Bernie Sanders spells out why capitalism is failing us | Down the pub with Bernie Sanders

the vaccine the vaccine United States government work with the private sector to develop a vaccine with the company moderna they own the intellectual property of the vaccine okay you got me there are people all over the world who cannot afford it I've got the vaccine here in my hand you can't afford it sorry you tell me is that Criminal is that any different than if you're walking by a swimming pool and you saw a kid drowning and you said well I don't want to get my bathing suit right what is that but how do we describe that so in others these are the kinds of crime is not just committed by people who rob banks terrible crimes are committed by people and three-piece suits distinguished gentlemen who contribute money to the local art institute into Charities right and there are upstanding citizens who make decisions they kill lots of people do we talk about it in that way you tell me now when you get sick you go to the doctor right how much does it cost you to go in nothing nothing oh my God all right how many people do you know who have gone bankrupt in the UK because of medical bills in that one no one oh my God all right UK listen up here's the new one new phenomenon for you you now have the opportunity if you move to the private system to go bankrupt because of medically related debt n o no no no no that would be the dumbest thing you could possibly do okay well I know cheers as well all right I got strong water here all right Bernie Sanders hello good to be with you good very glad to have you here um welcome to the Harlequin in angel in London I guess so yeah politics Show's favorite Pub we uh we have Mick Lynch and a Dempsey here not too long ago so some good ideas bouncing around these tables but um we're very glad to have you have you here before we get into the book it's okay to be angry about capitalism um could you tell us in your own words who you are and how you came to have the ideas that you have um I grew up in Brooklyn New York my dad was a pain salesman he came from Poland at the age of 17 without any money at all and I grew up in a family uh we never had much money and we lived in a rent what was called rent control Department uh in Brooklyn New York so I became kind of conscious about what lack of money does to a family at a very early age I went to public schools in New York City when I was a young man I got involved in the Civil Rights Movement and later on I became involved in the anti-vietnam war movement became involved in issues of economic Justice ran on a small Splinter party if you like I did not get very many votes but I had an opportunity to talk to a lot of people and I enjoyed it in 1981 to everybody's surprise I defeated an incumbent mayor in Burlington Vermont became mayor we got reelected re-elected re-elected again and we did a lot of good things interesting things as mayor of the city my wife and I were just talking about the youth office that we put together got a lot of young people involved in Pacific Life um I ran for congress I lost ran again I won served in Congress for 14 years as an independent caucusing with the Democrats uh and then in 2006 became a United States Senator uh and today I am chairman of one of the important Senate committees called the health education labor and pension committee if we have time I'd like to love to talk about that um but let's start with a broad definition of terms obviously we're talking about capitalism yeah how do you characterize our current economic system it's extraordinarily unfair and destructive uh and and what the book is about ali is just to try to get people to start take a step back and think about the world that we take for granted but that we should not take for granted uh and I obviously am much more familiar with the United States than I am with the UK and other countries but in the United States we have more income and wealth inequality than any time in the history of the country all right and people don't know this and people don't think about it three people own more wealth in the bottom half of American society I think that's an issue we should be talking about is that good from a moral perspective you got people sleeping out on the streets people in America who are hungry desperate Free People who are worth more money than they can spend in ten thousand lifetimes okay so that's issue number one more income and wealth inequality issue number two which we don't talk about very much certainly true here in UK is well as other countries more concentration of ownership what does that mean what it means is it used to be people started a small business you saw this moment you have a business you have a business today in sector after sector whether it is financial services Wall Street whether it is Media whether it's agriculture whether it's transportation whether it's big Tech you have fewer and fewer multi-billion dollar corporations controlling that sector and interestingly enough during the worst of the pandemic when in my country tens of thousands of workers died because they have to go to work bus drivers nurses went to work the billionaire class became two trillion dollars richer all right and and corporate profit sort and prices went up you know we talk about inflation in America at least we think that half of inflation was a result of corporate greed just raising prices so they can make more corporate profits so you got corporate a smaller number of people controlling the economy then the third issue I worry about and America is different here than the UK is we have a pretty corrupt political system in the sense that as a result of a terrible Supreme Court decision if you're a billionaire and you want to get involved in politics you can write out a check for hundreds of millions of dollars put it into a Super PAC you know what superpacas political action committee that can spend money to support your candidates or defeat your candidates all right that's not democracy that's oligarchy and the fourth issue that concerns me in terms of what's going on in America is that again it's different than it is here in the UK is we have eight large media conglomerates that control about 90 percent of what the American people see here and read what does that mean what that ends up meeting is that issues like issues I discussed in this book are virtually never discussed on American television give you one example give you a million but one example in the United States we spend more than twice as much as the UK does on health care okay we have a system which is dominated by private insurance companies whose goal is to make as much money as they can if you don't have any in church you can't go to the doctor not their worry they got to make money that's what it is I have never been asked never been asked how does it happen that we spend so much money on health care and yet 85 million people are uninsured or underinsured and in some cases we pay five ten times more per prescription drugs than you do now you would think that's a pretty simple question to ask hey Bernie what's going on what can we learn from Canada what could we learn from UK what do we learn from France about Healthcare never never and that is the corporate media is owned by billionaires and their agenda it's not like it's authoritarian it's not like somebody calls a commentator up and says this is what you have to say it doesn't work that way but basically they know what we can discuss and what we can't discuss so some of the most important issues facing Working Class People I never discussed in fact interestingly enough in America I don't know how it is here the phrase working class it's never used ruling class is never used now when you have three people owning more wealth in the bottom half do you think we have a ruling class I think so I think so yeah but no media personally so while the ruling class today is decided that we cannot conceptualize class we're not allowed to we're all in one happy middle class despite the fact that the middle class is shrinking and working classes really falling far behind I won't lie that section about media and the questions you don't get asked I have used that as a bit of encryption in preparation for this interview so well we will come to them um but before we before we get into those issues I mean can we just talk about the morality of that wealth inequality because you mentioned you mentioned um you know how immoral it is could you talk about that in a little bit more detail I mean again what I want people is I'm throwing out Expressions here I hope they work here in the UK it was thinking outside the box yeah we know that one all right good so what a big show all right all right so look some kid today in London Walks In and robs the store right and everyone says that's wrong criminal should be punished fine I'll accept that what happens if you are the head of a multi-multi-billion dollar fossil fuel company and 60 years ago your scientists came to you and said you know what the product that we are producing is going to destroy this planet okay 60 years ago and what the company did say is well we're in trouble here so we better lie about it we will deny the reality we'll set up we'll put money into what we call front organizations say well there's a big debate going on about climate change some people say yes some people we're working on it right and the result of that will be trillions of dollars of Destruction in the planet God knows how many people will die okay what are you consider that so some kid goes in robs this thought that's a criminal offense do we think in America or around the world that it is a criminal offense that the CEOs who make tens of millions a year lie about a product which is destroying the planet how do you deal with that all right other example more relevant in the United States than it is here we pay in America the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs okay one out of four people cannot afford the drugs their doctors prescribed that's how crazy it is now what do we say how do you do how would you describe the head of a drug company they sit around the room they say well we're going to raise the prices of insulin okay now we have a lot of diabetics in the United States raise the price of insulin somebody said well if you do that thousands of people are not going to be able to afford it some may die and the answer is well our job is to make money and so people die that's the way it is how do you describe that behavior well it's murderous callous in the extreme yes it is the vaccine all right the vaccine the United States government actually I was we have a very good uh agency called the National Institute of Health really great scientists work with the private sector to develop a vaccine with the company moderna they own the intellectual property of the vaccine okay you got me there are people all over the world who cannot afford it I've got the vaccine here in my hand you can't afford it sorry you tell me is that Criminal is that any different than if you're walking by a swimming pool and you saw a kid drowning and you said well I don't want to get my bathing suit wet right what is that but how do we describe that so notice these are the kinds of crime is not just committed by people who rob banks terrible crimes are committed by people and three-piece suits distinguished gentlemen who contribute money to the local art institute and to Charities right and now upstanding citizens who make decisions they kill lots of people do we talk about it in that way you tell me none we're done all right and that's the kind of discussion we have to have and the people that do talk about it in that way are often labeled as an extreme right and I would argue that it's rather extreme for a fossil fuel industry to produce a product that may kill millions of people right yeah of course all right so I mean that's the kind of discussion that we need to have who determines what is really important I think that when you have and again in my country massive income and wealth inequality that is a major issue from the media's perspective and the billionaires perspective they don't want you to think that that is a major issue and in fact what's going on here I don't want to be too inflammatory is we are in the midst of a massive class Warfare massive class so the people on top of doing phenomenally well and they will spend whatever it takes to protect the status quo it's going great for them not so great for the working class in my country just give you an example and again we don't talk about this much you know I know everybody knows that we have seen an explosion of Technology right workers now produce far more when I was mayor of Burlington in the early 80s we didn't have a computer we didn't have email all right everything is more productive now and yet in the last 50 years the weekly wages of the average American worker is less today in inflation adjusted for dollars than it was 50 years ago how does that happen meanwhile there has been a 50 trillion dollar transfer of wealth from the bottom ninety percent to the top one percent so I know I'm throwing around a lot of numbers of people are going oh my God think about her numbers bottom line is middle class is shrinking people on top are doing phenomenally well people on top have virtually all of the power they like what's going on and they want to maintain the status quo that's it in a sense I think you can go a step further talking about that class Warfare and actually argue that the ruling class is on the offensive right it's not it's not just oh there's a constant state of conflict between the two it's like one end is on is on the losing end the receiving end of a lot of it so how do you see then you know if you want to take a phrase like billionaires shouldn't exist what's the route to bringing that into existence first of all we have to raise public consciousness you know like you say billionaire that's the chapter in the book oh they didn't just think of that I don't think of anything else uh but we have to begin that discussion all right look if you go out you saw this business and you're successful in it you make money fine good good for you you want to make money you want to become rich that's great but should Society say that really when we got people in Desperate shape that you should not be making billions and billions of dollars I think Society can say that so this is not a book against Innovation against new ideas businesses want to make money but there should be a limit billionaires in fact uh should not uh exist and we got to be thinking about it and the way you do it is through a fair and progressive tax system all right so your successful businessman you have more money than me fine but there's got to be a limit to it and we are going to tax you very heavily on the upper end of the amount of money that you make so that you're not a billionaire you will have plenty of money to take care of your family you can own dozen homes maybe not 20 homes only you know 10 homes I know painful no your yacht could only be 5 000 feet not you know ten thousand I don't know but you'll survive yeah it's quite striking um for me from a sort of external perspective on recent American politics the kind of obsession psychodrama around foreign interference in elections right when it for me it appears to be in plain sight the threat is domestic what's wealth I mean we I mean I think you got Russia and perhaps other countries meddling through social media in in elections yeah I think that that's true but you're right it is in plain sight see here's the story if you come to America you decide to become an American citizen and you take me into a back room or this little Pub here and you say Bernie here is five dollars and I want you to vote for this bill if you have found out that if you gave me that five dollars you would be fine found guilty of a serious crime bribing a senator I would be found guilty of accepting it right you're bribing me if I take it we're both in deep trouble give me five dollars on the other hand if you are a billionaire and you say hey I'm going to set up a Super PAC for you and put a hundred million dollars to make sure that you get reelected perfectly legal okay so it is in plain sight perfectly legal legal for billionaires to buy elections and what the Supreme Court did a number of years ago in a decision called citizens united is you know in America we believe in freedom of speech freedom of all of that and what the Supreme Court said you're a billionaire you have free speech you want to run a hundred million dollars on ads attacking Bernie Sanders that's your freedom you want to destroy democracy that's your freedom needless to say some of us strongly disagree you've spoken before about corporate Democrats and I don't want I don't want to make this personal though you can if you wish to but could you talk a little bit about that and and the bill back better bill as well specifically yeah and I think it's possible that many in the UK are not aware of that of course um after Biden was elected my campaign sat down with his campaign and we said look let's work together on the important issues facing the American people whether it is Health Care education climate um housing whatever it may be and we did we put together task forces and they came up with you know pretty strong Progressive ideas when Biden became president we were in the midst of this terrible pandemic thousands of people were dying every day we did not have a vaccine uh and the economy was crashing worst economic situation uh since the Great Depression small businesses going under kids not going to school schools closing hospitals overflowing under great stress we work together to pass a bill called the American Rescue plan was a 1.9 trillion dollar bill which I worked very hard on with the president which gave fourteen hundred dollars to every man woman and child in this country in a time of emit massive economic crisis gave 350 dollars per child uh for working parents helped small businesses helped hospitals help schools made sure that the vaccine would get distributed in a way that had been you know we hadn't been able to do before a very impressive bill and I was glad that Biden was very supportive then came we said this was an emergency bill right it was an emergency we responded effectively what Biden said what I said what others said okay let us now deal with the structural you know what I mean by structural yeah the long not an emergency the long-standing problems which are what well uh we have elderly people in America don't have any teeth in their mouth they can't afford hearing aids we're going to expand our health care program to cover them our child care system I don't know how is child care here is it in decent shape it's very expensive it's totally expensive so if you're a working person hard to afford the child a lot of people have to make the choice between let's say you're not particularly well paid it's more economically better for you to just stay home and look after a child okay same thing in the United States so in the United States in my state which is cheaper than most it's about fifteen thousand dollars per person so if you make average income 50 or 60 000 you're spending a quarter of your income just to put your kid if you're lucky enough to find a slot yeah meanwhile psychologists tell us that zero through for the most important years of intellectual and emotional development we pay child care workers terribly so we had a revolutionary approach to chanca really going to transform it we said if you want to go to higher education at least the first two years would be tuition free we have a major housing crisis in America we put hundreds of billions of dollars to build low-income and affordable housing we have a problem in home health care in other words this was this legislation which originally started out of my committee at six trillion dollars went down would have been the most significant piece of legislation for the working class of America it dealt with virtually all of the problems that working-class families were facing and we had zero Republican support not one Republican and in the Senate it was 50 Democrats um in the Democratic caucus 50 Republicans and we negotiated we worked we worked in two corporate Democrats and by that I mean two Democrats who get a whole lot of money from the wealthy and they ended up saying no we don't want to go with it so we lost the opportunity to really do a lot of good stuff for Working Class People and I think we're still facing democracy as well you I mean you mentioned that the collaborative approach you've had with the body Administration and you know it's been a very Progressive Administration so far but you're quite harsh on the Democrats in the book as a whole yes yes I mean and I know you just mentioned that you vote with the caucus but there's room for improvement in the party clearly much room for improvement look what our campaigns did you show that there were a lot of working-class people and young people we won in both of our campaigns the support of young people under 40 in overwhelming numbers wasn't even close Landslide Victors we did very poorly for whatever reason with older people and what I wanted to see and want to see is the Democratic party say wow we got all of this energy this youthful energy out there people who are fighting racism and sexism and homophobia people who in many ways are economically worse off than their parents people are willing to take on big money interests and corporate interests bring them in open the door wow that is fantastic imagine a party of young people working with older people coming up with great ideas to transform America that's what I wanted to see and in a few States that happened but in most States people said sorry stay away it's our party we really don't want you we don't want the you know the great what we call unwashed masses to come into the body we'll run it thank you very much uh and you know we have a chapter in the book that says no open the damn doors here's an agenda that can work for working people at the end of the day politically what we have to do what I think every other country on Earth has to do is to bring people together around an agenda that works for everyone I'm kept you black if you're Latino if you're Asian American whatever you may be you need health care you need good education you want a clean environment or you want to make your sure your kids can get decent child care we know what the agenda is we know that people support that agenda let's do it on that point then about the labor movement I mentioned uh Mick Lynch earlier you spoke about an rmt rally in the summer which uh politics Joe covered Jeremy corbyn doesn't have a place in the labor party anymore I wonder well first of all your Reflections on the labor movement not the party the movement uh more broadly in the UK right now uh don't know enough about it I had the opportunity to meet Mick the last time I was here a very impressive guy and I'm glad to see from a distance working people whether they're nervous nurses people in transportation whatever it may be standing up and saying you know what we are entitled to decent wages we're doing important work we put our lives on the line during covet all right we need to be respected and paid adequately on that point there the previously made about the Democrats in the working class base something similar has happened with the labor party here in the that working class vote has kind of over time Fallen away what do you see as the route to rebuilding that Coalition for both the Democrats I don't think it's complicated I really don't what happens in the United States and again I'm obviously much more familiar with the US than here is for the last 40 or 50 years there was a time let me back up under FDR and even Harry Truman in in the 40s even under John F Kennedy where if you went out on the street and you said to people which is the party of the working class in America everyone's about the Democratic party which is the party of big business well that's the Republican Party and that was kind of agreed upon but then what happened 40 50 years ago the Democrats said why don't we go out and get all that corporate money why are the Republicans getting it we should go out and get it and once you start hustling money from the wealthy things begin to change and there is a Justified belief because it's true on the part of working-class people of this country whose parents and grandparents voted for democrats for the Democrats don't really care about them have turned their backs on them have become associated with The Beautiful People right you know the Hollywood folks and all that and I'm afraid that to a large degree that is true uh and people say you talk about this but you don't do it and Trump is here he's a powerful guy you know he may lie all the time he may be a little bit crazy but he's going to do something and we need something to be done so if you put yourself in the position of the average working-class person in many ways their standard of living is in Decline they can't afford to send their kids to college so they can't afford health care and they can't afford housing and they're saying cares about me does anyone know that I live or you're too busy associating with the rich and the famous hey I'll meet you anyone paying attention to me and to a large degree the Democrats are not there at all you know so um what this book is about is saying to the Democrats that has got to be your constituency forget about your billionaire friends and your corporate contributions you're going to win elections if you stand with them and we know what the agenda is uh and and I talk about it but it's not complicated everybody knows what it is we all need Quality Health Care we need affordable housing we need some Child Care decent education we want to protect the planet for our kids and grandchildren not complicated let's stand together and let's tell the billionaire class they can't run the world anymore on that point I would just like to quote a bit of the book if that's all right with you um you write that there is not a middle ground between the insatiable greed of uber capitalism and a fair deal for the working class there is not a middle ground as to whether or not we save the planet there is not a middle ground about whether or not we preserve our democracy and remain a society based on equal protection for all I mean you regularly return to the realities of class Warfare the offensive waged by oligarchs that refrain whose side are you on and I think that's particularly relevant you might not say so but to kierstama's labor party in the UK and also to the Democrats that yeah you do have to pick a side yes you do you do and not only is that from my perspective the right thing to do I mean if you're in politics what is you're serious about politics your job is to uplift people who are living in desperation that seems to be a no-brainer uh but it is good politics too because if you go out on the street and you talk talking about the issues that are impacting people's lives they can say hey Ali thank you okay you got my support let's do it all right if you ignore their needs why would they both feel why would they vote at all let's talk about Healthcare um the situation in the NHS right now in Britain is is bad yes record waiting lists people sleeping in hospital corridors because they can't get beds people dying waiting for ambulances and a lot of the discourse around this has started to shift towards whether or not the private sector can help us to alleviate some of these problems it's not just the conservative party there's some talk from West streets in the shadow Hill secretary as well um as someone with direct experience of the American Healthcare System could you explain to us whether the American way is something we should be trying to emulate here in Britain that would be the dumbest thing you could possibly do all right tell me why all right I'll tell you why right now in America I I should have known this I don't know but we're spending at least twice as much for a person on Healthcare as US money how much we're spending thirteen thousand dollars for every man woman and child you're a family of four fifty two thousand dollars yet just on health care okay why do we spend so much in healthier because the function of a privately driven Health Care system is not to provide quality care to all it is to make money for the insurance companies so they sit around and think okay how can I make as much money as we possibly can and they come up with a very complicated system essentially designed to keep you from getting the cad that you need so that they can make more profits it's not not very complicated so the American Health Care system is working great I gotta tell you for the insurance companies they make tens of billions of dollars every single year all right you talk about waiting Lots okay okay and again it's like everything else In fairness if you are wealthy in America you could probably get the best health care in the world but if you are a working class person first of all I go on for several hours on this one yeah you know where you get your health care you get your health care in most cases through your job okay so your employer will provide Health Care to you some employers provide very strong health care benefits most do not so Ali you're working for me you're an average worker I say okay you're getting X dollars a week and your wages fair enough and here's your health care benefit are we going to cover you but you have a deductible do you know what a deductible is all right people in Great Britain listen up because if you're going to move through the American Health Care system not disaster you got to learn these terms this is what a deductible is now when you get sick you go to the doctor right how much does it cost you to go in nothing nothing oh my God all right in America you get sick you go to the do you have an insurance plan all right and the doctor says okay your deductible has not yet kicked in what does that mean you got to pay it depending on the plan and there are hundreds of different brands on average let's just say you're a family of two three people you got a ten thousand dollar deductible you know what that means that before your insurance kicks in you got to pay the first ten thousand dollars out of your own pocket you got that yeah yeah now if you got hit by a bus or you ran up a hundred thousand dollar bill it is likely the insurance will kick in the 90 000. but if you are simply sick or your kid is sick you got to come up with the first ten thousand and what happens if you're making sixty thousand a year you're gonna say you know what I can't afford that money so first of all understand that the American people pay a whole lot of money out of their own pocket Second Law how many people do you know who have gone bankrupt in the UK because of medical bills no one no one oh my God all right UK listen up here's the new one new phenomenon for you you now have the opportunity if you move to the private system to go bankrupt because of medically related debt all right let's just say in America here's the story we have I think 320 million people 85 million are uninsured or underinsured that means uninsured you got no insurance period you got nothing underinsured means you have a high deductible a high co-payment so it's not only that you have to pay the first ten thousand you go in you got to pay if the bill is 100 bucks you may have to pay 20 bucks out of that got it all right you end up in the hospital Not Unusual or serious illness surgery cost you two three hundred thousand dollars your insurance is not going to cover all that let's say you have fifty thousand dollars in debt you're a working-class person you can't come up with the fifty thousand dollars you're hounded for the bill can't pay it you're the best option for you is going bankrupt 500 000 people a year in America go bankrupt your whole credit is runes because you can't pay your medical bills okay so other than the fact that we have the most expensive Health Care system in the world incredibly bureaucratic with high deductibles which force over sixty thousand people a year to die because they don't get to a doctor on time other than the fact we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs it's a great system fantastic system think about it all right but the answer is and I say this with all honesty this country UK has a a right to be enormously proud of what you accomplished way back in 1948. when you said to the whole world um and I Bevin LED that effort is to say Health Care is a human right you're poor you're rich you're going to go to the doctor in the hospital doesn't matter who you are an extraordinarily profound statement advancing human values don't give up on that strengthen your system put money into the system do what you have to do to make sure you have the doctors the nurses the other ancillary care that you have don't go the American way we are running out of time so we're gonna have to wrestle through a couple now you've obviously got a lot of different places to be quickly is it Un-American to make these direct criticisms about your country it's totally 100 of what America is supposed to be about um serious debate about serious issues is what democracies about people disagree with me that's fine let's have that debate what else makes you angry other than capitalism um well too many things make me angry but I also don't like but bureaucracy as a matter of fact we have a lot of in both of our countries all right but the bottom line you know Audi of what this book is about it doesn't have all the answers but what I hope it does this gets people thinking you know and and start challenging some of the things that we just accept is normal it is not normal that so few have so many and so many have so little and the other thing it touches on is we are in the midst of a technological Revolution in terms of artificial intelligence and Robotics that is going to replace millions of jobs in this country and in my country who's going to be making those decisions whether or not you're laid off thrown out on the street whether you benefit from that technology so we better be thinking about it and it shouldn't just be the big corporations who own that technology who benefit it should be working people last one realistically do you think you'll ever be president of the United States who knows I I think probably not um but you know Biden runs uh which I think he will outly supporting him it's been an absolute pleasure getting angry thank you so much I really appreciate it go well and have cheers as well all right I got strong water here all right cheers

Channel: PoliticsJOE

Views: 425,931

Keywords: Politics, UK politics, British politics, Parliament, Government, Westminster, US Politics, American Politics, Bernie, Socialism, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, News, Political news, Politics news, Interview

Id: eNXoL5Qwu8g

Length: 36min 2sec (2162 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 02 2023