If that’s true, my question for the DSA is: why not say that? And if it’s not true, then does the DSA actually want to live in a world without private enterprise? If so, how is that going to work?

When I got to the conference, I had hoped to spar with smart, good-natured socialists on these questions, all of us finding each other delightful and leaving everyone with hope for humanity.

But that’s not what happened.

[“That’s awfully authoritarian,” Kawaller says while getting kicked out of the meeting. Socialists are top-down authoritarians, regardless of whether they add “Democratic” as a modifier. Capitalists believe in inclusion and distributed decision-making. Kawaller discovered what that means in practical and personal terms. — Ed]