Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life (Vintage)
by Robert B. Reich
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List Price: $15.95
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Manufacturer: Vintage
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 331
EAN: 9780307277992
ISBN: 0307277992
Label: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: 2008-09-09
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 2008-09-09
Studio: Vintage
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Refreshing, Clear, and Challenging
Comment: Robert Reich's book is refreshing from a variety of perspectives. It is refreshing because he doesn't settle for cheap criticism or partisan sniping. It is refreshingly honest; he establishes a clear line of responsbility between citizen behavior and economic or social consequences, whether intended or unintended. His grasp of history and personal observations in government service are clearly stated and will, hopefully, serve as the basis for authentic dialogue. More important, Robert Reich challenges us to recognize that we are unlikely to evolve as individuals or as a nation unless we reclaim our role as citizen in a republic dedicated to the proposition that we are capable of governing ourselves.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Required reading to understand our current economic downfall
Comment: Robert Reich blends the ideas that not only are companies but also citizens of America are to blame for the current economic crisis. He details the rise and ultimate fall of deregulation, the increased availability of resources and the somewhat new idea of fierce competition between deeply rooted and fledgling companies. Mr. Reich shows that corporations looking to increase their stock prices are hurting the economy by the ways they go about doing so.
But the most telling aspect of the story is how we, as citizens of America, are allowing these corporations to continue their greedy ways and how we are almost of the same mindset.
Definitely pick this item up if you want to understand how we can get out of the current mess and the history of it all.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Informative Book
Comment: Supercapitalism, written by Robert Reich, is an amazing book and should be read by every single American citizen.
The book is a historical look at American Capitalism and Democracy and how they've been intertwined and even how they've diverged in recent years. This divergence, Reich argues, is due to Supercapitalism.
What does this mean? It means that this country has moved past a mixture of democracy and capitalism into a new era of greed. Consumers love the cheap prices we find online and in discount stores but we get angry when jobs are sent overseas. Investors love the high returns that stocks have provided to us but we get upset when the companies we invest in cut costs be laying off there staff.
Has anyone stopped to realize that the reason these jobs are going overseas is because we (as consumers) demand cheaper prices and we (as investors) are demanding higher returns?
There is a lot of information in this book and much of it has opened my eyes to what Capitalism and Democracy in America used to mean....and what it means today.
This is a great book that everyone should read.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Not Totally without Criticism of Content
Comment: Lucid and compelling arguments are made. However, I would argue with the assumptions that anchor the arguments for Corporations.
Corporations are supposedly only contracts, not real people. But if you take away the people, there is no corporation, because there is no agent who operates the said corporation within the real world with real actions. OK, first argument negated.
He wants me to believe his thesis that Corporations have no moral duties or social responsibility. But if real people are carrying out the real actions in the name of a Corporation, then real people are dispensing with actions that are either moral or immoral behavior.
Look, if the Nazi Party was only a corporate political organization that has no moral or social responsibility, then the individuals inside that organization, who gassed 6 million people, are not responsible for their actions. Right?
I would rethink my idea of what a corporation is. A corporation is an organizational group of individuals which makes decisions and whose actions are carried out collectively as a group. It is still a real person, only now a group of them to be more precise.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Remarkably erudite description of where the economy was, and why it is, where it is, now
Comment: Reich breaks up the US economy, since the end of World War II, into two eras:
The first is the 'Not Quite Golden Age', which ended in 1975. This era was marked by a shared gains across nearly all participants and stability. The problems were built in inefficiency and a stagnant mindset.
The second era is 'Supercapitalism' and encompasses everything after 1975. This era was marked by extremely efficient markets, creative business and many options for investors. The problem is that while investors and consumers have benefited immensely under this system, workers have suffered, and Washington has wholly sold out.
That's a very rough summary of what Reich details in perfectly concise and clear English. The argument he makes is one a great prosecutor makes on an open and shut case. Point by point he builds up to the conclusion, and it's nearly nearly indisputable when he arrives.
The base Reich builds is my favorite part of this book. It gives the best explanation of the modern (and recently modern) economy that I've ever read.
The base Reich builds is so solid, that the conclusions and summary just fall into place. If anything in the book is vague, it is in the conclusions and the author's recommendations.
It could also be said that the recommendations are prescient given the market collapse since this was published. This book is essentially an argument for sensible regulation, even before the collapse over the last few months that made 'deregulation' a four letter word.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Refreshing, Clear, and Challenging
Comment: Robert Reich's book is refreshing from a variety of perspectives. It is refreshing because he doesn't settle for cheap criticism or partisan sniping. It is refreshingly honest; he establishes a clear line of responsbility between citizen behavior and economic or social consequences, whether intended or unintended. His grasp of history and personal observations in government service are clearly stated and will, hopefully, serve as the basis for authentic dialogue. More important, Robert Reich challenges us to recognize that we are unlikely to evolve as individuals or as a nation unless we reclaim our role as citizen in a republic dedicated to the proposition that we are capable of governing ourselves.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Required reading to understand our current economic downfall
Comment: Robert Reich blends the ideas that not only are companies but also citizens of America are to blame for the current economic crisis. He details the rise and ultimate fall of deregulation, the increased availability of resources and the somewhat new idea of fierce competition between deeply rooted and fledgling companies. Mr. Reich shows that corporations looking to increase their stock prices are hurting the economy by the ways they go about doing so.
But the most telling aspect of the story is how we, as citizens of America, are allowing these corporations to continue their greedy ways and how we are almost of the same mindset.
Definitely pick this item up if you want to understand how we can get out of the current mess and the history of it all.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Informative Book
Comment: Supercapitalism, written by Robert Reich, is an amazing book and should be read by every single American citizen.
The book is a historical look at American Capitalism and Democracy and how they've been intertwined and even how they've diverged in recent years. This divergence, Reich argues, is due to Supercapitalism.
What does this mean? It means that this country has moved past a mixture of democracy and capitalism into a new era of greed. Consumers love the cheap prices we find online and in discount stores but we get angry when jobs are sent overseas. Investors love the high returns that stocks have provided to us but we get upset when the companies we invest in cut costs be laying off there staff.
Has anyone stopped to realize that the reason these jobs are going overseas is because we (as consumers) demand cheaper prices and we (as investors) are demanding higher returns?
There is a lot of information in this book and much of it has opened my eyes to what Capitalism and Democracy in America used to mean....and what it means today.
This is a great book that everyone should read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not Totally without Criticism of Content
Comment: Lucid and compelling arguments are made. However, I would argue with the assumptions that anchor the arguments for Corporations.
Corporations are supposedly only contracts, not real people. But if you take away the people, there is no corporation, because there is no agent who operates the said corporation within the real world with real actions. OK, first argument negated.
He wants me to believe his thesis that Corporations have no moral duties or social responsibility. But if real people are carrying out the real actions in the name of a Corporation, then real people are dispensing with actions that are either moral or immoral behavior.
Look, if the Nazi Party was only a corporate political organization that has no moral or social responsibility, then the individuals inside that organization, who gassed 6 million people, are not responsible for their actions. Right?
I would rethink my idea of what a corporation is. A corporation is an organizational group of individuals which makes decisions and whose actions are carried out collectively as a group. It is still a real person, only now a group of them to be more precise.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Remarkably erudite description of where the economy was, and why it is, where it is, now
Comment: Reich breaks up the US economy, since the end of World War II, into two eras:
The first is the 'Not Quite Golden Age', which ended in 1975. This era was marked by a shared gains across nearly all participants and stability. The problems were built in inefficiency and a stagnant mindset.
The second era is 'Supercapitalism' and encompasses everything after 1975. This era was marked by extremely efficient markets, creative business and many options for investors. The problem is that while investors and consumers have benefited immensely under this system, workers have suffered, and Washington has wholly sold out.
That's a very rough summary of what Reich details in perfectly concise and clear English. The argument he makes is one a great prosecutor makes on an open and shut case. Point by point he builds up to the conclusion, and it's nearly nearly indisputable when he arrives.
The base Reich builds is my favorite part of this book. It gives the best explanation of the modern (and recently modern) economy that I've ever read.
The base Reich builds is so solid, that the conclusions and summary just fall into place. If anything in the book is vague, it is in the conclusions and the author's recommendations.
It could also be said that the recommendations are prescient given the market collapse since this was published. This book is essentially an argument for sensible regulation, even before the collapse over the last few months that made 'deregulation' a four letter word.
From one of America's foremost economic and political thinkers comes a vital analysis of our new hypercompetitive and turbo-charged global economy and the effect it is having on American democracy. With his customary wit and insight, Reich shows how widening inequality of income and wealth, heightened job insecurity, and corporate corruption are merely the logical results of a system in which politicians are more beholden to the influence of business lobbyists than to the voters who elected them.
Powerful and thought-provoking, Supercapitalism argues that a clear separation of politics and capitalism will foster an enviroment in which both business and government thrive, by putting capitalism in the service of democracy, and not the other way around.
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