“So you agree, then: Property rights are the utmost for you?”
“That’s rather extreme.”
It’s like he’s toying with her—how he leans and alludes and slips away before she can nail down exactly what he believes. Fine, she’ll just tell him what he thinks, then: push him into boxes until he reveals his hand.
“If you think private property is sacred, how can you justify this? A museum filled with artifacts stolen from other cultures?”
“Do you take me for some sort of libertarian, with this emphasis on property?”
“I don’t know, are you? White man’s anarchy?”
“Technically, it’s a deep faith in laissez-faire politics and economics.”
“And that’s your view, then? The free market will save us all?”
“The free marketisus all. It’s the collective agreement of billions of people and their transactions, every day. Central planning, led by one individual, interferes with the natural state of the market, interferes with liberty, lets societies sleepwalk into dictatorship.”
“Not all concepts of socialism lead to dictatorship, that’s so simplistic! We need some amount of planning, some government intervention—democratic socialism literally has liberal democracy embedded within it.”
“Any socialist society would forbid capitalist acts between consenting adults.”
“You can’t agree with Nozick.”
“I by no means agree with all of Nozick. I don’t believe anyone would credibly accuse me of being a right-libertarian.”
“Then what would they accuse you of being?”
“A strong neoliberal, I suppose.”
Lili stares at him.
“What?” he asks.
“Where are the exits?”
Aleksandr laughs, walking out of the temple. “You’re the one seeking to challenge the norm; defend your viewpoint. Why should I become a proponent of—anarcho-Marxism, I think you tried to phrase it the other day? Convince me, Miss Marwan.”
She flushes. “That was a joke.”
He smirks.
She clears her throat and strides out of the temple after him. “I’m not actually a Marxist. Traditional Marxism isn’t really appropriate for organizing society, but as an analytical structure? It helps make sense of the world, it’s one of the greatest ideas of the last century. But I believe in liberal democracy, chosen by a nation’s people—so I suppose hard-line Marxists wouldn’t accept my thoughts on socialism within the construct of states, even if Marx did see democracy as the ultimate goal.”
“Marx didn’t make his commitment to democracy nearly as clear as socialists like to believe. A society without the state? Global, stateless communism? He got lazy.”
Lili snorts. “Spoken like a true capitalist. Lazy is your insult?”
“You really think the proletariat will seize power and democracy will ensue? He was just waving his hands at that point, running out of ideas.”
“Well, honestly, I’m not enamored with historical materialism, his stages of history. And I don’t like his views on social welfare; that it just sways people from the true socialist vision? Welfare—healthcare, housing, systems of support, some measure of universal basic income—it helps people breathe a bit. Eases some of the terror of failing within capitalism, lets us start to address real social, environmental, political issues.”
“And governments have such a good record with addressing these issues?”
Lili narrows her eyes. “And the private sector does?”
“State bureaucracies will always tend towards incompetence and inefficiency. Has any government made real progress against poverty, the climate?”
“What about the bailout? That was literally government intervention you had a hand in.”
