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Robert B. Reich is professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He last served in government as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. His articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He contributes weekly commentaries to Marketplace on public radio, appears regularly on television, and is a cofounding editor of The American Prospect. In 2003 Reich was awarded the prestigious Václav Havel Foundation Prize for pioneering work in economic and social thought. He lives in Berkeley, California. [Edit review] [Delete review]

From one of America's foremost economic and political thinkers comes a vital analysis of our new hypercompetitive and turbo-charged global economy and the effect it is having on American democracy. With his customary wit and insight, Reich shows how widening inequality of income and wealth, heightened job insecurity, and corporate corruption are merely the logical results of a system in which politicians are more beholden to the influence of business lobbyists than to the voters who elected them.

Powerful and thought-provoking, Supercapitalism argues that a clear separation of politics and capitalism will foster an enviroment in which both business and government thrive, by putting capitalism in the service of democracy, and not the other way around. [Edit review] [Delete review]

"Reich documents in lurid detail the explosive growth of coporate lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions since the 1970s. . . . Supercapitalism is a grand debunking of the conventional wisdom in the style of John Kenneth Galbraith."
—The New York Times

"Reich turns the standard liberal critique of corporations on its head."
—Forbes

"A thoughtful and heartfelt critique of the ruthless, hell-bent-for-profit brand of capitalism that has been in vogue under Democrats and Republicans alike since roughly the end of the cold war."
—Portfolio

"Supercapitalism describes important and sweeping economic changes. . . . Reich has a talent for making economics accessible and sometimes even fun."
—The Los Angeles Times [Edit review] [Delete review]

Chapter One: The Not Quite Golden Age

Roughly between 1945 and 1975, America struck a remarkable accommodation between capitalism and democracy. It combined a hugely productive economic system with a broadly responsive and widely admired political system. America in those years achieved its highest degree of income equality (since measurements have been available). It generated a larger proportion of good-paying jobs than before or since, and more economic security than ever for more of its people. Perhaps not coincidentally, in those years Americans also expressed high confidence in democracy and trust in government, both of which sharply declined in subsequent years.[1] That singular success and that powerful promise extended the moral authority of the American system throughout the world. In contrast to Soviet communism, America became an exemplar of both political freedom and suburban middle-class affluence.

The economy was based on mass production. Mass... [More...] [Edit review] [Delete review]