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Robert Reich

Robert Reich

Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, UC Berkeley
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor (1993–1997)
Research Profile

Biography

Robert Reich is one of America's most influential voices on economics, inequality, and democracy. A Rhodes Scholar who studied at Oxford and earned his law degree from Yale, he served as U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997, and later taught at Harvard's Kennedy School before becoming Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reich's scholarship sits at the intersection of economics, political power, and civic life — asking who writes the rules of the economy and whether ordinary citizens still have a say. His work has made complex questions about wages, corporate power, and the common good accessible to millions through his books, documentaries, and public lectures.

Major Contributions

  • Served as U.S. Secretary of Labor (1993–1997), championing higher minimum wages and family leave
  • Wrote 15+ books on economics, inequality, and democracy, including several national bestsellers
  • Created and starred in the documentaries 'Inequality for All' (2013) and 'Saving Capitalism' (2017)
  • Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, teaching generations of students
  • One of America's most widely followed public intellectuals on economic fairness, with millions of readers and viewers

Core Ideas

Who Writes the Rules?: The economy is not a force of nature — it is shaped by political choices about the rules, and those choices determine who wins and who loses.
The Widening Divide: Decades of policy favoring the wealthy have produced soaring inequality and stagnant wages for most working families.
The Common Good: Democracy depends on institutions and norms that serve everyone — and on citizens who understand how power actually works.
Supercapitalism vs. Democracy: When corporations gain overwhelming influence over politics, the voice of ordinary citizens shrinks.

“The most important political choice is not who gets what — it is who writes the rules of the economy.”

— Robert Reich

Books by Robert Reich

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The Work of Nations (1991): His landmark book on how global capitalism reshapes the American economy and what it means for workers
Locked in the Cabinet (1997): A witty, revealing memoir of his years inside the Clinton administration
Supercapitalism (2007): How the explosion of corporate power has transformed — and weakened — democracy
The Common Good (2018): A passionate defense of the shared values and institutions a democracy needs to survive
Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few (2015): Why the rules of capitalism were rewritten for the rich — and how to rewrite them back
The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It (2020): A clear-eyed account of how politics and markets were rigged, and what citizens can do
Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future (2010): The case for a new social contract in the wake of the 2008 crisis

Watch & Learn

Inequality for All (2013) — the acclaimed documentary featuring Reich's economics class come to life
Saving Capitalism (2017) — a Netflix documentary on who the economy really works for
Robert Reich's 'The Common Good' lectures and public talks

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