Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "election"

Saving Capitalism For the Many Not the Few by Robert B. Reich, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2015.

In the coming elections we face both confusing realities and difficult choices. However, there are clear options, illustrated in great detail in Robert Reich’s new book Saving Capitalism. Odd agreements between Tea Party members and liberal Democrats tell the tale. Both seem to understand the dangerous positive feedback loop between money and politics. They both oppose subsidizing Big Oil, Agriculture and Pharmaceutical businesses.

Reich emphasizes that our choices are not between Big government and a “free market.” There is no such thing as a free market. All markets are defined by laws of some kind. We need to re-organize our markets for “broadly based prosperity, [not] one designed to deliver almost all of its gains to a few at the top.”

I see in this coming election that our choice is not so much between Republicans and Democrats, not even between “establishment and anti-establishment, as Reich suggests, but between changing how we redefine and regulate our “free market.” Not voting in public elections is actually voting to let the wealthy continue to warp the defining laws and practices in their favor.

Reich goes into great detail describing what laws have been warped to favor the wealthy at the expense of the working middle glass, whose median wage has been dropping since 1970. Even young college graduates’ hourly wage has gone down since 2000.

Examples of laws that should be changed (I counted 27 in Reich’s book, aside from “reinventing the corporation.”) include reversing the Supreme Court’s decision “Citizens United” or amending the constitution so Congress can regulate campaign spending. Others: ban the gerrymandering of districts and voting restrictions, require disclosure of all outside sources of public domain testimony, revise patent and antitrust laws to undo power-grubbing tactics, resurrect Glass-Steagull to separate commercial and investment banking, ban forced arbitration and insider stock trading, restore bankruptcy law to give labor or students higher priority and most importantly require congress to fund the enforcement of such laws that benefit the working and middle classes. Other suggestions deal with international trade agreements and local school funding.

Reich provides a readable litany of how big money has redefined capitalism, noting that in 1874 the Supreme Court in Trist vs Child that persons could not be hired to lobby Congress. In 1920 the Tillman Act banned corporations from making paid contributions, now allowed by the Citizens United decision.

He tells us that insider trading is still rampant, antitrust laws no longer keep monopolies from dominating markets. The stories continue. The 300:1 ratio of executive-to- worker pay is due only in small part to globalization, technology, lobbying, subsidies and loopholes.

He reminds us that things are different in Europe. That we could once again have a truly “free market” if we would take command of how Congress, agencies and judges write the laws that define what the market is. Bankruptcy laws favor corporations by giving low priority to paying off labor costs. Student loans, now 10% of the total, are not allowed bankruptcy protection. In Germany education through college is free to students.

We can recover who we were, a country where the middle class grew and thrived, and common sense, not money drove our ideals.

The Lessons of History by Will & Ariel Durant, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1968, 1996.

Another prescient, must-read from the past, the Durants' short book reminds us of cycles in history-- from democracy to inequality in wealth to revolution and chaos and hopefully back to democracy. Given the current uproar in politics, their analysis is chilling, especially since Congress is so dysfunctional. History meets critical situations by ..."legislation redistributing wealth or by revolution distributing poverty," they say.

This book was written by the Durants after they reread their ten volumes the Story of Civilization (to 1789). The example given by Plutarch in 594 B.C. is very revealing. He saved Athens from revolution by leveling the playing field—forgiving debt, devaluing money, applying a progressive tax and doing a G.I. Bill i.e. providing free education to former soldiers. Sounds like the laundry list in Robert Reich's Saving Capitalism, NY, Knopf, 2015.

Rome didn't do so well—just engaged in war and continued favoring the wealthy, a mistake easily made by the manipulation of democracy. "Men who can manage money manage all." As an example, farmers now must be employees of "...capitalists or the state." Thus history becomes a cycle of "concentrated wealth and compulsive circulation."

Education is required if we are to avoid the violent surge from "...changing political argument into blind hate." Hopefully that stage in the Trump campaign is now over. "If equality of education can be established, democracy will be real and justified." I understand that free college education is provided in Germany these days, and that some states are moving in that direction. Now, how about leveling the playing field, Hilary?

The Durant's lessons are divided into brief, beautifully crafted and readable chapters, summarizing history as seen by the Earth, in biology, by race and character, morals and religion, economics and socialism, government and war, during growth and decay.

We need to believe there is hope. Humans are inventive, stubborn but not stupid. As we face this difficult presidential election, I believe we can find Durants' "...approximate equity of legal justice and educational opportunity."