Saving capitalism: for the many, not the few
Reich, Robert B.
- New York Alfered A. Knopf 2015
- xvii, 279 p.
Table of Contents:
PART I THE FREE MARKET
01. The prevailing view 02. The five building blocks of capitalism 03. Freedom and power 04. The new property 05. The new monopoly 06. The new contracts 07. The new bankruptcy 08. The enforcement mechanism 09. Summary: the market mechanism as a whole
PART II WORK AND WORTH
10. The meritocratic myth 11. The hidden mechanism of ceo pay 12. The subterfuge of Wall Street pay 13. The declining bargaining power of the middle 14. The rise of the working poor 15. The rise of the non-working rich
PART III COUNTERVAILING POWER
16. Reprise 17. The threat to capitalism 18. The decline of countervailing power 19. Restoring countervailing power 20. Ending upward distribution 21. Reinventing the corporation 22. When robots take over 23. The citizen's bequest 24. New rules
From the author of Aftershock and The Work of Nations, his most important book to date—a myth-shattering breakdown of how the economic system that helped make America so strong is now failing us, and what it will take to fix it.
Perhaps no one is better acquainted with the intersection of economics and politics than Robert B. Reich, and now he reveals how power and influence have created a new American oligarchy, a shrinking middle class, and the greatest income inequality and wealth disparity in eighty years. He makes clear how centrally problematic our veneration of the “free market” is, and how it has masked the power of moneyed interests to tilt the market to their benefit.
Reich exposes the falsehoods that have been bolstered by the corruption of our democracy by huge corporations and the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street: that all workers are paid what they’re “worth,” that a higher minimum wage equals fewer jobs, and that corporations must serve shareholders before employees. He shows that the critical choices ahead are not about the size of government but about who government is for: that we must choose not between a free market and “big” government but between a market organized for broadly based prosperity and one designed to deliver the most gains to the top. Ever the pragmatist, ever the optimist, Reich sees hope for reversing our slide toward inequality and diminished opportunity when we shore up the countervailing power of everyone else.
Passionate yet practical, sweeping yet exactingly argued, Saving Capitalism is a revelatory indictment of our economic status quo and an empowering call to civic action.