Class 6: “Political Power and Wealth” by UC Berkeley Professor Reich

This week brings us to one of the core problems of widening inequality — the inevitability that concentrated income and wealth at the top comes with political power. This creates a vicious cycle by which the super-rich get changes in the rules of the game that make them even richer, which enables them to make further changes.

The questions I’ll be addressing this week: How does economic power translate into political power? How does political power generate more economic power? How much of the phenomenon of widening inequality is due to this vicious cycle? Also: What’s the difference between “pre-distribution” and “redistribution” of income and wealth? In what ways are income and wealth now pre-distributed upward?

This is the sixth class in the 14-week series. I’ve shared some select readings from the syllabus for you. They’re available at:
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/th...

Class Outline
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00:00 - Recap of prior class
03:23 - Introduction
04:33 - How the market is organized
15:03 - The vicious cycle
43:20 - The vicious cycle in action: taxes
47:42 - The vicious cycle in action: property, contract, default, enforcement
01:05:13 - How can the cycle be ended?