Should-Read: Robert Reich: Five Questions for Robert Reich about Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few

Should-Read: Robert Reich: Five Questions for Robert Reich about Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few: “America has repeatedly reformed itself with regard to excessive concentration of income and its attendant political consequences…

…We have a strong track record of expanding the circle of prosperity when capitalism gets off track…. I want to reach average Americans who are confused and frustrated about the current political-economic system, who don’t want to scapegoat immigrants or the poor for their problems, and who are open to uniting with others in order to mobilize and organize a movement to regain control over our democracy and make our economy work for the many rather than the few…. The rules that define the basic building blocks are hidden from view, and most people don’t see them or understand them….

Nothing should be controversial in a partisan sense. On this book tour, I’ve talked with many people who call themselves “conservative Republicans” who agree with almost every point I make. They want to end crony-capitalism; they think the biggest Wall Street banks are way too big; they’re opposed to “corporate welfare”; they want to get big money out of politics…. Even my political point—that we need to reestablish what John Kenneth Galbraith once described as “countervailing power”—is not really controversial. I don’t condemn big corporations, big banks, CEOs, or wealthy individuals. My concern is that political power has become too concentrated in the hands of too few, and we need to reestablish countervailing power—perhaps not the same sources of countervailing power as we had in the 1950s and 1960s, but new sources that act as a check and balance upon concentrated power…