We must face the fact that the current system is not working. Those who have great power and resources would be foolish to think that personal philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, and the myths of meritocracy and free-market capitalism will suffice to maintain the current allocation of power. Unless they get out of the way of necessary change, history will hold them responsible for what happens next.

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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.

Joan Brunwasser: Welcome back to OpEdNews, Bob. It's been a long time since we talkedabout "Inequality for All" back in 2013. I understand that your new book, THE SYSTEM: WHO RIGGED IT AND HOW TO FIX IT, is out March 24. That's exciting! Let's talk about your recent piece: The Democratic Establishment is Freaking Out About Bernie. It should Calm Down. Is the term "Freaking Out" hyperbole or, simply, right on target?

Robert Reich: I didn't write the headline, but I do think the Democratic establishment is incredibly worried about the possibility that Bernie Sanders will be the Democratic nominee. I define the "Democratic establishment" as the movers and shakers in the Democratic Party -- the major funders and bundlers, advisers and consultants, pundits, and present or former elected leaders and key appointees, most of them living in Washington, New York, LA, and San Francisco -- who supported Bill Clinton in 1992, Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, Barack Obama in 2008, and Hillary Clinton in 2016. They're the ones who helped shift the Party from its New Deal, organized labor, civil rights, anti-Vietnam War, and urban black base in the 1960s and 1970s to a new base centered in the middle and upper-middle-class and so-called "suburban swing" voters. They welcomed corporate and Wall Street money. They're liberal on social issues, cautious on economic issues. They see Bernie (and, to a lesser extent, Elizabeth Warren) as fundamental threats to the Party.

JB: Do I need to point out that the progressive policies that Bernie is espousing are really not so radical? In fact, they would have fit right in with earlier administrations, like FDR's, for instance. Even Nixon had a plan to extend health coverage more universally. Would it have made a difference if Bernie had been framing his vision as a new, New Deal, as opposed to a revolution, or would the Powers That Be, no longer the traditional base of the Democratic Party, still shy away? And where does it leave those traditional components of the old Democratic Party and who can speak for them if the Democratic establishment continues to ignore them on the one hand and take them for granted on the other?

RR: I don't think it matters how Bernie (or Elizabeth Warren) might have framed their policies. The corporate and Wall Street establishment would have condemned their wealth tax, for example, even had they called it apple pie. The needs of the traditional elements of the Democratic Party are ignored, except perhaps in the months preceding an election.

I mean, for forty years the median wage has barely budged! And what have Democrats done about this? Have they championed labor unions? Have they fought monopolies? Have they conditioned Wall Street bailouts and corporate tax subsidies on giving workers better deals? No. Even when Clinton and Obama had both houses of Congress, they didn't support "card check," which would have made it far easier to form unions.

Look, I don't want to draw a false equivalence between Republicans and Democrats. Obviously, the Democratic Party has been better for average Americans on a range of issues. But with regard to economic power, establishment Democrats have behaved similarly to establishment Republicans. By 2016, it was clear that establishment Democrats hadn't just lost the white working class. They had lost the working class. Period.

JB: I get that the two parties are not clones of one another, although the DNC-Dems seem to be headed in that direction. The obvious question is, how do you reconcile two very different visions, each of which has their strong and outspoken adherents? And more essentially, how do you overcome that imbalance of power when one side seems to hold all the cards? Are we forever doomed by the stranglehold of special interests?

RR: It does come down to an imbalance of power. The Republican establishment has been cashing in on Trump's tax cuts, regulatory rollbacks, and corporate subsidies, even as Trump pretends to his followers he's an anti-establishment populist. So the Republican establishment still retains quiet control over the GOP, although most working-class Republicans don't know it.

Meanwhile, the Democratic establishment and anti-establishment remain deeply divided. Establishment Dems worried in 2016 that they'd lose control, so the DNC asserted itself on behalf of Hillary Clinton. Even though Bernie supported Hillary in the general election, on Election Day 25 percent of Sanders primary voters voted for someone other than Hillary Clinton (10 percent voted for Trump).

What will happen this year to the Democrats? If Biden is the nominee, we could have a repeat of 2016. If Bernie is the nominee, the establishment will be apoplectic. Some will vote for Trump (former Goldman-Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, a lifelong Democrat, says he'll vote for Trump over Sanders). Hopefully, the specter of a second Trump term is so loathsome that most Democrats will stay united regardless.

JB: Why aren't you worried about Bernie? I know you supported him in 2016 over Hillary. That was a potentially uncomfortable position for you, since you had been in Bill's cabinet. How did you decide and how much is the same and how much is different, four years later?

RR: I'm for Bernie and I was also for Elizabeth Warren. But, hell, if it comes to it I'd vote for a lamppost over Trump. What I like about Bernie and Elizabeth is the boldness of their ideas, at a time in American history when we desperately need boldness to fight climate change, get big money out of our politics, and make our healthcare system and higher education functional and affordable. The status quo isn't sustainable because if we do nothing we're going to lose our democracy as well as our planet. Incrementalism won't work because these problems are big and they're hitting us fast. Politics as usual won't get us where we need to be because the public has to be mobilized to tackle them. Sanders and Warren both understand this, and they're helping the public to understand as well.

JB: How do we fight back to counteract the status-quo corporate press who echo how dangerous change is and how pursuing such an agenda can't win? It's a powerful meme. All the media is full of hysterical screeds, like Chris Matthews who predicted executions in Central Park. There's a lot of money and energy going into this fear mongering and keeping voters in line, so they make the "safe" aka centrist choice. Otherwise, 'they' warn, we risk guaranteeing Trump another four years. Your thoughts?

RR: We went through this in 2016, of course. I think it very important to convince at least part of the corporate press -- and the Democratic establishment -- that the status quo isn't just unsustainable; it's more dangerous than seeking bold moves that help the lives of average Americans. A Green New Deal might be expensive, but doing nothing about climate change will almost certainly cost far more. If we don't launch something as bold as a Green New Deal, we'll spend trillions coping with the consequences of our failure to be bold. Medicare for All will cost a lot, but the price of doing nothing about America's increasingly dysfunctional healthcare system will soon be in the stratosphere. Investing in universal childcare, public higher education and woefully outdated and dilapidated infrastructure will be expensive too, but the cost of not making these investments would be astronomical. American productivity is already suffering and millions of families can't afford decent childcare, college or housing whose soaring costs are closely related to inadequate transportation and water systems.

Journalists wanting to appear serious about public policy have continued to rip into Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (whose policies are almost as ambitious) for the costs of their proposals but never ask self-styled moderates like Biden how they plan to cope with the costs of doing nothing or too little.

JB: Your new book, THE SYSTEM: WHO RIGGED IT AND HOW TO FIX IT, will be out in a few weeks. The title is intriguing. Does it have anything to say about the fix we're in? What can you tell us about it?

RR: I want readers to see the system as a system, and to understand that power -- who has it, who doesn't, where it's located, how it's exercised -- is the most important characteristic of the system. Amazingly, standard economics and politics leave out power. I also offer ways for the powerless (that is, most of us) to reclaim our economy and democracy. If we don't, we can't possibly fix health care, climate change, big money in politics, widening inequality, institutional racism, or any of the other challenges that must be faced in years to come.

JB: Are we more powerless in the wake of Super Tuesday, Bob? Are affordable healthcare and a sustainable environment or any of the other fixes we desperately need further out of reach now?

RR: Not at all. More Americans now support affordable health care than ever before. A majority wants bold action on the environment. A wealth tax now has the support of most Americans. The problems of widening inequality and political corruption are now more visible, and attracting more attention, than at any time I can remember. Young people in particular -- because their time horizons extend the farthest and they know they'll be around to suffer the consequences of inaction -- are more committed to these causes than any generation I recall.

But the underlying challenge remains the same: Remedying the misallocation of power. None of these goals is achievable if those with great wealth and power continue to dominate our political and economic life.

What's the answer? In the history of the United States, the allocation of power has shifted through wars, depressions, and social movements. Elsewhere, the allocation of power has changed through revolutions, pandemics, plagues, and mass uprisings. Of all these, social movements are the safest. They generate the least ancillary damage, and they are most likely to achieve their aims.

If Joe Biden is the Democratic candidate and Donald Trump is elected to a second term, I wouldn't be surprised if a third party emerged out of the vacuum of what's left of the Democrats and disaffected Republicans who are tired of the corruption, crony capitalism, corporate welfare, dominance of the economy by Wall Street, and dominance of Washington by big money. Perhaps this third party could be the political vehicle of a movement to take back democracy and the economy from what's becoming an oligarchy.

But we must face the fact that the current system is not working. Most people now see it as rigged against them. It has siphoned off much of the wealth of the country for itself, invited demagogues to run for office and pushed voters to elect them, done little to protect the planet from devastating climate change, and drained much of our democracy of its vitality. Those who have great power and resources would be foolish to think that personal philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, and the myths of meritocracy and free-market capitalism will suffice to maintain the current allocation of power. Unless they get out of the way of necessary change, history will hold them responsible for what happens next.

JB: Thanks so much for talking with me again, Bob. It's always an interesting ride. Good luck with your upcoming book launch!

RR: Thanks for the interview, Joan. All the best to you.

***

Reich's new book, THE SYSTEM: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, will be out March 24.

Note from Robert: Both "Inequality for All" and our more recent documentary, "Saving Capitalism,"can be seen on Netflix. Both are being seen in thousands of high school and college classrooms.

My prior interviews with Robert Reich:

Robert Reich and his new film, "Inequality for All" - An In-Depth Interview 10.3.2013

Robert Reich on "Bungee-Jumping Over the Fiscal Cliff" December 8, 2012

Robert Reich on Romney, the New Gilded Age and More 9.5.2012

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.