We did it well in the first three decades after World War II. America's economy doubled, as did the incomes of just about everyone. In fact, those in the bottom fifth rose faster than those in the top fifth. We achieved an extraordinary degree of equality -- and we also were serious about achieving equality of opportunity, through major educational investments (beginning with the GI Bill), through the Civil Rights Act and

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film art by "Inequality for All" website
 

My guest today is economist,Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich. 

JB: Welcome back to OpEdNews, Bob. Over the years you've written 13 books. Now, with Inequality for All, you've ventured onto the Big Screen. What was appealing about this change of medium?

RR: Well, I've tried everything else. I mean, I've written lots of books, and done quite a bit of television. And the situation keeps getting worse -- with more and more of the nation's wealth and income in the hands of a smaller and smaller number of people. So when Jake Kornbluth, the director of "Inequality for All," approached me with his proposal, I accepted right away. (Of course, I had no idea how hard it would be to create a movie!)

JB: You're definitely the star of the film [or should I say, you and your mini Cooper?].  Did you also have a lot of input regarding what went into the film?

RR: A lot of input into the substantive part of the film -- the argument about what's happened to American wealth and incomes, why it's happened, and why it's a problem for the economy and our democracy. The arguments track those I made in my book Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future . But I didn't have much input into the parts of the film that are more biographical. In fact, I wasn't particularly comfortable with Jake (the film's director) using as much personal material as he wanted to use, and we had an ongoing negotiation about it. He argued that the biographical stuff was important, in terms of viewers relating emotionally to the film. I argued back that it was only tangentially related to the issue of widening inequality. In any event, we reached a compromise, as you can see in the film.

JB: If you're talking about how you were bullied as a child and that made you adamant about wanting to protect the vulnerable, I'm with Jake! It did help personalize the issue. What exactly did you hope to accomplish that you haven't been able to with your books, appearances on television and public radio, college lectures?  As you point out, you've been at it for 30 years and economic inequality has only gotten worse.

RR: There's something about the experience of watching a movie or video that enables viewers to connect emotionally with an issue -- and therefore open their minds to it -- more readily than they often can through reading a book or an article. At least that's what I've been lead to conclude, somewhat reluctantly, given that I spend most of my time writing!

JB: I wholeheartedly agree with that. My own activism for election integrity stems directly from watching the documentary   Invisible Ballots, [about the dangers of computerized voting] back in the summer of 2005. It's early days yet, the movie was just released last week. But do you have any sense of how it's being received so far ?

RR: I'm told that it's doing extremely well -- exceeding all expectations.

Reich by Robert Reich

JB: Excellent. Let's get down to specifics about the film now. One of the strengths of Inequality for All is the use of animated graphics, for example,  the suspension bridge imagery. Can you give some of the facts that the bridge graphic so vividly illustrates?

RR: The two peak years for income inequality over the past century were 1928 and 2007 -- in which the top 1 percent received over 23 percent of total income. In 1929 and 2008, the economy crashed. Why? Because when so much income is concentrated at the top, the vast middle class (and all those who aspire to join it) simply don't have the purchasing power to keep the economy going, without themselves going deep into debt. Eventually those debt bubbles burst (1929 and 2008), and when they do so, the economy goes into deep recession. The only reason the Great Recession wasn't as deep or as long as the Great Depression was we knew enough to stimulate the economy, and the Fed kept interest rates down. But these were and are only temporary band-aids. The underlying structural problem remains.

JB: Are there really enough parallels between 1928 and 2007  to make the suspension bridge  a viable analogy? Or did you have to stretch or tweak the facts to get it to fit?

RR: Actually, the parallels are quite close -- not only with regard to income and debt, but also political divisiveness. The big difference, of course, was that the Depression was so deep that FDR could summon the political will for major reform. Ironically, the Great Recession wasn't nearly as deep -- because we used fiscal and monetary policy to cushion the economy -- so there hasn't been the political will for major reforms. As a result, the second tower of the suspension bridge is getting taller again.

JB: Back to basics for a  moment, Bob. What's so bad about income inequality? Isn't it built into capitalism?

RR: Some inequality is both inevitable and desirable -- desirable if people are to have enough incentive to work hard, invent, and innovate. The real issue isn't inequality per se. It's whether we're getting to a level of inequality -- a degree of concentration of income and wealth in a relatively few hands, with the median family on a downward escalator -- that hurts our economy, democracy, and society. I believe we are.

suspension bridge graphic by "Inequality for All" website

JB: How did [infamous Supreme Court decision] Citizens United feed this disparity?

RR: "Citizens United" itself, and as it's been interpreted by lower courts, has opened the floodgates to big money inundating our democracy. It lets the wealthy entrench themselves even further -- by fighting tax hikes, getting larger tax loopholes, arranging for subsidies and bailouts for their companies, and getting rid of regulations they don't want.

JB: Speaking of regulations, it's  worth noting that the Koch Brothers' oil concerns have received major fines over the years.  They"re undoubtedly  thrilled by the anti-regulation thrust of the Tea Party they've  so generously sponsored. [See Frank Rich's 8.28.2010  NYTimes article " The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party."]  How does what's happening now with the government shut-down fit into the picture?

RR: It fits exactly. The Koch Brothers' political front group "Americans for Prosperity" is bankrolling  millions of dollars of ads opposing the Affordable Care Act, presumably because they view the Act as a first step toward the kind of "socialized medicine" they think would erode their profits. They aren't troubled by a government shutdown that reduces the number of inspectors and enforcers of the very regulations they've opposed for years.

JB: That actually makes perfect sense. We Americans have often sensed that the rich were getting richer and the rest of us were standing still or losing ground. But until recently, we didn't have the facts and figures to back that up.   Inequality for All  features  two researchers who were instrumental in changing all that. Tell us more, please.

RR: The two researchers are Emanuel Saez, a professor of economics here at Berkeley, and his colleague, Thomas Piketty. The two of them have done pioneering work on the extent of income inequality, by looking at tax records going back to 1913, when the federal income tax was instituted. Those tax records have given them ways to measure how much total income was going to the top 1 percent, the top one-tenth of one percent, and the top one-hundredth of one percent.

recent Reich book by Robert Reich

JB: And their findings confirmed our worst fears. There's a statistic on the website that states that the assets of one rich guy at the very top would be enough to house all the homeless in the country. That's a pretty graphic illustration of the pickle we're in!  You point out that we needn't search any further afield than our own history for more equitable ways of "doing" the economy. Isn't that a stretch? Would you have been better served to look to Germany, for instance?

RR: It's not particularly helpful to tell Americans they should emulate another nation -- and it's not even necessary, because we did it well in the first three decades after World War II. America's economy doubled, as did the incomes of just about everyone. In fact, those in the bottom fifth rose faster than those in the top fifth. We achieved an extraordinary degree of equality -- and we also were serious about achieving equality of opportunity, through major educational investments (beginning with the GI Bill), extending through the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. We invested in infrastructure (the huge interstate highway program). And we had a tax structure that was truly progressive, with the highest marginal tax rate of 91 percent during the Eisenhower years. Even including all deductions and tax credits, the very rich faced an effective marginal tax of over 50 percent. We also regulated Wall Street, making banking boring -- as it should be.

JB: What a contrast to the current situation!   What are you after with this film?

RR: Our goal is to change the national conversation about what's happening to jobs and wages, so that it's less of a blame game and more of a question about what rules of the game need to be changed, and how. We also want to inspire people to become more involved, and offer them some ways (through the website) they can make a difference.

JB:  Sounds good. Back to the government shutdown for a moment, please. What do you think about how it's turning into a fundraising bonanza on all sides of the political spectrum? Is that not a tad unseemly and inappropriate?

RR: Unfortunately, extortion begets extortion. When a minority of congressional Republicans threatens the majority of Republicans with primary contests from the right if they don't play along, and then the majority of Republicans threatens the nation with a government shutdown and possible default on the nation's debt if the rest of us don't play along, we're on slippery slope -- not only to more extortion in the future, but also to more partisanship and divisiveness. The Republican Party's underlying strategy is to divide and conquer -- convincing large numbers of working Americans that the reason they're not getting ahead no matter how hard they work is because of the poor, mostly black and Latino, who are taking their tax dollars for welfare and threatening their jobs with low wages. The Republican Party's patrons don't want average Americans to know what's really going on -- that almost all the economic gains are going to the very top.

Reich's latest - now in paperback by Robert Reich

JB: That's all very true, Bob,  but I am still wondering about every organization under the sun is using the shut down as an excuse to hit its membership for donations. Comments?

RR: My real concern is that the fiasco of a prolonged shutdown and even worse crisis of failure to raise the debt ceiling will cause so many Americans to give up on government altogether, raising the level of cynicism to an all-time high, that the monied interests will have it all to themselves.

JB: I know what you're saying. I was talking to a woman I met in the bathroom after the showing. She found the film powerful and frightening but short on solutions. She was also surprised that you are not cynical. How would you respond to her comment?  

RR: We didn't want to put specific solutions into the film because we didn't want to make the film overtly political. But we do refer viewers to a webpage ( www.inequalityforall.com ) where we've assembled lots of information about what people can do and how to do it. As to cynicism, I avoid it and tell others to. When we become cynical and give up on politics, we give up on democracy -- and when we give up on democracy, we give up on everything. Also, if you look back on our history you see that time and again Americans have rescued capitalism from its own excesses; I'm absolutely certain we'll do that again. 

Finally, we have demographics on our side. Women are becoming more economically powerful, which translates into political power -- and women are more progressive on many of these issues than are men. Latinos and black Americans are also gaining in numbers and political power. Young people are also more progressive than older people, and they're becoming ever more politically active -- and their numbers will obviously grow as well. So don't succumb to cynicism!  

JB: Got it. It's so interesting to think that if you had not been bullied as a child, you might not have become such a fighter for the underdog. Your bad fortune turned out to be good news for the rest of us. Anything else you'd like to add before we wrap this up?

RR: Just that I do hope people have a chance to see the film. Jake Kornbluth, the director, has managed the impossible: making one of the central issues of our day entertaining as well as informative.

JB: Yes, indeed he did. It's always a pleasure talking with you, Bob. I'm so glad you haven't given up. Hopefully, this film will raise some consciousness and bring about change. The way things are going now, change can't come a moment too soon!

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Inequality for All website

Moyers & Co. full-show interview with Robert Reich

Moyers's interview with director Jacob Kornbluth

Fast Company Creative Conversation: Robert Reich and Jacob Kornbluth, From the New Documentary "Inequality For All"

Reich's website

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Other Brunwasser interviews with Robert Reich: 

Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.