Supercapitalism - turbocharged, Web-based, able to find and make almost anything just about anywhere - is working wonderfully well to create wealth. But democracy, charged with caring for all citizens, is failing under its influence.
Robert Reich explains how widening inequalities, heightened job insecurity and global warming are the logical outcomes of supercapitalism. He shows that companies, fighting harder than ever to be competitive, have become more deeply involved in politics, and how the tools used to temper society's problems - taxation, education, trade unions - have withered as supercapitalism has burgeoned.
Supercapitalism sets out a clear course to a vibrant capitalism and a concurrent, equally vibrant democracy. Business and politics must be kept distinct: to debate whether Wal-Mart, Google, Microsoft or Nike are good or evil is to miss the point.
Important, timely, authoritative and thrilling, Supercapitalism is a tour de force of modern popular political writing, and is essential reading for anyone concerned that government and big business are too-familiar bedfellows.
Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkley. Secretary of Labour under President Clinton, he is now a prolific journalist who has written in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Washington Post and in the UK, most recently in The Sunday Times.
www.robertreich.org / www.robertreich.blogspot.com
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