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I finished Robert Reich's new book tonight, Saving Capitalism. Basically, the thesis of the thing is that a "free market" still needs a government to set up and enforce the rules of said market (bankruptcy, contracts, property ownership, etc.), so instead of increasing the size of government, we need to change these rules so they work for the middle class/worker class. It's broken up into three parts, the first talking about the building blocks of Capitalism: Property, Monopoly, Contract, Bankruptcy, and Enforcement, and how these rules have been manipulated by the monied elites in America to further work to their advantage. This is where you get talk about the decrease in unions, how bankruptcy law massively favors corporations and the wealthy by not having student loans go away after a bankruptcy, the incredibly weakening of antitrust laws, abuse of copyright laws, and all of the changes over the last 30 or so years that have favored the big banks, wall street, corporations, and the wealthy in general. The second part talks about the myth of people being "worth what their paid", which is only true as a tautology, and how the idea of a meritocracy is flawed. It talks about CEO pay vs. median pay, compensation in ways other than a salary, and more about union busting. The third part, then, is where he gets to the meat of the book: the policy we should enact. He's in favor of a basic minimum income, especially as more jobs end up destroyed or automated, as well as a lot of the Bernie Sanders Plan; he wants to re-enact Glass-Steagal, massively overhaul the copyright/patent system with strict limits to have innovation and invention benefit the general public more quickly, overturn Citizens United and McCutcheon and put some bones back in campaign law. In other words, your basic progressive plan for America. It's a good book, and it's well worth reading, not for any new ideas, but for a slightly different way of looking at them, as well as another thing you can hit your friends over the head with (literally or metaphorically) if they're being dumb.
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Oct 17, 2015 07:15
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Bryter posted:Does he give a reason why? Basically as a sort of bank antitrust measure, so you don't have an entity (or small group of entities) that is controlling banking so much so that the general public is hurt, and smaller local/regional banks don't have a significant disadvantage.
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Oct 17, 2015 16:18
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Veskit posted:How readable is it? Very, it's pretty easy to follow, I took it all in in a day (though I'm a pretty fast reader). I'd highly recommend it for anyone to read, to get a sense of exactly the kind of capitalism that America needs.
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Oct 18, 2015 05:30
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