Robert Reich: Reality and Hope for Tumultuous Times
written by Julie Freestone
The 500 people who attended Ashby Village’s joint Arts and Culture and ELDER ACTION virtual event recently with esteemed economist, commentator and professor Robert Reich got a history lesson, a dose of reality, maybe some cause for hope and even some thoughts on filling the Supreme Court vacancy resulting from Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death.
Reich is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California Berkeley. As sociologist, author and Ashby Village member Arlie Hochschild pointed out when she introduced him, Reich is truly a Renaissance man. He served in various capacities under four presidents and has written 17 books, most recently, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It.
He had a lot to say about that system, how we got here, where we might be headed and what we should be doing to protect democracy. (If you missed his talk or couldn’t access it because the Zoom limit was reached – our deepest apologies for those affected – and weren’t able to hear his personal story about him and the Vietnam War draft, you can view it through the video above or by clicking here: https://youtu.be/e0BmneiZzW4)
Lousy times now and in the past
Reich pulled no punches in describing this current tumultuous time.
“These are really lousy times. Let’s be clear and candid. Every time we get to the lowest point something else happens.” he said. But where we are now isn’t something that just happened or can be chalked up to the current administration. Instead, Reich called it “the culmination of decades of cynicism about our institutions and our democracy.”
He looked back fifty years to 1968, “It was a year we thought things couldn’t go more haywire; cities were burning.” Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. “People were at each other’s throats and necks. The Democratic convention was one of the most incendiary, the social fabric was coming undone. Millions of young men were in danger, going to Vietnam. “It was a terrible year. At the end of the year, Richard Nixon was elected president. It didn’t seem like it could get worse and then there was Kent State and Watergate.”
A country under stress
From then on, the country, according to Reich, has been under greater and greater stress. And one stress point that he said doesn’t get enough attention is the stagnation of the median wage. “Today, it’s not much higher than it was in the late ‘60s and in the 1980s even though the economy grew.”
What happened to all the money?
Quoting a recently released Rand study, Reich said almost all the gains over the last 40 years have gone to the very very top, something that hasn’t happened to this magnitude since the Gilded Age in the 19th century.
He described three ways that Americans tried to cope with their increasing loss of wealth, including women going to work, people working longer hours and people using their homes as piggy banks, refinancing to free up cash. When the 2008 recession came, people lost the ability to refinance and millions lost their homes, their jobs and their savings. And labor unions were busted by big business, giving workers almost no leverage to negotiate higher wages.
Reich points to that time as when there began a profound shift in the political sociology of this country. “The banks got bailed out, not a single person went to jail. Anger and cynicism began to take over the country. Realization by the middle class that they were not getting ahead. No other way of pretending.”
That cynicism led to “angry” movements on the left (Occupy) and the right (Tea Party). There was anger against the unfairness, the rigging of the system.
Democracy in peril
Reich said this election isn’t about issues like abortion, gay rights or immigrants. “This election could be the final chapter in the story I’ve laid out for you about the last 50 years. The deepest political divide in the country that transcend Democrats vs. Republicans. It’s about democracy vs. oligarchy. Our democracy is in peril.”
“We have an economy that’s not working for all.” To restore democracy, Reich says we must get big money out of politics and restore our democracy to be responsive to the wants and needs of most people. “It doesn’t matter (who is elected) unless good people outside Washington are energized and organized to push the people in Washington. The moneyed interests are so huge, everyone else has to be pushing really hard. Nothing will happen automatically. It all requires good people to work very diligently, very hard and never give up.”
There is hope.
Reich ended on a positive note. First, he pointed out that the Gilded Age, rife with corruption and unfairness, led to a progressive period led by Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt. “America is resilient. I think it’s possible that might come again.”
Another thing that gives him hope is young people. In his 43 years of teaching, he says “This generation of young people is more committed to positive social change, more dedicated to public service than any generation I’ve ever encountered before.”
And one last thought about young people, people of color and others getting involved in politics. “I’m overwhelmed with appreciation and optimism. That’s the demographic. That’s where we are headed. No one can take that away. That gives me hope.”