But Reich has no intention of bludgeoning his audience with bleak statistics and grim predictions. “As you can see, the economy has worn me down,” says the 4-foot-11-inch Reich, pausing as laughter spreads across the room. “Really, before the Great Recession I was, you know, 6 foot 2.”
Moments earlier, when I met Reich in an empty banquet room and asked if he preferred to be called “Professor” or “Bob,” he answered in a deadpan voice: “‘Your Highness.’” I had traveled from Los Angeles to trail Reich for a couple of days to better understand the man who has become at once the most visible, and most entertaining, critic of the nation’s unequal economy.
In an era dominated by polarizing blowhard commentators, Reich is an anomaly: The avuncular scholar who prefers to disarm rather than denigrate.…Reich's core message is:
“Anybody who thinks that the answer is found in policy has not been paying attention,” he said, revealing a major shift in thinking for a man who has championed his share of policy prescriptions. “Good policies are a dime a dozen. The real issue now is a matter of power. How in the world do you get good policies enacted and enforced?”Moyers & Co
Robert Reich’s Seriously Funny Crusade to Save Capitalism and America’s Middle Class
Danny Feingold
23 comments:
He makes the same mistake as Krugman with regard to the deficit, but MMT could learn a lot from how he gets his message across. He keeps his videos short and simple and uses a lot of diagrams. His videos are extremely easy to follow, and going by Facebook, very popular.
I dislike agreeing with the untrustworthy Reich (he helped Clinton sell NAFTA, later gave seminars on the wonders of outsourcing to 3rd world countries, and called anyone who objected to free trade a "Luddite") but here Reich is saying what I've been saying for some time -- that economic theory won't get you to first base without political power.
To me he comes over as the all American regular guy, but he's in the left. Still, I'm not keen on globalisation. Stuff is made in China which goes to the west, and we make stuff here that goes to china. We have German and Italian fridges and ovens in the shops here in the UK, but we make our own ovens and fridges here. The whole world is full of ships transporting stuff all over the place unnecessarily wasting millions of tons of oil and overheating the planet. This is madness.
Dan he has publically acknowledged he was wrong about free trade and NAFTA. At least trying to redeem himself.
Globalization if done right is good for humanity. Lifting most of human beings from poverty and oppression is a loable goal in the long run.
Any "progressive" (hard to define what that means in reality) should align with that. Despite my rants against 'free trade' and neoclassical economics I don't think globalization and mixing different cultures is inherently bad unlike racist conservative bigots who don't know who their real enemy is.
But one should be realistic and tactical when trying to achieve those goals, open borders, 'free trade', TTP-like deals etc. are a recipe for future disaster for the majority of humanity. Let's focus on getting JG/BIG-like programs, housing & healthcare, proper environmental policies and independent energy provision, strong labour in developed nations etc. while having proper international institutions which are not neo-colonial institutions in disguise like the IMF which can help developing nations with proper accountability (no funding of terror regimes). Then we can focus on opening up.
Otherwise globalization is just a capitalist free raider paradise and a form of neocolonialism.
"that economic theory won't get you to first base without political power. "
However political power is already held. To get it you have to get the power away from them. Trying to do that by trying to storm the castle through the front gates is likely to fail.
You have to get them to let you into the castle voluntarily.
"Then we can focus on opening up."
Opening up is part of getting there - since it is resources to develop your economy in return for computer entries.
The problem is focussing on a country's borders as the edge of the country - rather than the scope of influence of the currency.
Somebody outside your country saving in your financial assets is pretty much exactly the same as somebody inside saving in your financial assets - as long as you maintain a float and a well managed banking system.
I think our job is to show that the 'trade deficit' isn't the boogie man that everybody makes it out to be. That is just incorrect fixed exchange thinking.
Right Neil, but it has to be done if governments are pro-full employment with appropiate "entrepreneurial" policies (JG, investment on research programs, investment on the necessary infrastructures, etc.).
If governments are just 'corporate lackeys' who think they need the wealthy people money's to run the economy and are just reactive to "the markets" we end up with free rider capitalism driving policy and disaster everywhere, like now.
The vision is that state as representative of the people having first access to the resources of the nation. The private sector is then allowed to 'play' with what's left. Anything left over after that is deployed by the state to provide 'nice to have' things.
That containment of capitalism is the vision that has to be implemented. Tinkering around the edges won't correct the problems.
@Neil said " Trying to do that by trying to storm the castle through the front gates is likely to fail. You have to get them to let you into the castle voluntarily."
Most endeavors against the ruling elites are likely to fail, Neil. Getting the elites to voluntarily surrender their power is highly likely to fail, too. Doing the same thing we've been doing is likely to fail.
Neil: "You have to get them to let you into the castle voluntarily. "
Well, it had to happen eventually! Neil's got something totally wrong! Agree completely with Dan.
Those with power are afraid of one thing: force. Not necessarily violent acion. But coordinated and militant action that brings the elites to their knees. History is replete with this. As has been said so often, stop talking truth to power. Power knows the truth.
Neil-
I love this as a framework:
"The vision is that state as representative of the people having first access to the resources of the nation. The private sector is then allowed to 'play' with what's left. Anything left over after that is deployed by the state to provide 'nice to have' things."
Something for everyone.....justice, profits, growth, acceptable distribution of national income, markets, competition.
What a great contrast to the sick neo-liberal disease perfectly nutshelled by Thatcher: "no such thing as a society". Just individuals participating in market exchange in a completely rational way with perfect and infinite expectations....LMAO.
The most important thing about MMT aka acceptance of the reality that" Govt prints money", is that this is the only way to beat the elites. You cant beat them at their own game of money scarcity, taxes and borrowing.
its way easier politically to raise taxes to slow down an economy growing at 4+% with 4% inflation, and meaningful real wage increases thanks to full employment fiscal policies.
Then it is right now with 2% growth, flat wages, lots of private debt and desperation.
Raise taxes as a LAST resort!!! (after the high marginal rates that must be put in place initially to effectively cap income as a means of adjusting the national income distribution cycle).
"But coordinated and militant action that brings the elites to their knees."
'Coordinated' would be the most important thing to do, there is a model to use...The Neoliberals own (as Mirowski suggests). You build networks, you take over local political parties, get more articles out there in both the MSM & alt media. Hit political sites instead of just econ ones (Peter Martin I notice is doing a good job with the Libdems) even if it's just local party ones.
"Those with power are afraid of one thing: force. Not necessarily violent acion. But coordinated and militant action that brings the elites to their knees."
The left have been talking revolution for generations. They never get there because it doesn't work. This vision of storming the winter palace is a fool's errand (and incidentally was a group of autocrats overthrowing an interim nascent democratic state).
What happens is what always happens. Enough crumbs are thrown around to provide succour and things melt away - or you get a repression. You already have the corporate soothsayers in place, that have wound McDonnell and co back from the 'extreme' position of actually removing corporate welfare.
To get the elites in power to move, you need to enlist the help of the elites that aren't in power but want to be and will back your position. Even Hitler had financial backers.
I hope I don't have to remind people that the 'resistance' of the 1970s led to Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
"Raise taxes as a LAST resort!!!"
You raise taxes on entities that can't vote - aka corporations. And you do that by removing their capacity to threaten by promising everybody a job with the state if the private sector wants to have a hissy fit, and investment by the state if the private sector refuses.
The result of that is elimination of those corporations that are just rentiers, and a new class of entrepreneurs are freed to get on with the job of producing stuff people want without being undercut.
Corporations should pay tax, so voters don't have to. Voters should never see taxation. That is in contrast to the right's view which is to try and make individuals see taxation at every turn - even to the point of issuing them fake statements so they can see where their 'taxes' have gone.
Corporations already collect the taxes and pay them over in the majority of cases. So just hide the calculation from the individual. Figures should always be quoted including taxes for items on sale. And wages just become net wages: your advertised salary is the one you receive in full.
Change the system so that it is always somebody else paying the tax.
"You build networks, you take over local political parties"
I think that just gets you the Green Party. And we know what a cracking job they're doing :)
It'd be interesting to see how Blair managed it. It may just have been circumstance. Clearly nobody in the 'Progress' wing knows how Blair did it, or they wouldn't have made such a pigs ear of things since May.
I don't think Blair did it via the edges.
"The most important thing about MMT aka acceptance of the reality that" Govt prints money""
That, to me, is the key thing to get across. Governments have no financial restrictions.
And 'printing money' isn't borrowing, so you defeat the debt monkey as well.
That is the aim of the 'debt free money' line, but unfortunately they can't bring themselves to say that the politicians can just spend what they can get past the legislature and the central bank will sort out the transactions.
They still tie it up with the magic of the central bank - because of course they are autocrats and want to be in charge forever.
@Neil I admire much of your economic analysis but your views on other subjects can be ... er, quaint. :-) "Enlist the help of the elites that aren't in power but want to be and will back your position?"
Reagan did not come to power because of "resistance," he came to power because the Rockefeller-controlled puppet government of Jimmy Carter made a mess of things. You see, Jimmy had enlisted the help of an elite who wasn't in power but wanted to be.
Most revolutions fail, most never even get off the ground. Even the ones that "succeed," like the colonial Americans, or the Vietcong, eventually get co-op'ed and corrupted, because power corrupts, and because the subsequent generations did not experience the hardships that motivated the revolutionaries.
But what is the alternative? There is no alternative unless you live in one of the few countries that is truly democratic.
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” ~ Frederick Douglass
"Reagan did not come to power because of "resistance," he came to power because the Rockefeller-controlled puppet government of Jimmy Carter made a mess of things."
You don't know the real history. Menachem Begin wanted Carter buried for Camp David, so he and Yitzak Shamir came up with a plan. They would only talk to Jerry Falwell. Falwell and the Jews were arch enemies--Jews killed Jesus, etc--until Begin said at least we can agree on the scourge of homosexuality. That was the bridge. In fact, this Begin-Falwell combo was continued throughout the first three years of Reagan's first term. It gave Jerry Falwell enormous power and it provided the votes needed to get Reagan into office. Before that Evangelicals didn't vote. Now Reagan could only communicate with Begin through Falwell. Falwell even had a red phone on his desk, bragged about it.
Begin prevailed upon his stateside emissaries to do the rest. They used the Weekly World, the National Enquirer, and other tabloids to paint Carter as an incompetent and fallen religious man. This was critical because Evangelicals identified strongly with the religious Carter; they had to break that identification down, it started the minute Camp David was signed. Also arrangements were made not to free the US hostages in Iran until the day Reagan took office in 1981, sometimes called The October Surprise.
How do I know this? I was in the room when it was described, late 1979, by very powerful Israelis.
Israelis didn't do The October Surprise, Bush Sr. did. But the Israelis knew about it.
MRW imo you can still see that in action today with the neo-cons going for Cruz with his Evangelical cred... they probably want Jeb/Cruz... and are attacking Trump who wont take their munnie...
BUT Trump is surging so this holy alliance might be becoming toast btw Trump went to Falwells Liberty U this week and was well received and this week also got Palin on board who has some Evangelical cred...
This thing might be coming to an end...
Neil: "The left have been talking revolution for generations. They never get there because it doesn't work. This vision of storming the winter palace is a fool's errand (and incidentally was a group of autocrats overthrowing an interim nascent democratic state)."
No one's talking revolution here, certainly not me. Although many have been pretty successful. England, France, USA, Spain nearly, etc. Even Russia was successful in a way: from agricultural peasant farming to space age and hydrogen bombs in fifty odd years while smashing Nazi Germany in the process is a success in its own way. Cuba would have been successful had it not been for the US sanctions and terrorist war. If not revolutionary, South Africa is a case of coordinated and militant action to bring down its elites.
If people don't take action nothing will change. It's as if you believe the elites don't understand and all that needs to be done is for them to see the errors of their ways. What you miss is that they understand perfectly well, and they may even know far more than the critics. A perfect example of this is Yanis Varoufakis trying to explain to his fellow EU finance ministers why what they were proposing was total madness. They understood all the arguments, and probably accepted his arguments, but they were irrelevant. They did not care. There are literally thousands of examples like this. Power elites do not accept rational discussion. I don't blame them. If I were in their position I'd probably do the same. Power elites understand other power.
As for action bringing in Thatcher. Well, that's sort of true. The beginnings of neoliberalism started before the alleged Thatcher and later Reagan "revolutions". They started in the UK under Labour (the Democrats in the US), so Thatcherism was coming with or without Thatcher. In the UK, the unions tried to take action against the then Callaghan Labour government. Labour preferred a Tory election win rather than to compromise with working people. They gave Thatcher the country on a silver platter. And why not? The plebs need to be put in their place, and Thatcher was the goddess to do it.
In any case, should working people never go on strike? If they do, it's grist for the Tory mill. If they don't, the policies go through and more reactionary policies are more likely to be entertained. Since no one made a peep last time, let's go wild next time. That's what happened under the last Labour government, 1997 - 2010. For fear of letting the bid bad Tory wolf in, there was barely a peep while Labour put through policies even rightwing Tories thought were extreme. It got so bad that the neo-fascist BNP started praising Labour Home Secretaries for their boorish thuggishness.
It's not as if the elites don't understand that neoliberalism is a bad idea for most. In 2008 it nearly brought them down! They don't care. Power won't be swayed by devastating arguments. Stephanie Kelton probably has screaming fits every day now. No one in Congress or the Senate takes the least of attention of her. They may even agree with her, but she didn't get them to Washington and she doesn't own the country.
Matt, look who's thinking of throwing his hat in the ring? Bloomberg, and willing to spend $1 billion of his own money. Trump must be getting under their skin.
Post a Comment