Robert Reich: Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few

“Few ideas have more profoundly poisoned the minds of more people than the notion of a ‘free market’ existing somewhere in the universe, into which government ‘intrudes,’” writes Robert Reich in SAVING CAPITALISM: For the Many, Not the Few . This “free market”, he argues, isn’t free—it’s man made and subject to the parameters we set. “A market—any market—requires that government enforce the rules of the game.” And, as Reich shows us, that game is rigged.

He reveals the cycles of power and influence that have created the new American oligarchy, shrunk the middle class, and driven the United States to the greatest income inequality and wealth disparity in eighty years. As the rules by which the “free” market operates have changed over the past decades, they’ve evolved to serve the needs of those with the most political influence—moneyed interest groups with lobbyists and big donations to make themselves heard. As a result, large corporations can declare bankruptcy and wipe the slate clean, but homeowners and student debtors can’t. Wall Street bankers get bailed out when they gamble excessively, while millions of Americans lose their jobs, homes, and savings. Big companies monopolize industries and collude on prices, causing us to pay more. SAVING CAPITALISM is an indictment of our economic status quo and a revelatory look at how our system really functions.

The author takes a measured view even as he argues against free market orthodoxies … Reich's overriding message is that we don't have to put up with things as they are.” —Kirkus

“Robert Reich has written a riveting guide to how our economic and political system has become so badly flawed, distorted by pervasive rent seeking and monopolies. He explains our rising inequality and our poor economic performance. Wholesale reform is needed—far beyond the usual prescriptions of raising the minimum wage and spending more money on education.” —Joseph Stiglitz

“This is an important and provocative book about the erosion of America’s middle class by one of the nation’s most astute and passionate social critics. Reich provides an original and compelling analysis of how the rules governing America’s form of capitalism have contributed to growing income inequality and of how these rules have been distorted by the role of money in the U.S. political system.” —Laura D’Andrea Tyson

ROBERT B. REICH is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He has served in three national administrations and has written fourteen books, including The Work of Nations, which has been translated into twenty-two languages, and the best sellers Supercapitalism and Locked in the Cabinet. His articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He is co-creator of the award-winning 2013 film Inequality for All. He is also chair of the national governing board of Common Cause. He lives in Berkeley.

Hosted by SASHA LILLEY, the co-host and co-producer of Against the Grain, a weekday show on Pacifica Radio. Lilley is the editor of Capital and Its Discontents: Conversations with Radical Thinkers in a Time of Tumult, and a contributor to the Turbulence Collective's What Would it Mean to Win?, a collection of debates about the direction of the Global Justice Movement.

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