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ROBERT REICH

Best Selling author and economist, one of America's foremost experts on jobs and the economy, Former U.S. Secretary of Labor

One of the world's major advocates of reforms that spread the benefits of economic growth and strengthen democracy
How four decades of stagnant wages have contributed to a new populism on both the left and the right
Why we must restore the idea of the common good to the center of our economics and politics
A sought-after speaker for his expertise in global and domestic economics as well as for his ability to present complex issues with warmth and urgency
Served in three presidential administrations, including Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton
TIME magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the 20th century
Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley
Reich’s videos on economics and politics have been viewed by over 90 million people around the world

Robert B. Reich is one of America's foremost experts on jobs and the economy. He is also one of the world's major advocates of reforms that spread the benefits of economic growth and strengthen democracy, through his work in three presidential administrations, his many bestselling books, his documentaries, Inequality for All and Saving Capitalism (a Netflix original), television commentaries, and videos. His latest best-seller, The System, explains how four decades of stagnant wages have contributed to a new populism on both the left and the right, which will require a fundamental restructuring of our economy and democracy. His 2018 best-seller, The Common Good, is a passionate, clear-eyed manifesto on why we must restore the idea of the common good to the center of our economics and politics.

Robert B. Reich is currently the Carmel P. Friesen Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He has served in three national administrations, including as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written eighteen books, including the bestsellers The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, The Common Good, Saving Capitalism, Aftershock, Supercapitalism, and The Work of Nations, which has been translated into twenty-two languages. He is co-creator of the 2017 Netflix original documentary Saving Capitalism and of the award-winning 2013 film Inequality for All. He is co-founder of Inequality Media, co-founder of the Economic Policy Institute, and co-founding editor of The American Prospect. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. .

A sought-after speaker for his expertise on global and domestic economics as well as for his ability to present complex issues with warmth and urgency, Reich has spoken at major lecture series, conferences, and college campuses across the country and around the world. He is a frequent contributor to CNN and MSNBC, a columnist for Newsweek and the Guardian, and his writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

In 2003, Reich was awarded the prestigious Vaclav Havel Vision Foundation Prize, by the former Czech president, for his pioneering work in economic and social thought. In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the ten most successful cabinet secretaries of the century. He received his B.A. from Dartmouth College, his M.A. from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and his J.D. from Yale Law School.

In 2013, Reich co-created (with Jacob Kornbluth) the award-winning documentary Inequality for All, a sobering look at economic inequality, and in 2017, his second documentary, based on his book of the same name, Saving Capitalism, became a Netflix original.

He co-founded Inequality Media, an online video channel dedicated to raising awareness of economic inequality. To date, Reich’s videos on economics and politics have now been viewed over 600 million times.

Robert Reich tailors each presentation to the needs of his audience and is not limited to the topics we have listed below:

Capitalism
The Common Good
Labor Market
Populism
Inequality

The common good

With the warmth and lucidity that have made him one of our most important public voices, Robert Reich makes the case for a generous, inclusive understanding of the American project, centering on the moral obligations of citizenship. Rooting his argument in everyday reality and common sense, Reich demonstrates the ex-istence of a common good and argues that it is what defines a society or a nation. Societies and nations undergo virtuous cycles that reinforce and build the com-mon good, as well as vicious cycles that undermine it. Over the course of the past five decades, Reich contends, America has been in a slowly accelerating vicious cycle–one that can and must be reversed. In order to change course, we must first weigh what really matters, and how we as a country should relate to honor, shame, patriotism, truth, and the meaning of leadership.

Income inequality, populism, and how to save capitalism

For Robert Reich, the most crucial debate we’ll see in the coming years won’t be the traditional debate between left and right. Instead, it will be between authoritar-ian populism and democratic reform. In the face of widening economic inequality and insecurity, lagging wage growth, and technologies that are already eliminat-ing vast numbers of jobs, many feel powerless and voiceless and believe that the major institutions of society are no longer functioning in ways that benefit most people. Reich explains the solutions presented by authoritarian populism, which uses xenophobic and anti-immigrant sentiment scapegoats for existing ills and the more comprehensive and long-term solutions that would emerge from genu-ine democratic reform. Only through the latter, Reich argues, do we have the po-tential to overhaul a broken political-economic system.

The future of bipartisanship and the future of America

Inspired by his documentaries, Inequality for All and Saving Capitalism, this speech features Robert Reich exploring the choices facing America through an examination of the widening inequalities of income, wealth, and political power that have characterized the last thirty years. Reich expertly shows how even in a contentious political climate, restoring equal opportunity is a goal that defies parti-sanship, making it relevant and urgent for all Americans.

The System: Who Rigged it, How We Fix It

From the bestselling author of Saving Capitalism and The Common Good, comes an urgent analysis of how the "rigged" systems of American politics and power operate, how this status quo came to be, and how average citizens can enact change.

There is a mounting sense that our political-economic system is no longer work-ing, but what is the core problem and how do we remedy it? With the characteristic clarity and passion that have made him a central civil voice, bestselling author of Saving Capitalism and The Common Good Robert B. Reich shows how wealth and power have combined to install an oligarchy and undermine democracy. Reich exposes the myths of meritocracy, national competitiveness, corporate so-cial responsibility, the “free market,” and the political “center,” all of which are used by those at the top to divert attention from their takeover of the system and to justify their accumulation of even more wealth and power. In demystifying the current system, Reich reveals where power actually lies and how it is wielded, and invites us to reclaim power and remake the system for all.