny. When did they talk about public education? And the answer is they can't. Why can't they? Because of teachers' unions.
. . .SCARBOROUGH: Here's the thing, though, Kurt. I am a capitalist. I am a proud capitalist. But I am a proud capitalist with guardrails that capitalism used to have. And I understand, people don't want to talk about income redistribution. I'm not a big fan of income redistribution. I'm especially not a big fan when the income is being moved from middle class Americans to billionaires. And that has been happening for four decades, really three decades in earnest.
. . .
ANDERSEN: Capitalism was working just fine from the end of World War II through the 70s. And that's because all the boats, more or less, were rising together as we prospered. That ended. And that ended because your former party, with the complicity of a lot of Democrats, concentrated on changing that.
