Robert Reich, Supercapitalism

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Yes, and that is not far-fetched. In the early days of the 20th century, progressives wrested control of democracy out of the hands of the urban machines. For a number of years, in fact for several decades, democracy was more vibrant. The same thing happened after the Great Depression. After the great crash of 1929, after corporations and financial institutions had indulged in many excesses, our democracy responded, and again in the 1960s and '70s, with Medicare and the Environmental Protection Act.

What could instigate such a movement?

The first step is separating myth from reality about the nature of the corporation and what we can expect from it. The first step, in other words, is to read my book. The second step will occur when there is another outbreak of scandal or outrage about money in politics. It may be outright corruption or it may be simply a lot of citizens deciding we have reached the tipping point. Nothing good can happen that citizens don't want to happen, whether it's controlling global warming or providing healthcare or dealing with any number of the nation's problems.

It seems that often wars have caused people to look anew at the way the government is run. Do you see the war in Iraq affecting the issues you bring up in "Supercapitalism"?

It may, particularly with regard to military contractors. The scandals surrounding the amount of money that's been lost and the way those contracts were awarded may galvanize some public action. I haven't seen much evidence of that yet. The war itself is a difficult issue for many people because the president is, after all, commander in chief. Americans are still scarred by 9/11. There is a great deal of uncertainty on what to do now. I'm not sure that (the Iraq War) itself will be the galvanizing force.

If "supercapitalism" goes on unchecked, what future trends do you foresee?

As I said before, we are in danger of losing our democracy. We used to think if we had capitalism we would have democracy. Much of our foreign policy after the Second World War was based on that assumption, but look at China, a hotbed of capitalism but hardly of democracy; the same with Singapore. In fact, we may be seeing the emergence of a new form of capitalism, called authoritarian capitalism.

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