Robert Reich Quotes

“A society - any society - is defined as a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions: public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.”

— Robert Reich

“There is a crisis of public morality. Instead of policing bedrooms, we ought to be doing a better job policing boardrooms.”

— Robert Reich

“News and images move so easily across borders that attitudes and aspirations are no longer especially national. Cyber-weapons, no longer the exclusive province of national governments, can originate in a hacker's garage.”

— Robert Reich

“Most financiers, corporate lawyers, lobbyists, and management consultants are competing with other financiers, lawyers, lobbyists, and management consultants in zero-sum games that take money out of one set of pockets and put it into another.”

— Robert Reich

“Walmart is so huge that a wage boost at Walmart would ripple through the entire economy, putting more money in the pockets of low-wage workers. This would help boost the entire economy - including Walmart's own sales.”

— Robert Reich

“America is one of few advanced nations that allow direct advertising of prescription drugs.”

— Robert Reich

“There will always be a business cycle, and white-collar workers will get hit in the next recession like they always do in recessions.”

— Robert Reich

“To get back to the kind of shared prosperity and upward mobility we once considered normal will require another era of fundamental reform, of both our economy and our democracy.”

— Robert Reich

By the mid-1950s, more than a third of all America workers in the private sector were unionized. And the unions demanded and received a fair slice of the American pie.

— Robert Reich

If we give up on politics, we're done for. Powerlessness is a self-fulfilling prophesy.

— Robert Reich

“Your most precious possession is not your financial assets. Your most precious possession is the people you have working there, and what they carry around in their heads, and their ability to work together.”

— Robert Reich

“Even if there's no way to stop U.S. corporations from shedding their U.S. identities and becoming foreign corporations, there's no reason they should retain the privileges of U.S. citizenship.”

— Robert Reich

Liberals are concerned about the concentration of wealth because it almost inevitably leads to a concentration of power that undermines democracy.

— Robert Reich

“Conservatives believe the economy functions better if the rich have more money and everyone else has less. But they're wrong. It's just the opposite.”

— Robert Reich

“The Tea Party is but one manifestation of a widening perception that the game is rigged in favor of the rich and powerful.”

— Robert Reich

“America's real business leaders understand unless or until the middle class regains its footing and its faith, capitalism remains vulnerable.”

— Robert Reich

“We don't have to sit by and watch our meritocracy be replaced by a permanent aristocracy, and our democracy be undermined by dynastic wealth.”

— Robert Reich

“Economies are risky. Some industries rise, and others implode, like housing. Some places get richer, and others drop, like Atlantic City. Some people get new jobs that pay better, many lose their jobs or their wages.”

— Robert Reich

“Not only do unemployment benefits help families who are hurting; they also put money into their pockets that they'll then spend - and their spending will keep other Americans in jobs.”

— Robert Reich

“The Tea Party grew out of indignation over the Wall Street bailout - an indignation shared by the vast majority of Americans. But the Tea Party ended up directing its ire at government rather than at big business and Wall Street.”

— Robert Reich

“Too many young people graduate laden with debts that take years, if not decades, to pay off.”

— Robert Reich

“I'm all in favor of supporting fancy museums and elite schools, but face it: These aren't really charities as most people understand the term.”

— Robert Reich

“It is impossible to fight bullies merely by saying they're going too far.”

— Robert Reich

“On the Republican playing field, Republicans always win.”

— Robert Reich

“Public institutions are supported by all taxpayers and are available to all.”

— Robert Reich

“So why don't nurses do home visits to Americans with acute conditions? Hospitals aren't paid for it.”

— Robert Reich

“When I was a small boy, I was bullied more than most, mainly because I was a foot shorter than everyone else.”

— Robert Reich

“Tea Partiers hate government more than they hate the national debt. They refuse to reduce that debt with tax increases, even with tax increases on the wealthy, because a tax increase doesn't reduce the size of government.”

— Robert Reich

Can we please agree that in the real world, corporations exist for one purpose and one purpose only - to make as much money as possible, which means cutting costs as much as possible?

— Robert Reich

“Political scientists after World War II hypothesized that even though the voices of individual Americans counted for little, most people belonged to a variety of interest groups and membership organizations - clubs, associations, political parties, unions - to which politicians were responsive.”

— Robert Reich

“No economy can continue to function when the vast middle class and everybody else don't have enough purchasing power to buy what the economy is capable of producing without going deeper and deeper into debt.”

— Robert Reich

“We can't know in advance what history is going to say, but I would be utterly amazed and surprised if American invasion to Iraq from the beginning of its inception, were not judged to be an utter failure and a terrible, terrible thing for the world.”

— Robert Reich

“We used to be so proud that our country offered far more economic opportunities than the feudal system in Great Britain, with its royal family, princesses and dukes. But social mobility in the UK is higher than in the US. Our social rift is as big as it was in the 1920s.”

— Robert Reich

Inequality is bad for everyone, not just the middle class and the poor

— Robert Reich

“Britain's is traditionally a rigid class society.”

— Robert Reich

“We are creating a one size fits all system that needlessly brands many young people as failures, when they might thrive if offered a different education whose progress was measured differently. Paradoxically we're embracing standardized tests just when the economy is eliminating standardized jobs.”

— Robert Reich

“In the '90s it was irrational exuberance. Now it may be irrational doom and gloom.”

— Robert Reich

“We are paying teachers who are in charge of our human capital, arguably more important than our financial capital, a very tiny fraction of what Wall Streeters are paid.”

— Robert Reich

“The only sure way to stop excessive risk taking on Wall Street so you don't risk losing your job, or your savings or your home, is to put an end to the excessive economic and political power of Wall Street by busting up the big banks.”

— Robert Reich

“I think that in politics, when people want to discredit a particular position, they say, "Oh, they are liberals," or "They are conservatives; we are centrists." Everybody wants to be a centrist.”

— Robert Reich

“The United States is a safe harbor.”

— Robert Reich

“The core principle is that we want an economy that works for everyone, not just for a small elite. We want equal opportunity, not equality of outcome. We want to make sure that there's upward mobility again, in our society and in our economy.”

— Robert Reich

“One of the things I tell my students is that if you want to understand what's been going on and also what needs to be done, you've got to get out of the blame game. Some people on the left want to blame the rich and corporations. Some people on the right want to blame the poor and government. Either of those frames of reference gets you nowhere and they aren't even truthful. You've got to understand the dynamic itself.”

— Robert Reich

The problem right now is jobs. The problem right now is the economy and economic growth.

— Robert Reich

And now we're suffering the logical culmination of all this: the largest group of government-hati ng, racist, homophobic, misogynistic know-nothing, climate-change denying, evolution-denyi ng, science-denying , anti-immigrant House Republicans in history, bent on taking America back to the 19th century.

— Robert Reich

“Averages don't always reveal the most telling realities. You know, Shaquille O'Neal and I have an average height of 6 feet.”

— Robert Reich

The key to understanding the rise in inequality isn't technology or globalization. It's the power of the moneyed interests to shape the underlying rules of the market.

— Robert Reich

“Bill Clinton was a great politician. Bill Clinton loved a fight. He was willing to fight. But he also wanted to be loved. He wanted to be admired.”

— Robert Reich

“In journalism, there are only two stories - "Oh, the wonder of it," and "Oh, the shame of it."”

— Robert Reich

“Yale Law School was the kind of place you went if you felt you needed to go to law school, maybe, for your resume, but you really didn't want to practice law. You wanted to do public policy, or maybe go into politics.”

— Robert Reich