The Politics and Economics of Inequality: A Lecture to the Top One-Tenth of 1 Percent (Video)

by Robert Reich Jul 05, 2014

Robert Reich

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Robert B. Reich is the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten…

This post originally ran on <a href="http://robertreich.org/post/90714200180" title="Robert Reich’s Web page">Robert Reich’s Web page</a>. Here’s the Aspen Lecture I gave recently at this year’s Aspen Ideas Festival. The irony of talking about inequality with an audience composed almost entirely of the richest one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans was not lost on me. When I suggested that we return to the 70 percent income-tax rate on top incomes that prevailed before 1981, many looked as if I had punched them in the gut. But I stressed it’s not a zero-sum game, and they’d do better with a smaller share of a rapidly-growing economy — growing because the vast middle class and the poor had the purchasing power to get the economy back on track — than they’re doing with a large share of an economy that’s barely growing at all. It’s crucial that America’s most powerful and privileged understand what’s happening, and why they must support fundamental reform.