The System

I agree that the title and any praise for this book sounds like a tinfoil hat theory. But “the system” is clear to anyone paying attention. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich explains it concisely.

Right vs left is a red herring. Infighting keeps us occupied. Our true divide, accentuated during the pandemic, is the massive gap between the elite and everyone else. Reich writes, “Socialism for the rich, harsh capitalism for the rest.” The real feat we’ve managed is getting the poor and middle class to vote against themselves.

Reich explains how the outspoken wealthy (Dimon, Dalio, Steyer, Bloomberg, Schultz, Bezos, etc) display public concern for the country, but are the greatest beneficiaries of how it's set up—and actively fight to keep it that way. From an inhuman and ruthless perspective, why wouldn’t they? So reform will only ever come from a large number of concerned and active citizens. This is once we stop collectively cheering on the rich while equality and democracy take a nosedive. Anyway great book everyone should read it blahblah. Reich is optimistic about change.

Some quotes from the book to summarize:

"History will show that the CEOs of America’s largest corporations had the power to constrain the most dangerous, divisive, and anti-democratic president ever to occupy the Oval Office, but they chose not to use that power. One explanation for their complicity is that Trump’s divisiveness is politically helpful to them. It keeps Americans fighting each other rather than discovering their common interest in fighting oligarchy.”

“American corporations have no special allegiance to the United States and no responsibility for the well-being of Americans, yet they have overriding power over American politics.”

"Trump is the best thing ever to have happened to the new American oligarchy. In addition to his tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks, he stokes divisiveness in ways that keeps the bottom 90% from seeing how the oligarchy has taken over the reins of government, twisted government to its benefit, and siphoned off the economy’s benefits."

"In fact, it’s more difficult for poor and working-class kids in America to rise economically through their working careers than it is for poor and working-class kids to rise in any other advanced nation. Over 40% of American children born into poor families will be poor as adults. Roughly the same share of children who are born into the richest fifth of families will remain in the richest fifth as adults.”

"Governments elsewhere impose higher taxes on the wealthy and redistribute more of it to middle- and lower-income households. Most of the citizens of other advanced nations receive free or nearly free health care, and most get free or nearly free college tuition. Americans receive neither. The United States is the only advanced nation that does not guarantee paid family leave. In Europe, the norm is three months’ paid leave. At most, Americans get twelve weeks’ unpaid leave. America is also the only advanced nation that does not guarantee paid sick days. It is the only one that does not guarantee workers any vacation at all. The European Union’s twenty-eight nations guarantee at least four weeks of paid vacation. In other advanced nations, most people who lose their jobs get more generous unemployment benefits than do Americans."

“As Justice Louis D. Brandeis once said, 'We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.'”