Robert Reich
Robert Bernard Reich ( * June 24, 1946 in Scranton, Pennsylvania) is Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley. He was from 1993 to 1997 U.S. labor minister under President Bill Clinton.
Life
After graduating with honors from Dartmouth College in 1968 Reich was awarded a Rhodes scholarship, with whom he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University - together with Bill Clinton. Then graduated from the Empire JD program at Yale University and pursued a career in the U.S. Department of Justice. He taught for several years at Harvard before he was Bill Clinton's senior adviser on economic policy issues. After Clinton's election victory, he headed from 1992, the Ministry of Labour. Reich fought for anti-poverty programs and training initiatives. At the end of the first term, Clinton Reich resigned from the Cabinet.
Super capitalism
In his work Supercapitalism presented empire found in the prevailing economic system people would get increasingly as consumers and investors more power than workers and citizens, however, less and less. A primacy of economics over politics undermines democracy. Empire stood the contrary a need for the primacy of politics.
Reich explains his view with the paradox of super-capitalism. It states: citizens in industrialized countries and more and more people in emerging countries benefit as consumers and investors from globalization and liberalization of markets, but as citizens of their states, they reject their negative consequences largely depend. As consumers, they are looking for the best prices, but as citizens mourn the extinction of small corner shops and the poor working conditions in the supermarkets. As an investor, they expect high returns, but as citizens condemn the managers who cut from investment reasons jobs. For Reich, the balance of this ambivalence is clear: Investors and consumers are the winners of globalization. Your choices are constantly increasing. The citizens, however, are more often the losers: The wages decrease, the labor uncertainty increases, and also the social inequality.
The advantage of Robert Reich's super-capitalism approach is that it does not unserious system or misled critique of capitalism, because neoliberal in this approach were not systems, but people who act as investors and consumers. The disadvantage of the concept lies in its polarizing juxtaposition of the consumer and citizen. In reality, in contrast, is just to global challenges such as climate change characteristic is that they can only be met with mixed political and economic strategies: The reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, for example, requires both a commitment of citizens (eg in the choice the legislature ) and the consumer ( for example, by climate-conscious consumer or voluntary offsetting of emissions).
Writings
- The Work of Nations. 1991 The new world economy. The end of the national economy. Ullsteinhaus, Frankfurt / Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-550-06824-7; Fischer -Taschenbuch -Verlag, Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-596-12833-1
- Goodbye, Mr. President. From the diary of a Clinton - minister. List, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-471-78563-9; Econ & List, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-612-26621-7
- The future of success. How are we going to work tomorrow. Piper, Munich / Zurich 2000, ISBN 3-492-04359-3; ibid 2004, ISBN 3-492-24019-4
- Super capitalism. As the economy undermines our democracy. Campus -Verlag, Frankfurt New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38567-9
- Aftershock - America at the turn of Campus -Verlag, Frankfurt New York 2010, ISBN 978-3-593-39247-9