Supercapitalism

Capitalism should be made to serve democracy, and not the other way around, argues Robert Reich.Supercapitalism - turbocharged, Web-based, able to find and make almost anything just about anywhere - is working wonderfully well to create wealth. But democracy, so argues Robert Reich, US Secretary of Labour under Bill Clinton - charged with caring for all citizens - is failing under its influence.Reich explains how widening inequalities, heightened job insecurity, and global warming are the logical outcomes of supercapitalism. He shows that companies, fighting harder than ever to be competitive, have become more deeply involved in politics, and how the tools used to temper society's problems - taxation, education, trade unions - have withered as supercapitalism has burgeoned."Supercapitalism" sets out a clear course to a vibrant capitalism and a concurrent, equally vibrant democracy. Business and politics must be kept distinct; the legal fiction that corporations are citizens must end - whether Wal-Mart, Google, Microsoft or Nike are good or evil misses the point. We must stop treating companies as if they were people and must abolish corporate income tax, charging shareholders instead, and hold individuals rather than corporations guilty of crimes. Only people can be citizens, and only citizens should be allowed to participate in democratic decision making.Important, timely, authoritative and thrilling, "Supercapitalism" is a tour-de-force of modern popular political writing and is essential reading for anyone concerned that government and big business are too familiar bedfellows.

Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkley. Secretary of Labour under President Clinton, he is now a prolific journalist who has written in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Washington Post and in the UK, most recently in The Sunday Times.