paperback, 208 pages
Published Jan. 15, 2019 by Vintage.
"...Clear-eyed manifesto for re-centering our economics and politics on the idea of the common good. Robert B. Reich...demonstrates that a common good not only exists but in fact constitutes the very essence of any society or nation...We must weigh the moral obligations of citizenship and carefully consider how we as a country should relate to honor, shame, patriotism, truth, and the meaning of leadership...A fundamental statement about the purpose of society and a cri de coeur to save American soul."--Dust jacket flap.
We owe society an unpayable debt, but we should still try our best to pay it back anyway. Reich makes the case that we can, and should, consciously work to improve our nation for the benefit of all, not just ourselves. The selfish must be named, shamed, and punished, the virtuous must be held up as heros, and you must help make it happen.
What he says is mostly common sense. The government, the media, and the corporate world have been undermined by the determination to win at any cost, and by the eroding over time of adherence to unspoken norms and laws; as a result, money is taken from the poor to further enrich the rich, those who aren't already wealthy have no influence over the government, and facts are tailored to individual biases and convictions. A very few people win, everyone else loses.
He suggests renewing our demand that leaders behave like the trustees of the common good they are supposed to be, and the rest of us educate ourselves to recognise and defend truth. All well and good. But how we're meant to do this when the only people who have the power to change things are the very ones who most benefit from the way things are, he does not …
What he says is mostly common sense. The government, the media, and the corporate world have been undermined by the determination to win at any cost, and by the eroding over time of adherence to unspoken norms and laws; as a result, money is taken from the poor to further enrich the rich, those who aren't already wealthy have no influence over the government, and facts are tailored to individual biases and convictions. A very few people win, everyone else loses.
He suggests renewing our demand that leaders behave like the trustees of the common good they are supposed to be, and the rest of us educate ourselves to recognise and defend truth. All well and good. But how we're meant to do this when the only people who have the power to change things are the very ones who most benefit from the way things are, he does not make clear.
