Economic Policy Supercapitalism - Book Report/Review Example

During this period, the U.S. was just coming out of the Great Depression with the result that there was too much supply left from the explosion of mass production in the previous decades. This is the period where the country rested from the bubble of production that had come in the past half century. However, this led the country to become complacent, with its middle class representing drones and conformists and very little innovation. The people who thrived at this time were those who had jumped into the factory worker life and all those who were in a relationship with those industries.

Everyone else was left by the wayside to fend for themselves. 2. Explain what caused the NQGA to end, and how the U.S. economy came to function in the age of Supercapitalism, including discussion of the winners and losers in this period. During this period, the period of complacency was over and movement and the need to grow and progress again became the main goal. The emergence of profit seekers and innovators created a more competitive market than the U.S. had ever seen. This led to more political involvement to push the economy to support Capitalism.

The gap began to grow between the middle class and the industry tycoons, and the government began to support the growth of business giants, giving them an upper hand in business. It seems that in this period the winners were the major business leaders and innovators, who pushed their business to new levels of creativity. However, Reich would argue against those who would say that the losers in this case were the middle class. The evidence that he would use is that the middle class is not actually getting any poorer, so they are not technically losing anything.

The fact that rich are getting even richer is irrelevant to the middle class, who could also improve their station with innovation and creativity just like the upper class. It’s not about equality in this period, it’s about productivity and increasing economy, and Reich would argue that this period achieved that. 3. Explain why Reich favors public financing of campaigns and regulatory ‘truces’. What are the main problems with these policy proposals. Reich favors public financing of campaigns because it gives the power back to the public in a political sense.

If the public controls the politicians, then in effect democracy will be preserved because those who are in office are representative of the needs of the public rather than the needs of organizations with large pocketbook and major agendas. However, public financing still does not guarantee that the public has a say in who is supported, it only means that the public pays the bills. In other words, even if the public were required to provide the funds for political campaigns, there is still a process in place that supports particular candidates and does not guarantee the best interests of the public will be served.

The problem remains of how to enact and implement a policy of this type. Reich also thinks that regulatory ‘truces’ that requested that big businesses funnel less money into political campaigns would even out the political process and give the general population a larger voice in politics. The problem