177 Quotes by Robert B. Reich

The silent majority really is a liberal majority, even though the word liberal has taken a real beating over the last 20 years by radical conservatives.

The rich would do better with a smaller share of a rapidly growing economy then they’re doing now with a large share of an economy that is barely growing at all.

The market is itself a human creation – a set of laws and rules that define what can be owned and traded, and how. Government doesn’t “intrude” on the “free market.” It creates the market. Government officials – legislators, administrators, regulators, judges, and heads of state – must decide on and enforce such laws and rules in order for a market to exist. Without norms for the common good, officials have no way to make these decisions other than their own selfish interests.

We reform the system. We save capitalism from its own excesses.

If leadership is about anything, it’s about leading. Not leading people back to where they already are, because they don’t need that. They’re already there.

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.

It is a central obligation of politicians as well as journalists, researchers, scientists, and academicians to inform the public of the truth, and to identify lies without fear of retribution. It is the civic responsibility of all of us to check the facts we read or hear, to find and depend upon reliable sources, to share the truth with others, and hold accountable those who lie to us or suppress the truth.

If you give up on politics, you’re giving up on democracy. And if you give up on democracy, you’re basically saying to the moneyed interests, the powerful people and institutions of society, take it all. That’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then we give up. Then we are 100 percent plutocracy.

A concern for the common good – keeping the common good in mind – is a moral attitude. It recognizes that we’re all in it together. If there is no common good, there is no society.