The Democratic Socialists of America's 2026 program asks you to imagine taking a day off from work in a future without capitalism. Ovidiu Frusina, a mechanical engineer who spent 23 years in Nicolae Ceausescu's Romania, answers with a week, because that is what one such day cost there.
Monday: the siren sounds at 6:30. No hot water, so a splash of cold. Half an hour waiting for a bus so full he hangs out the door. He is late, so he bribes the boss, who is late too, and they adjust the punch clock. The boss asks whether he brought the chessboard. At the end of the day the bread line is three hours, so he goes around the back to the man whose television he fixed and gets a loaf. At home, Ceausescu is on television, there is no water for a bath, and no heat, because the heat comes from the state and the state did not send it.
Tuesday: a doctor's appointment, a bottle of red wine for the boss, who punches in for him. Nothing to buy for dinner. Wednesday: real work for once, an idea that needs approval, so he goes to the third floor, where a Communist Party official tells the engineer it will never work and does not say why. Back to the chessboard. The week ran 44 hours, Saturday included, and none of it changed anything.
That, he says, is a week in socialism in place of one day in capitalism, where you wake up rested, do what you do best, and come home having accomplished something. Part three of the Surviving Communism panel with Jenny Beth Martin, Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
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00:00 — One week in socialist Romania in place of one day without capitalism
00:31 — Monday: the siren at 6:30 and no hot water
01:10 — Hang off the bus, bribe the boss, punch in late
01:45 — The bread line is three hours; he fixed the baker's television
02:09 — Ceausescu on television, no bath, no heat
02:52 — Tuesday: a bottle of wine so the boss punches in for you
03:30 — Wednesday: the Party man on the third floor says no
04:20 — Forty-four hours a week, and nothing changes
04:50 — The same week in capitalism
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