My prompt is simple — to the extent anything this early in the morning can be simple. It’s to say what it means to be a socialist today.

That’s somewhat subjective. I’m sure my vision of socialism differs from the others on this panel. So rather than just address you all didactically and since as an atheist I have such little experience being up this early on Sunday mornings, I’ll start more personally than I might otherwise.

I grew up in a middle-class household, with immigrant parents and an extended family that consisted of many without immigration status — relatives relegated to the fringes of the working class, with limited formal education and job prospects. But for me, socialism was never an organic outgrowth of material circumstance. If anything being a child of the meritocracy can be a deeply conservatizing experience.