Saving Capitalism

In the year since Donald Trump became president, Robert Reich—Berkeley professor, prolific author, labor secretary under Bill Clinton—has emerged as the anti-Trump crowd’s foremost public intellectual. In his weekly “Resistance Reports,” available on Facebook and by email subscription, he puts his teacher chops to good use. His mini-lectures are succinct and jargon-free and blessedly understandable, in part because he’s a skilled cartoonist who, using a white board, illustrates his talks on the fly. Now he’s released a feature-length video documentary, Saving Capitalism, that offers a solidly liberal view of what needs to be done to reduce wealth inequality in America and save our democracy. He posits three core steps: reducing the power of corporations and the super-wealthy by curtailing lobbyists; campaign finance reform to break the oligarchy’s stranglehold on politics; and imposing regulations on banks and other large corporations. As the documentary’s title suggests, Reich isn’t a radical. He believes capitalism can—and must—be controlled, and that if enough people become aroused to demand reform, it will happen.