Portside

At 93, Noam Chomsky is the most important leftist intellectual alive. At 32, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of our most important leftist elected officials. The two recently spoke about our prospects for winning a better world.

One lesson to draw from the GDR's history is that if socialist societies are to be run by, of and for the people, then the people have to be in charge and that includes within the economy. Democracies (both capitalist and socialist) will remain merely formal when the economy continues to be run by small self-selecting minorities. Those minorities will dominate until they are overthrown.