Robert Reich on Supercapitalism

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich says the US tradition of democratic capitalism has gone badly wrong. A generation of free market adulation, says Reich, has built a kind of capitalism so powerful that it is overwhelming the democracy it is supposed to support.

He calls it "supercapitalism." A capitalism that brings us dirt cheap blue jeans, and falling wages, no job security, and a government owned by corporate lobbyists.

It's time to choose, says Reich, whether we are consumers first, or citizens first. Tough questions these days.

This hour On Point: Robert Reich and "supercapitalism."

Guests:

Robert Reich, secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, currently professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and author of the new book "Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life"

Marvin Zonis, political economist, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business