Robert Reich
Presented as part of the UC Berkeley Department of Sociology Colloqium Series
Matrix is located on the 8th floor of Barrows Hall, on the UC Berkeley campus, near Telegraph and Bancroft Avenues, just up the hill from Sather Gate. There are entrances at both ends of the building, but only one of the elevators on the eastern side goes directly to the 8th floor. You can alternatively take the stairs to the 7th floor and walk up the stairs.
Social Science Matrix is honored to host the UC Berkeley Sociology Department’s Colloquium Series, featuring Robert Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies.
The Malicious Fallacy of the Free Market
Markets require rules in order to function. In a democracy those rules emanate from legislatures, courts, and administrative agencies. The important question— lost in the conventional right-left debate over whether one prefers the "free market" or "government"—is who has most influence over the creation of such rules? As income and wealth become increasingly concentrated at the top—in large corporations, the financial sector, and relative handful of wealthy families—so, too, has the political power to influence these rules. The result is a vicious cycle in which the rules enhance the wealth at the top, which adds to the power of such wealth to further influence such rules. Meanwhile, average citizens, who feel disenfranchised from politics and whose economic fortunes are stagnating or declining, come to believe the system is "rigged" against them, and come to support either authoritarian populistism (such as Donald Trump) or democratic populism (Bernie Sanders).
About Robert Reich
Robert B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fourteen books, including the best sellers Aftershock, The Work of Nations, Beyond Outrage, and Saving Capitalism. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, Inequality for All.