Josh Sigurdson hits the streets to talk with Bernie Sanders supporters in Las Vegas outside of a Bernie rally shortly before confronting Bernie Sanders himself.
People were kind enough to have a discussion and it was impossible to not notice the amount of people making use of the occasion to sell products, pins, shirts and accessories… Interestingly, this is the essence of capitalism, yet these people largely want to abolish the practice of free market competition, regardless of whether or not they understand it.
One woman sold accessories and said she did it so she could afford to live, but then said she wanted to abolish the very thing that brought her even minor prosperity. Then she noted that she had to pay off college debt (propped up by vast state interference and destruction of competition over time) as well as quit her 12 dollar an hour job as an art teacher.
She claimed that she sold t-shirts and pins for Bernie because she truly liked him and believed in him as well as to stay afloat. When asked how she would manage to stay afloat if capitalism was abolished she said Bernie would help her. When asked if government has ever helped anyone, she agreed that it has not. When asked if taxation was theft, she agreed it was. She also agreed that taxes, regulations and licenses made it difficult to start a business and that Bernie would create more difficulty in this realm but that this did not shake her support.
We also spoke with a man named Oscar how supported medicare for all. We talked about where the money would come from and where it would go. He noted major problems around the world which lead to us pointing out Cuba as a great example. He said there are many capitalist countries we can point to similar problems. The problem is, there’s no such thing as a capitalist country as capitalism operates without the state and cannot consist of the state or else it would cease to be capitalism. We asked him to define capitalism and interestingly he pointed out the truth, that what we see today isn’t actual capitalism but rather corporatism (in similar words) where massive monopolies reign. Interestingly those monopolies reign thanks to the state propping them up via taxation and regulations which Bernie wants more of.
Over all, we had some interesting conversations!