Bøger af Robert B. Reich

Siden 1930’erne har middelklassens vækst været motoren og ryggraden i den amerikanske samfundsøkonomi. Sådan er det ikke længere. Allerede under præsident Reagan i 1980’erne startede en voldsom politisk liberaliseringsbølge, der lige siden systematisk har udhulet forbrugerbeskyttelse, lønmodtagerrettigheder og den almindelige amerikaners muligheder for social opstigning. En uhellig alliance mellem gigantiske koncerner, Wall Street og Washington har skabt en uhørt økonomisk vækst i USA. … Men kun for de få.Reichs bog beskriver ikke blot en udvikling i USA, men også en foruroligende global trend; Politisk indflydelse og ufattelig rigdom koncentreres hos en stadig mere magtfuld elite af koncerner og en finanssektor, der beskytter sig gennem kampagnebidrag, patenter, fordelagtig lovgivning og skjult lobbyisme. Middelklassen svinder til gengæld og er under økonomisk pres. Resultatet kan vise sig i stigende nationalisme og orientering mod de politiske yderfløje – med Englands Brexit og valget af Donald Trump som blot de seneste eksempler.Roberts Reichs løsning er en anden. Alliancen mellem Big Businessog den politiske elite skal brydes. Lovgivning, rettigheder og privilegier må vristes ud af hænderne på de få – og igen tjene de mange.Bogen er med dansk forord af professor Bent Greve.Om forfatterenRobert B. Reich har tjent i skiftende amerikanske administrationer under præsidenterne Gerald Ford og Jimmy Carter i 1970’erne og senest som arbejdsminister I Bill Clintons regering i perioden 1993-1997. Han er i dag professor i offentlig ret ved University of California, seniorforsker ved Blum Center for Developing Economies og kendt politisk kommentator i USA.”…Robert Reich har skrevet en suveræn bog (…)”Rune Lykkeberg, Politiken [5 hjerter]“If you want to understand why income and wealth inequality are the economic, political, and moral issues of our time, you must read this book. Robert Reich is one of the best economists in modern American history. This book is a roadmap on how to rebuild the middle class and fix a rigged economy that has been propped up by a corrupt campaign finance system.”USA Senator, Bernie Sanders“Robert Reich has written a riveting guide to how our economic and political system has become so badly flawed, distorted by pervasive rent seeking and monopolies. He explains our rising inequality and our poor economic performance.”Professor og nobelprismodtager i økonomi, Joseph Stiglitz

A powerful and grippingly readable intervention into the 2020 US presidential election campaign, by the Newsweek and Guardian columnist, The System argues that the USA has become an oligarchy, run by and for the benefit of a tiny minority of the super-rich, with consequences that impact on the entire world.

Now a Netflix Original DocumentaryAmerica was once celebrated for and defined by its large and prosperous middle class. Now, this middle class is shrinking, a new oligarchy is rising, and the country faces its greatest wealth disparity in eighty years. Why is the economic system that made America strong suddenly failing us, and how can it be fixed? Leading political economist and bestselling author Robert B. Reich presents a paradigm-shifting, clear-eyed examination of a political and economic status quo that no longer serves the people, exposing one of the most pernicious obstructions to progress today: the enduring myth of the "free market" when, behind the curtain, it is the powerful alliances between Washington and Wall Street that control the invisible hand. Laying to rest the specious dichotomy between a free market and "big government," Reich shows that the truly critical choice ahead is between a market organized for broad-based prosperity and one designed to deliver ever more gains to the top. Visionary and acute, Saving Capitalism illuminates the path toward restoring America's fundamental promise of opportunity and advancement.

Locked in the Cabinet is a close-up view of the way things work, and often don''t work, at the highest levels of government--and a uniquely personal account by the man whose ideas inspired and animated much of the Clinton campaign of 1992 and who became the cabinet officer in charge of helping ordinary Americans get better jobs. Robert B. Reich, writer, teacher, social critic--and a friend of the Clintons since they were all in their twenties--came to be known as the "conscience  of the Clinton administration and one of the most successful Labor Secretaries in history. Here is his sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant chronicle of trying to put ideas and ideals into practice. With wit, passion, and dead-aim honesty, Reich writes of those in Washington who possess hard heads and soft hearts, and those with exactly the opposite attributes. He introduces us to the career bureaucrats who make Washington run and the politicians who, on occasion, make it stop; to business tycoons and labor leaders who clash by day and party together by night; to a president who wants to change America and his opponents (on both the left and the right) who want to keep it as it is or return it to where it used to be. Reich guides us to the pinnacles of power and pretension, as bills are passed or stalled, reputations built or destroyed, secrets leaked, numbers fudged, egos bruised, news stories spun, hypocrisies exposed, and good intentions occasionally derailed. And to the places across America where those who are the objects of this drama are simply trying to get by--assembly lines, sweatshops, union halls, the main streets of small towns and the tough streets of central cities.Locked in the Cabinet is an intimate odyssey involving a memorable cast--a friend who is elected President of the United States, only to discover the limits of power; Alan Greenspan, who is the most powerful man in America; and Newt Gingrich, who tries to be. Plus a host of others: White House staffers and cabinet members who can''t find "the loop ; political consultant Dick Morris, who becomes "the loop ; baseball players and owners who can''t agree on how to divide up $2 billion a year; a union leader who accuses Reich of not knowing what a screwdriver looks like; a heretofore invisible civil servant deep in the Labor Department whose brainchild becomes the law of the land; and a wondrous collection of senators, foreign ministers, cabinet officers, and television celebrities. And it is also an odyssey for Reich''s wife and two young sons, who learn to tolerate their own cabinet member but not to abide Washington.Here is Reich--determined to work for a more just society, laboring in a capital obsessed with exorcising the deficit and keeping Wall Street happy--learning that Washington is not only altogether different from the world of ordinary citizens but ultimately, and more importantly, exactly like it: a world in which Murphy''s Law reigns alongside the powerful and the privileged, but where hope amazingly persists. There are triumphs here to fill a lifetime, and frustrations to fill two more. Never has this world been revealed with such richness of evidence, humor, and warmhearted candor.