https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuTxPGZU1WE
On this edition of Being Libertarian Presents, Charles Peralo interviews presidential candidate for the Party for Socialism and Liberation (and candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party on California ballots), Gloria La Riva.
La Riva notes right off the bat that while libertarians don’t agree with her stance on education services being provided by government, but expresses some crossover views that we do agree with: mass surveillance and police brutality being highly detrimental and oppressive.
When asked about Jill Stein, the presidential candidate of the Green Party, she asserted that they’re “not running against each other,” and that she is hopeful Stein does well, believing it is good to have “more than one voice” vying for many of the issues they agree on.
When then asked about how she feels about the statement that immigrants from cronyist countries like Mexico coming to the U.S. and making a good living being proof that capitalism works, La Riva asserted that she believes Mexico to be “very much a capitalist country.” She then asserted that NAFTA is what ultimately destroyed Mexico and led to mass immigration to the United States. When then prodded about the fact that she suggested that NAFTA is perfect capitalism, she reiterated that “well, actually it is capitalist!” She defines capitalism as “expand, or die. Expand your production, your margin, your sales. Expand your capital abroad, or else you will die,” and asserts that government subsidizing industry is capitalism, which Charles quickly refutes as an incorrect definition of capitalism.
When discussing healthcare, La Riva says “the biggest problem is capitalism” being involved. She brings up Hepatitis D medication as an example, which has a patent on it and has no competition in the market. She says “it’s a crime that companies can charge” $100 a day for it, and that it is unaffordable. When asked about why true competition in the healthcare market, she says “I look to Cuba as a great example” for national healthcare system, and she believes how Cuba runs their healthcare is “how we should have our medical system.”
La Riva then tried to compare doctors to janitors, in saying “by the way, the janitors that work in the hospitals don’t make that much” in reference to how much money doctors make. In transitioning loosely from medical care to government, she stated that she believes “people should be taken care of by the government.”
When asked about funding for these kind of programs, like free government run healthcare, free public transportation, and free education, she avoided stating a specific tax plan, besides raising taxes on the 1%, which wouldn’t truly cover the cost of the programs. She spoke about the health care system being broken, and the transportation system being broken, but didn’t suggest any substantive solutions.
La Riva did mention that she believes there should be more tenant protection in terms of housing. She also touched on the housing costs in San Francisco being upwards of $4000 a month, she said it was a “rip off” and outrageous, but didn’t provide a solution on it.
She finished off by saying that she’s excited about her campaign, and that she’s ecstatic about the fact that people are finally “looking beyond Democrats and Republicans” to third party candidates.
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