Jul 17, 2026 · 0 min · 12 segments
Bob sits down with the managing editor of the Libertarian Institute, Keith Knight, to sample arguments from his recent four-hour video cataloguing sixty-four problems with democratic socialism…
Keith KnightGuest
Bob MurphyHost
What are the what are the problems, Keith, with this democratic socialism? If it's just dignity for everybody, that seems like a good idea.
One thing that I wanted to mention to you specifically is the problem of diversification.
Now, the assumption is under democratic socialism, instead of having a boss or capitalists or private stock owners who should own the company, Noam Chomsky asks himself, he says, obviously the people who work there.
So, of course, you get into the issue of, well, if I've worked there 10 years and I'm very productive, do I get as much pay as someone who is day one on the job or still in training? That's interesting, but it's not the hard at what I'm getting at.
If I work at Amazon, I don't think it necessarily makes sense that I would want to own stock in Amazon.
I might want to own a little Walmart, a little Discount Tire, a little Apple, because in case the company I'm working for goes down, well, then all my eggs are in one single basket.
So democratic socialism literally means there is no private ownership of production.
There is no stock market, this being Mises' rule of thumb in determining whether a a society is capitalist or socialist? Is there a stock market? Is there private ownership in the means of production? If there is not a stock market, then I, as the worker, am forcibly being deprived of diversifying my portfolio, and I am forced to put all my eggs in the basket of where I'm currently working.
Only private enterprise and a stock market allow me to actually diversify my my portfolio so I can make responsible financial decisions.
Democratic socialism, by definition, in every case, means I'm deprived of this.
Like, I might go at it a different way and just say to the, you know, the Democrat, the person who's advocating that the worker should, you know, like the car, the workers of the car factory should own the car plants.
And, you know, the people working at the power plant should own the power plant and blah, blah, blah.
And then, like you say, down the road, like what if some of the workers are playing cards or something and whatever they do and reading poetry, whatnot? Yeah.
And then what if they agree among themselves, let's do a 50-50 swap, and just now we each own 50% of the other person's thing, just for you saying for purpose of diversification, would they be allowed to do that? I don't know.
In other words, if the Democratic Socialist is conceding that the worker should own the place where they work, can they then voluntarily trade among themselves? And I don't know what the person would say.
What are the what are the problems, Keith, with this democratic socialism? If it's just dignity for everybody, that seems like a good idea.
One thing that I wanted to mention to you specifically is the problem of diversification.
Now, the assumption is under democratic socialism, instead of having a boss or capitalists or private stock owners who should own the company, Noam Chomsky asks himself, he says, obviously the people who work there.
So, of course, you get into the issue of, well, if I've worked there 10 years and I'm very productive, do I get as much pay as someone who is day one on the job or still in training? That's interesting, but it's not the hard at what I'm getting at.
If I work at Amazon, I don't think it necessarily makes sense that I would want to own stock in Amazon.
I might want to own a little Walmart, a little Discount Tire, a little Apple, because in case the company I'm working for goes down, well, then all my eggs are in one single basket.
So democratic socialism literally means there is no private ownership of production.
There is no stock market, this being Mises' rule of thumb in determining whether a a society is capitalist or socialist? Is there a stock market? Is there private ownership in the means of production? If there is not a stock market, then I, as the worker, am forcibly being deprived of diversifying my portfolio, and I am forced to put all my eggs in the basket of where I'm currently working.
Only private enterprise and a stock market allow me to actually diversify my my portfolio so I can make responsible financial decisions.
Democratic socialism, by definition, in every case, means I'm deprived of this.
Like, I might go at it a different way and just say to the, you know, the Democrat, the person who's advocating that the worker should, you know, like the car, the workers of the car factory should own the car plants.
And, you know, the people working at the power plant should own the power plant and blah, blah, blah.
And then, like you say, down the road, like what if some of the workers are playing cards or something and whatever they do and reading poetry, whatnot? Yeah.
And then what if they agree among themselves, let's do a 50-50 swap, and just now we each own 50% of the other person's thing, just for you saying for purpose of diversification, would they be allowed to do that? I don't know.
In other words, if the Democratic Socialist is conceding that the worker should own the place where they work, can they then voluntarily trade among themselves? And I don't know what the person would say.
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