“The Common Good” and Necessarily Lukewarm Left-Politics

Robert Reich’s The Common Good is a good book, and a great book to recommend. It’s nothing revolutionary itself, but for someone who’s attached to some big names in politics (Presidents Clinton, Ford, and Carter), he’s surprisingly more left than center-left. I first noticed him from his Netflix documentary Saving Capitalism, named after his book of the same name. It was a bipartisanish approach at exposing lobbying. It looked at a real problem both sides should be able to agree on, and said, “Shouldn’t something be done about this?’

The Common Good is much of the same. It’s politics that are ‘mainstream’ (or ‘outdated’) left but sells itself as common sense, and with good reason. This book, and much of Reich’s work, keeps the tenet that capitalism and businesses are not inherently wrong. It is those who use the system for bad purposes who are wrong (or as he calls these people: Martin Shkrelis, named after the Devil himself). To Reich, an economic system is a tool, the same as a phone, the internet, or a car. You can use a tool for many purposes, some good, some bad, some neutral.

This is why it’s lukewarm-left politics. The counter-push to the centerness of today’s Democrats are an alternative that is extreme and radical, because the Democrats in power are not acting at a left-enough level. Many of the crowd who would read a book like this already would throw it away because it is not targeting the system of capitalism. The system of capitalism is ultimately the big, bad, monster that can be at the center of the left’s problems. It is a very real problem, and not necessarily a boogeyman because capitalism is at the cause of so many problems in today’s world.

But there are two reasons not to give up on capitalism. From a theoretical standpoint, it’s not necessarily capitalism that’s the problem, it’s a specific form of late-stage capitalism which includes a faux-communist power of State. The United States government has the ability to not only enact laws to alter industries, but also to contract private companies. This, and the high chance for bad eggs to slip through the cracks, has led to a world where the government gives a lot of money to big businesses who end up giving a lot of money to the government, which is not inherently a component of capitalism. There is also an implied inevitability, that capitalism will always end up becoming a monster of its own. And maybe that’s true. Maybe that’s true of any economic system. Maybe it’s true of capitalism and not others. Maybe it’s not necessarily true about capitalism.

I don’t know if I buy into that, but I do buy into a second reason that those on the further side of the Left should not be so quick to jump to villainize business.

A lot of people, especially older people, still have a trust and love for big businesses. Even if they know some of the bad things they do, many focus on the good that businesses provide. For many older folk, it is big businesses that have provided them and their families with jobs and homes and food. It’s not that their faults aren’t important, but they’re not top-of-mind traits. Some people are just more wired to focus on what’s around them, and what’s practically providing them and their loved ones with a shelter. Even if the system is broken: who cares? It’s rigged and it’s wrong, but Joe Shmoe isn’t doing anything to fix it, and he needs to eat.

Reich very openly and blatantly targets shady businessmen and overly dominant monopolies. The first chapter is spent describing the story of Martin Shkreli raising the price of medication, and ‘Martin Shkreli’ is used in the rest of the book to name an individual who is abandoning the American ‘Common Good’.

Framing what profit-driven capitalism does against a vague, idealistic common good actually does a lot of work in highlighting the harm businesses are doing to our country. There is, or at least should be, a common good. The people’s interests should always be at heart, because the nation was founded on the very words ‘We the people’. It’s a bell that rings true to most folks, including a lot of business supporters. There is some common ground, and it’s important to find it. Everyone agrees that decisions from those with power should be for everyone, or at least not actively harm the common good.

So, does capitalism inherently lead to late-stage capitalism? I don’t know, maybe. Either way, while the entire nation operates on some form of capitalism, it’s not worth throwing the baby out with the bath water while we’re trying to make changes in how this country operates; especially when half or more of the nation loves the baby, and is proud of the life the aforementioned baby has provided them.

It’s Reich’s positioning. He’s uniquely positioned to be irritatingly too center for ‘the radical’, but he’s just left enough to do good for the older center of American politics. It’s worth a read, even if you think he doesn’t go far enough. More importantly, it’s worth recommending. Recommend this to your slightly political/apolitical friends and family who care about community and, ‘The Common Good’. It’s fantastic for that crowd, because at the end of the day, so much of what politics should be is talking about what’s right and what’s wrong. There’s very minimal Left-wing games and shenanigans in Reich’s work, so while the mission has turned political (removing corruption in business is somehow radical), the heart of it is bipartisan.

[Article originally posted on Medium]