Rest of the day. And no one cspan2 book tv, more television for serious readers. Host good evening virtual audience. On behalf of of Harvard Book Store, i am so pleased to introduce this new book the system by robert reich. Harvad book store brings our new Digital Community in this unprecedented time to you. Every week we will be hosting events. And they will also appear on our website on harbor. Com. You can sign up for a newsletter. You can check out on bookshelves. This evening, we will have time for your questions. If you have a question and any time, select the question button at the bottom of the screen. Also at the bottom of the screen during this presentation, we will see a button featured books the system with our partner bookshops. All sales go towards the purchases and contributions are donated also at the bottom of the screen. And now more than ever, they support the future of landmark independent bookstore. Thank you for tuning in and support of our authors. And the staff of booksellers and we sincerely appreciate the support. And finally, as you might have experienced in virtual gatherings last couple of weeks, technical issues can arise and if they do, we will do our best to resolve them as quickly as possible. Thank you for your understanding in advance. So now i am very pleased to introduce our speaker. Renowned economist, robert reich is a professor of Public Policy at the Public Policy at uc berkeley. He served in three National Administrations and has written numerous titles. The work of nations which has been translated into 22 languages pretty is also the author of the best seller common good and eating capitalism. Among others pretty is a cofounder Whose Mission parallels. To form and engage the public about the imbalance of power. Hes also program your of the awardwinning film and equality for all. In the Netflix Original with capitalism parties joined in conversation tonight i claimed political philosopher at her own harvard university, michael. Hes the author at the International Bestsellers money cant buy. And justice is the right thing to do. The two will be discussing roberts notebook, the system, american politics and how they operate. And help average citizens enact with change. Its a much needed raid. In the senator Elisabeth Warren writes, he is one of our countrys most insightful commentators on economics. The system shows our economy and our democracy are rigged to work for the wealthy and wellconnected. Change is possible if were willing to fight for it. We are so happy to have this here tonight. So without further ado, robert and michael, the digital podium is yours. It. Pleasure it is to be with you bob to talk about your book the system. Its really a manifesto for a new progressive politics and so i am eager to discuss it with you. And to see what our audience and participants had to say. Everybody knows bob that you are one of the leading progressive voices and thinkers. On the american sing today in this book is an example really of fresh thinking for the rest of politics. So thank you so much for joining us and for writing the book rated. Bob will michael, let me thank you for joining us as well. And Harvard Book Store for putting this on. This is a virtual book tour in a way. There are virtues in virtual book tours after having done a lot of a tourist in my life, i am thankful for virtual rather than the real star. The downside is i dont see you in person. Michael your dear friend and i wish to be established in person at sunday post coronavirus. I hope we have a chance to sit down and have coffee somewhere. Michael great, lets begin with what really is the central theme of the book. American Politics Today is not about democrats versus republicans or left versus right. It is about democracy versus i think pretty tell us what you mean about that. What all the khaki means in the contents. Bob it is good old ancient greek term meaning in a kind of shorthand version society in which most of the wealth and power are held by a few rather than the majority. Integrates talk about is being a limited amount of families who presided in terms of wealth and power for the rest of society. Russia today is commonly referred to as the same in the very prominent. We dont usually use the term with the United States but i think is becoming more more appropriate and what i say the major invasion in America Today has become democracy instead of traditional left versus right by disciplining the way in which we used to talk about our political divisions, either more governmef you are on the left, or Less Government if youre in the right. And again im giving you a Cartoon Version of that. But many of us were involved in those discussions but they have become less and less relevant over the past 40 years as wealth and power move to the top. We still engage in those left and right discussions and we still pretend or maybe we are selfdeluded i think in more cases than not, and to think that those of the most important discussions that we can be having. But the most important discussion we can be having is the choice that we have made not expressively but implicitly in greater and moving towards it and away from our democracy. Host as we made that movement away from it, you say the week really are pretty developed. The shift from stakeholder to share aldrich capitalism in the conception of the role of the corporation. And also with labor unions. In the third is the deregulation of finance. Tell us, we could spend the entire evening going through the diagnosis but i want to save us time also to get to some of the solutions that you post. What if you focus on the date regulation finance and the extension of the finance in the economy. Tell us how this happens and how it contributed to olagarth rather than democracy. Bob all three of those changes happen over the last four years. They reinforce each other in white. And finance on the deregulation of finance, happened mostly starting in the 1970s and remember, the legacy that we had in heritage from the 1930s as a Financial System that was pretty boring. It worked pretty well but it did not attract a lot of talents or energy or really much attention. I largely because the regulations work so well developed because we learned so much from the great crash of 1929 in the excesses of finance 1920s. And so set of regulations starting with the securities and exchange act of 1933, and then the act of 1934. In on. All of the regulations that went out with those, but the 1970s, we are beginning to wear thin. Because and for reasons i got from the book, various people involved in finance and wall street begin to see opportunities for exploitation. Opportunities to act on the fringes of the law. Arguably still legally in ways that could make them a great tell of money. Then they could also bribe the politicians. I use this term because i have been in washington for many years in and out of washington and set much more subtle system than outright bribery. Lets use the term bribery just as a kind of a way of understanding. Because it is basically giving money to politicians and their campaigns for the sake of getting something in return. And some of the primary went to listening the laws and regulations. So that by the 1980s, it became possible or financial corporate raiders if thats what you would want to call them. People of whom saw opportunities to get involved in taking over companies are threatening to take over companies that they felt were not well managed. Where employees do not need to be hired. You can do the same for by outsourcing and bringing in automated equipment. In against another piece of the puzzle but you see finance continued to be deregulated. It has an journal almost self propelling mechanism. Once you begin to deregulate. And create more more money and opportunities for money on wall street and in financial markets, then barthel was attracted to wall street and more jealous attracted to wall street found more and more ways of exploiting the system and using bribes to deregulate. So by the time ago to the late 1990s and early 21st century, the system was ripe for an explosion. And as we know it as in 2008. Michael and wendy to get to the part of the book with eroded pretty one of the one of the striking scenes is that it is not only republicans are politicians, who rigged the system, you argue the probusiness or wall street friendly democrats as well as republicans participated in rigging the system. Much of the d regulations, getting rid of that grass single law for example happened during democratic administration. And in that case, the Clinton Administration. And we will get to the bailout and the obama years in a moment. By can you describe how it is that you watched as democratic demonstrations, not only republican once but then participants in the deregulation of finance, and the rigging of the system as you have described it rated. Michael i think that when it comes to rigging, the republicans and much more expect parties. In rigging the system for the benefit of the big corporations and the wealthy. But the democrats certainly as i say in the book, have been guilty as well. There are wall street democrats, and there are regular influence in the Democratic Party. I wrote the book around a gentleman who was the ceo of jp organ chase. The largest bank in the United States. The man has enormous influence in politics as well as finance. Very often interviewed in business shows and on television because of his knowledge. He has positioned himself as a democrat. And as somebody who straddles both parties but really is as he says and heart, he is a democrat and democrat who cares about equality and so forth. But james diamond is very much an exempt of what is happened to the Democratic Party. These wall street democrats and corporate democrats with the best of intentions, and i dont mean to suggest that these are bad people. One recent that i entitled the book trance eight is because we dont fall into the trap of getting giving of the bad people in the bill as it would will be fine. They have contributed and they have made it and i have seen it, very close up. Actually corrupted the Democratic Party just as the Republican Party was distracted. Finally michael, you alluded to my years in the Clinton Administration. Im very proud to have been part of the bill Clinton Administration and very proud of what we accomplished but when i saw firsthand, with this tidal wave of money and its corrosive effects on not only the Clinton Administration and republican parties and the democrats in congress but our entire democracy. It was deep for Citizens United against that Terrible Supreme Court case way before Citizens United already big money was engulfing part democracy and making it very difficult to enact policies that were for the benefit of everyone. Michael now lets move on to the 2000 with the bailout the began under the Bush Administration but continued and was administered under the obama administration. To what extent you think that the Obamas Administration handling of the bailout, contributed to the rigging of the system and even if some would argue, changed and into the way of donald trump. Is it going too far or do you think there is something in that. Bob in the book i do trace the development of that kind of vicious populism. That angry populism to steps that were taken including the obama administration. And that bail out was viewed by americans, and i think quite fairly as a huge cadence wall street and then has perpetrated the years of a kind of gambling casino that made the entire economy change. And when it made its self evident in 2008, and got up with the entire economy and cause it to collapse, a lot of people felt that bailing out wall street although they understood rationally why it was necessary and they felt it was unfair. And homeowners who were also supposed to be bailed out under the mechanism, but a nut wonderful tarp acronym. You cant see behind it. That was the acronym for the program. And homeowners do not get billed out pretty big very few if any executives were indicted or anyway held accountable for what happened. At the helm of that ajc morgan bank and then subsequently, in the forefront of the Business Community efforts to actually minimize the amount of regulation would be put into place to make sure that that 2008 explosion would not happen again. A lot of people are angry and the key Party Movements in the right in the brief occupied movement of the left, both came out of that experience, that sense the game was rigged in favor of the rich and powerful. And then in some ways michael, i think the Bernie Sanders and donald trump were both lineal descendents of the key Party Movement on the right and the occupied movement on the left. When just quick note and that in 2015, i was doing some very preliminary research for this book. I was undertaking focus groups in the midwest, michigan wisconsin, a lot of the rust belt areas. And in North Carolina and missouri. I was asking people, there are candidates in the democratic and republican primaries, who are you most interested in. Would you support for president. I kept on hearing from people, and these west belt states and also in southern and western states, i kept wondering the same thing. People said, was very interested into gentlemen, one is Bernie Sanders and the other is donald trump. And michael, when i hear people repeatedly using these two men is the kind of who they were most interested in posing for, should they get the election and the primary nod in both parties, i knew something had changed in america. It was a degree of willingness to do something quite radical. And i asked people why donald trump and Bernie Sanders nason will both of them are outsiders and they will shake things up. They will unring the american political system that is now rigged against me. Michael people did not really think that they had failed raven that the system was unfair, they felt angry and resentment. Bob yes. People analyzing the 2016 election, have attributed much of Donald Trumps victory to racism. And i think that is simplifies far too much. Yes there was obviously an element of racism but you have to ask yourself, why. Weve had racism in american politics for her since before the founding of the republic. Racism and misogyny all play a very large part in 2016 election because people were ready to be or use their anger, tammy channeled by demagogue called donald trump. Towards scapegoats. It would be anger. It was a sense of frustration that was really Compelling Force in 2016. Michael serves a political question that arose in 2015 but is at very much the moment now. Given the anger and frustration on the right and on the left. At the system being rigged in the way just being stagnant. A sense of cultural exclusion. And powerless this group what you think that an authoritarian populist as you called donald trump from the right, less able to factor that angry resentment more effectively than Frank Sanders was able to do in the left. Bob is a good question. I asked myself the same over and over again. And i think the answer is that the democratic establishment had already invested far more than Hillary Clinton and the republican establishment had in anybody other than donald trump. In 2016, supported by a party and the party regulators. Michael at the beginning. Bob thats right but he did that very quickly. Michael weirs broadway footing the question. I think your diagnosis is great are full compelling. London in 2020, this time did bernie lewis. Bob i think bernie lost, progressives are more dominant and the Democratic Party than ever before but because there were two very effective progressive candidates. It was not just Bernie Sanders. It was also Elisabeth Warren. And if you look at what happened really beginning in october of last year and then right through the primaries, what you saw is that bernie and elisabeth, kept on splitting the progressive vote. Together they had more votes than anybody else. Even up to super tuesday. But those votes were split. Joe biden, managed to just move right through the center. Literally the center. Like the old center. And i think establishment was quite relieved. One of the reasons that Bernie Sanders and Elisabeth Warren both ultimately lost is not just that this with the boat but also that the democratic establishment got extremely nervous with Elisabeth Warrens verse. And when she was number one, there is a brief interval when she was the leader. She was promoting a wealth tax. It scared the jesus out of the democratic establishment. Corporate and wall street democrats. And then Bernie Sanders moved into the leadership. And of course he, scared them and have been scaring them since 2015 and 2016. So joe biden, was a natural sort of safe harbor for them. And as i said, by that time the boat had been split. Michael so there were simply too progressive candidates dividing the most in the Democratic Party. I would like to ask bob,