Socialism vs. Capitalism: Jacobin's Bhaskar Sunkara and Economist Gene Epstein Debate

10/25/18 • 105 min

Is socialism more effective than capitalism in bringing freedom to the masses?

That was the resolution at a recent public debated hosted by the Soho Forum on October 15, 2018. It featured Bhaskar Sunkara, the founding editor and publisher of Jacobin magazine, and Gene Epstein, the Soho Forum's director and former economics and books editor of Barron's. Naomi Brockwell moderated.

It was an Oxford-style debate in which the audience votes on the resolution at the beginning and end of the event, and the side that gains the most ground is victorious. Epstein, arguing the negative, prevailed by convincing about 11 percent of audience members to change their minds.

Sunkara is also the author of the forthcoming The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality, which will be published by Basic Books in 2019.

Comedian Dave Smith, host of the podcast Part of the Problem, opened the program.

The Soho Forum, which is partnered with the Reason Foundation, is a monthly debate series at the SubCulture Theater in Manhattan's East Village. At the next debate, which will be held on November 14, 2018, Columbia professor John McWhorter will debate NYU's Nikhil Pal Singh on whether "the message of anti-racism has become as harmful a force in American life as racism itself." Buy tickets here.

Music: "January" by Kai Engle is licensed under a CC-BY creative commons license.

All Soho Forums are turned into Reason videos and podcasts. Go here for a full archive.

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The post Socialism vs. Capitalism: <em>Jacobin's</em> Bhaskar Sunkara and Economist Gene Epstein Debate appeared first on Reason.com.

Is socialism more effective than capitalism in bringing freedom to the masses?

Sunkara is also the author of the forthcoming The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality, which will be published by Basic Books in 2019.

Comedian Dave Smith, host of the podcast Part of the Problem, opened the program.

Music: "January" by Kai Engle is licensed under a CC-BY creative commons license.

All Soho Forums are turned into Reason videos and podcasts. Go here for a full archive.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Like us on Facebook.

Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes.

The post Socialism vs. Capitalism: <em>Jacobin's</em> Bhaskar Sunkara and Economist Gene Epstein Debate appeared first on Reason.com.

Previous Episode

Would More Gun Control Lead to More Crime? A Debate

Does defensive gun use stop crime? Would more gun control save lives? Those were the topics of a public debate recently hosted by the Soho Forum, featuring Gary Kleck, a criminologist from Florida State University, and Paul Helmke, the former president and CEO of the Brady Center/Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence as well as the former mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Kleck argued that there are at least four times as many defensive gun uses by potential victims as there are by criminals, and that new gun controls would reduce the defensive uses far more than the criminal ones. Helmke questioned Kleck's take on the data.

The debate was held on September 13, 2018, at the SubCulture Theater in Manhattan's East Village. Soho Forum Director Gene Epstein moderated. Comedian Dave Smith, host of the podcast Part of the Problem, was the opening act.

The full resolution read: While laws that prohibit gun ownership would reduce crimes perpetrated by criminals, that benefit would be more than offset by the foregone opportunities for defensive gun use by victims of crime.

It was an Oxford-style debate in which the audience votes on the resolution at the beginning and end of the event, and the side that gains the most ground is victorious. Kleck, arguing the affirmative, prevailed by convincing about six percent of audience members to change their minds.

All Soho Forums are turned into Reason videos and podcasts. Go here for a full archive.

Kleck's research has focused on the impact of firearms and gun control on violence, deterrence, and crime control. He is the author of Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, which won the 1993 Michael J. Hindelang Award of the American Society of Criminology. He also wrote Targeting Guns (1997) and, with Don B. Kates, Jr., The Great American Gun Debate (1997) and Armed (2001), and, with Brion Sever, Punishment and Crime (2017).

Helmke is a professor of practice at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and he is the founding director of the Civic Leaders Living-Learning Center in Bloomington, IN.

Edited by Todd Krainin.

"Modum" by Kai Engle is licensed under a CC-BY creative commons license.

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The post Would More Gun Control Lead to More Crime? A Debate appeared first on Reason.com.

Next Episode

Should Facebook and Twitter Censor Themselves? A Debate.

Should social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube only remove users who make true threats or incite violence? Or do they have an ethical obligation to hold their users to a higher standard?

That was the topic of a recent public debate hosted by Reason—a West Coast version of the popular New York City-based debate series, The Soho Forum—pitting Thaddeus Russell, author of A Renegade History of the United States and host of the Unregistered podcast, against Ken White, an attorney at Brown, White & Osborn, author at the legal blog Popehat, and co-host of the podcast All the President's Lawyers.

Russell argued that corporations that accept tax breaks and public subsidies should be more accountable to the public. White held that social media sites deserve the same set of speech rights and limitations as ordinary citizens.

Both speakers agreed with the broader libertarian point that private websites have the legal right to do what they want. The debate hinged on a broader point: What should the culture of free speech, free expression, and ownership look like on our social media platforms?

It was an Oxford-style debate, in which the audience votes on the resolution before and after the event, and the side that picks up the most votes wins. White won the debate by picking up 20 percent of the votes.

The debate was held on November 1, 2018, at Reason's Los Angeles studio.

Edited by Ian Keyser. Recording by Meredith Bragg, Paul Detrick, and Zach Weissmueller.

'Machinery' by Kai Engel is licenced under CC BY-NC 4.0

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The post Should Facebook and Twitter Censor Themselves? A Debate. appeared first on Reason.com.