Onto 2004's already crowded political non-fiction bookshelf, comes Reason by former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich. It's a call to arms for liberals and progressives against what Reich terms the "Radcons", radical conservatives who combine the aggressive "neoconservative" foreign policy of Richard Perle and Robert Kagan with an insistence on interfering with private morality, all the while eliminating social safety nets. At times, it seems like Reich is trying to have it both ways: he condemns the Radcons for being judgmental and demonizing those with whom they disagree but, in the process, he often does some demonizing of his own in his summarization of their philosophies. Reich's arguments are most persuasive when he takes the approach of the Radcons but turns them around. Yes, he says, morality is crucial to the survival and prosperity of the United States, but instead of worrying about what people do in their own bedrooms, we should focus on public morality, especially as it pertains to overpaid CEOs, corrupt corporations, and the government's tacit approval of them. Despite his long history with the Democrats, or perhaps because of it, Reich saves some of his most pointed criticisms for his own party. He assails the Democrats for ceding the ongoing electoral struggle to the Republicans (and the Radcons, naturally). It's stupid, says Reich, to pursue a centrist approach to capturing the voting blocs necessary to achieve victory in the White House or congress because there is actually no such thing as centrism. Instead, there is a shift in the political dialogue as the right tacks further rightward and drags victory-hungry Democrats with it, thus alienating and ultimately disenfranchising the substantial liberal electorate. Reich ultimately sees good news for liberals on the horizon, however. While he thinks millions of Americans are fed up with the overly cautious Democratic Party that won't stand up for it's progressive principals, they are even wearier of the Radcons and "their intolerance, their mean-spiritedness, their moral righteousness, and their arrogance toward the rest of the world." --John Moe

From Publishers Weekly
Today's conservatives ("Radcons") are reckless, vituperative extremists, deeply at odds with the caution and civility of traditional conservatives like Edmund Burke, argues Reich (Locked in the Cabinet), Clinton's first secretary of labor. Liberals, he asserts, remain squarely in the tradition of Jefferson and FDR, not (as Radcons allege) the late '60s New Left. Yet liberals have ceded certain issues and qualities to Radcons that they should take back. Moral outrage is one: "There is moral rot in America, but it's not found in the private behavior of ordinary people. It's located in the public behavior of people at or near the top." Quoting liberally from conservatives like Robert Bork (who was Reich's law school professor and gave him his first job), Reich wholeheartedly approves of their moral indignation but disagrees with their targets. Referring to John Q. Wilson's "broken windows" argument for zero tolerance of petty vandalism, he writes, "The corporate fraud, conflicts of interest, exorbitant pay of top executives, and surge of money into politics are like hundreds of broken windows." Despite such well-made points, the good-natured Reich can't sustain outrage for more than a few sentences. His second main topic-reclaiming economic growth as a liberal banner-is more seriously compromised by his underdeveloped mix of neoliberalism and social democracy (despite his lucid critique of the Radcons' economic ideas and record). But he roars home with his last main subject, "Positive Patriotism," rejecting "chest-thumping pride" in favor of defining America by its ideals. Although his book is uneven, Reich's distinctive perspective provides insights targeted well beyond November's election. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Economist Reich defends liberalism against the ascendant "rad-cons" (radical conservatives), who, he believes, are ruining America. His experience as a government appointee gives him credibility; his experience as a TV and radio pundit gives him considerable style as narrator. Blessed with a pleasant voice, he reads expressively, not to mention unctuously. He convinces the listener of his anxiety over the fate of the nation and his enthusiasm for reform. However, he fails to convince the thinker of the truth of his inferences, despite the numerous anecdotes and statistics he cites. He is as partisan, if not quite as extreme, as the rad-cons he denounces. The choir he is preaching to will most enjoy but benefit least from this volume. Y.R. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Playing his title off Ann Coulter's vituperative best-seller Treason [BKL Ag 03], Reich, best known as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, defends liberal principles and suggests ways that liberals can help bring about a revival of support for their beliefs, which have become, in the eyes of many, a political liability over the past 20 years. Beginning with a defense of liberalism and a review of the successes its application has brought to the U.S. in both foreign and domestic affairs, Reich then proceeds to dissect the policies of those he refers to as "radcons" (radical conservatives), including tax breaks for the wealthy, preemptive wars, and the rolling back of civil liberties. Reich puts together a strong argument, but perhaps in an effort to show that political discourse can be civil, his exhortations come across as a bit tepid--despite encouraging liberals to be proud and passionate. Still, with all the strident political commentary currently being published and broadcast (Bush-bashing books lately, Clinton attacks before that), a quieter tone is certainly not unwelcome. In the final chapter, after admitting that it will take more than reason for liberals to "win the battle for America," Reich supplies some thoughtful ideas on regrouping strategy. Expect this mild-mannered tome to engender plenty of shouting on the talk shows. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“We've got Reason, they've got Treason. We've got Reich, they've got Coulter. We win. A brilliant and passionately argued book. Read it.”
—Al Franken


“No deceptive fog of political hypocrisy can withstand Robert Reich’s withering eye. He calls to a people’s conscience and commitment. Everyone who cares about America’s future should read this book.”
—David K. Shipler


“Robert B. Reich has a gift for demonstrating the compelling rationality of his progressive politics with lucidity and panache. Reason should be required reading for all our political decision makers!”
—Mario M. Cuomo


“In his utterly lucid and engaging new book, Robert Reich advances the novel idea that reason could be applied to the way our country is run. And it just might work. God knows, we've spent the last four years trying the complete opposite.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich

From the Inside Flap
From Robert B. Reich, passionate believer in American democracy, and public servant in both Democratic and Republican administrations–an urgent call to liberals to reclaim their political clout. Reason is a guide to confronting and derailing what he sees as the mounting threat to American liberty, prosperity, and security posed by the radical conservatives–Radcons, as he calls them–whose agenda has dominated public discourse and radically affected government action since the election, by a minority vote, of George W. Bush.

It is an agenda that turns American tradition upside down–embracing “preemptive” war, disrupting essential alliances, reacting to terrorism by weakening our civil liberties, distorting our economy by endowing the rich with tax breaks while cutting social services, attempting to hunt down immorality in bedrooms rather than in boardrooms, where corporate malfeasance is still not legally prevented from chomping away at ordinary American earnings.

Reich offers a bold plan for defeating this politics of fear and favor–whose defining gesture is to equate dissent with treason–and for reinstating the traditional American politics of reason.

He calls on liberals to close ranks and maintain a permanent platform that can grow in power.

He provides clear answers to the barrage of accusations (of communism, of elitism, of anti-Americanism) with which Radcons have been pummeling liberals for at least two decades. He analyzes the propaganda savvy, the commitment, and the organization of the Radcons, and what liberals can learn from each.

He suggests how liberals can wrest the sole ownership of patriotism from the Radcons–there’s more to it than flag waving.

He calls on liberals to recognize their strengths. He wants them to remember their unfaltering protection of the central American invention: a society (ours was the first in history) that allows no aristocracy and hence belongs to all its citizens. And he wants liberals to recall how, twice in the last century, liberalism’s dedicated reforms rescued American free enterprise from its own excesses: first from the robber barons in the early 1900s, then in the depression-devastated 1930s.

He demonstrates, with quotations from the most respected opinion polls, how far the radical conservative agenda is from representing the national will. And he tells why he believes that once again–assuming the readiness to take action–American liberals are on the verge of winning the battle for America.

About the Author
Robert B. Reich is University Professor at Brandeis University and Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at Brandeis’s Heller Graduate School. He is also a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He served as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. This is his tenth book. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One

Prelude: The Revenge of the Radcons
Wealth and Power

It might help you to know a few things about me so that you understand where I’m coming from. I was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and grew up in a rural part of New York State, near the Connecticut border. My father worked six days a week and my mother five days a week at their two clothing stores. We weren’t poor, but I remember my father worrying a lot about paying the bills. Another thing you should know is I was very short for my age. I still am. Both my parents were normal size, so my short height was something of a puzzle. But being a very short boy, it was natural I got picked on at school.

There’s no way of proving these things, but I suppose my early worries about paying the bills and being bullied had a few long-term effects. As an adult, I’ve been teaching and writing about the economy and government—that is, about wealth and power. I’ve also had the honor of serving under three presidents, most recently in Bill Clinton’s cabinet. In these roles I’ve tried to help people without much money get better jobs, and also tried to stop some corporations from abusing their power.

The market is where wealth is accumulated; politics is where public power is exercised. In a democracy, they are supposed to be kept separate. But in fact, people with a lot of wealth exert significant political power, and people with a lot of power can arrange things so that they end up with a lot of wealth. When wealth and power are concentrated in a relatively few hands, democracy can become a sham and a lot of bullying can occur. The great liberal Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis put it best more than sixty years ago: “We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”1 We are now losing our democracy, and we have to get it back.

I never used to think of myself as being a liberal. Compared to most students in the sixties, I was considered pretty conservative. I went to Dartmouth College, whose political epicenter in those days was about 25,000 miles to the right of Berkeley.

I rejected a lot of the values and politics of the student New Left of the sixties. Taking over college buildings and burning American flags seemed dumb to me. I viewed the Vietnam War as morally wrong but never drifted into the cynicism or anti-Americanism of some of my leftist friends, who started spelling America with a “k.” I always believed it possible to reform the nation by working within the political system—and still do. I spent much of my senior year campaigning for Eugene McCarthy, by then the only presidential candidate who vowed to end the war. And I’ve spent a big portion of my life since then in public service. While I’ve never refrained from criticizing our political leaders when I thought they were wrong, I’ve always had a deep love for this country. To me, America is a great, noble, continuing experiment. We haven’t achieved our ideals by a long shot. But the ideals are still worth working for: protecting the weak from the strong, overcoming prejudice, providing broad opportunity to everyone, creating a vibrant democracy.

My first full-time job after law school was working for Robert Bork at the Justice Department, in Gerald Ford’s administration. Bork, you may remember, was the person who fired the special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, during the Watergate investigation. Cox had been trying to get the White House to hand over tape recordings of conversations that would show if Richard Nixon was involved in the Watergate break-ins. Nixon finally handed over the tapes anyway, on August 5, 1974. He knew their contents would condemn him. Four days later, Nixon resigned. A few weeks after that, I arrived in Washington and reported to Bork.

Bork had been one of my professors at law school. I didn’t share his political views but I respected him. So when he asked me to come to Washington, I accepted. My job was to write briefs on behalf of the United States in cases that were to come before the Supreme Court. I stayed two years before moving to the Federal Trade Commission, after Jimmy Carter was elected president. Bork went on to become one of the most thoughtful radical conservatives in America. You may recall that in 1987 Ronald Reagan nominated him to the Supreme Court, setting off an intense battle over his confirmation. I quote Bork at some length in this book because his writing has been so influential among radical conservatives. I still disagree with him, but I still respect him.

It’s possible to disagree and yet still be respectful. I strongly disagree with, but know and respect, several of the radical conservatives I quote in this book—not only Bork but also Bill Bennett, a former Reagan administration official who has become the Radcon voice of public morality; Bill Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, who has articulated much of Radcon foreign policy; and Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House. Their ideas deserve a fair hearing, and a clear case should be made for why they are dangerously wrong.





In the sixties (a period that in political and cultural terms actually ran from about 1964 to 1972), the New Left was the source of most of the political passion and intensity in America. Liberals were considered wimps—wishy-washy, bourgeois. The militant organizer Saul Alinsky adopted the definition of a liberal as someone “who leaves the room when a fight begins.”

Now it’s hard to find any sixties lefties, except maybe in the rarefied precincts of a few universities where aging radicals still debate Marxism and deconstruction. Most of the political passion and intensity these days are on the radical conservative right.

But the two extremes—what remains of the sixties left, and the Radcons—share much of the same sense of moral superiority, the same unwillingness to consider alternative points of view.* There’s an important difference, though: The left never gained the power in America that the Radcons now have.

In my view, both extremes are wrong. Liberals, on the other hand, doubt that anyone has a monopoly on the truth. That’s why liber- als place such a high value on tolerance and democracy. That’s why liberals have insisted on a clear separation between church and state. And it’s also why liberals worry about wealth and power. When wealth and power become concentrated in the hands of a rela- tively few citizens, the strong become stronger; everyone else, more vulnerable.

The word “liberal” was used by George Washington to indicate a person of generosity or broad-mindedness, as opposed to those who wanted to deprive Catholics and Jews of their constitutional rights.2 Franklin D. Roosevelt defined a “liberal” this way: “[S]ay that civilization is a tree which, as it grows, continually produces rot and dead wood. The radical says: ‘Cut it down.’ The conservative says: ‘Don’t touch it.’ The liberal compromises: ‘Let’s prune, so that we lose neither the old trunk nor the new branches.’ ”3 FDR himself expanded and altered the common understanding of liberalism. Before the New Deal, liberalism was mostly about protecting people’s freedom.

* Even some of the individuals are the same: A few lefties from the sixties transported their moral absolutism to the radical right in the late seventies and eighties and became “neoconservatives.” The term is generally applied to those who moved from far left to far right, but for the purposes of this discussion, I include them together with other Radcons.

But the Great Depression taught America that unemployment and bad luck could be just as harmful to personal freedom as tyranny. Protection against these required a larger role for government.

Henceforth, liberals were assumed to be in favor of a big government. But that’s way too simple. The government’s size or reach isn’t the issue. It’s what government does and whose interests it represents. Does it guard our civil liberties or intrude on our privacy? Does it protect the weak or promote the strong? I don’t want a big government eavesdropping on my private telephone calls or e-mail, checking the books I’ve borrowed from the library, monitoring my movements, telling me what I can and can’t say. I don’t want a big government pouring billions of dollars into big companies—energy behemoths, agribusinesses, pharmaceutical giants, whatever—because they’ve made large political donations. And I don’t like the idea of a giant military machine mounting “preemptive” wars without international backing. I don’t want a big government that’s the center of an intimidating, unaccountable empire.

Being a liberal isn’t at all the same as being in favor of big government, despite what Radcons claim. Most liberals would prefer a small government that supported and protected the little guy over a big government that did the bidding of the wealthy and powerful. Frankly, people I know are more worried that our democracy is being corrupted by an increasing flow of campaign money from rich people and corporations to politicians. I also don’t want a big government imposing any particular religious view on me or my kids, or on anyone else. In my view, government has no business telling people how to run their private lives or dictating personal morality. I don’t want government giving or withholding funds to promote marriage, discouraging childbearing by welfare mothers, or pushing religion in our public schools.

Again: Government’s size isn’t the issue. It’s what it does, and for whom.

radcons aren’t real conservatives

Here, briefly and in its most undiluted form, is the Radcon agenda for America:

• prevent sex before marriage

• ban abortion

• condemn homosexuality

• prohibit gay marriage

• require prayer in the public schools

• give large tax breaks mainly to the rich

• cut social services mainly for the poor

• “privatize” social insurance

• eliminate regulations on business

• allow pollution of the environment

• ban affirmative action

• impose long prison sentences and, for the most serious crimes, the death penalty

• make English the official national language

• invade and occupy countries that may harbor or help terrorists

• go it alone in foreign affairs, disregarding the United Nations and avoiding international treaties

• squelch dissent about foreign policy

• restrict civil liberties for the sake of national security.

Most open-minded Americans will grant that there are arguments for and against each of these positions. What defines a Radcon is not openness to the case for them but fervent certainty they’re correct and necessary, and disdain for those who disagree.

This list, of course, doesn’t cover all radical conservative goals. And not every radical conservative subscribes to every one of them. But most radical conservatives agree on most. The consensus among Radcons is strong because these goals are based on a common worldview—both about the forces America is battling at home and abroad, and about how these forces can best be overcome.

Most of this book is about why these views are wrong, what a vigorous liberalism stands for instead, and why our future depends on the latter. But it’s important at the outset to understand the roots of radical conservatism. Radcons, it must be noted, are very differ- ent from real conservatives. A real conservative is somebody like the late Senator Robert A. Taft, of Ohio, or Senator John McCain, of Arizona—someone who wants to conserve many of the things that are great about America: the value we place on hard work, our dedication to family and community, our love of freedom, our storehouse of generosity and tolerance.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

From Robert B. Reich, believer in American democracy, and public servant in both Democratic and Republican administrations - an urgent call to liberals to reclaim their political clout. Reason is a guide to confronting and derailing what he sees as the mounting threat to American liberty, prosperity, and security posed by the radical conservatives - Radcons, as he calls them - whose agenda has dominated public discourse and radically affected government action since the election, by a minority vote, of George W. Bush.

FROM THE CRITICS

Ted Widmer - The New York Times

Mr. Reich explodes a number of fallacies on the left (that manufacturing jobs can be saved) and the right (that tax cuts and trickle-down economics reach poor people). Beyond his political acumen, he is a gifted moralist, and some of his best sections argue against the double standard of conservatives who voice exaggerated moral outrage over selective issues like gay marriage but never speak out on corporate corruption, insane C.E.O. salaries and the politics of personal destruction.

Publishers Weekly

Today's conservatives ("Radcons") are reckless, vituperative extremists, deeply at odds with the caution and civility of traditional conservatives like Edmund Burke, argues Reich (Locked in the Cabinet), Clinton's first secretary of labor. Liberals, he asserts, remain squarely in the tradition of Jefferson and FDR, not (as Radcons allege) the late '60s New Left. Yet liberals have ceded certain issues and qualities to Radcons that they should take back. Moral outrage is one: "There is moral rot in America, but it's not found in the private behavior of ordinary people. It's located in the public behavior of people at or near the top." Quoting liberally from conservatives like Robert Bork (who was Reich's law school professor and gave him his first job), Reich wholeheartedly approves of their moral indignation but disagrees with their targets. Referring to John Q. Wilson's "broken windows" argument for zero tolerance of petty vandalism, he writes, "The corporate fraud, conflicts of interest, exorbitant pay of top executives, and surge of money into politics are like hundreds of broken windows." Despite such well-made points, the good-natured Reich can't sustain outrage for more than a few sentences. His second main topic-reclaiming economic growth as a liberal banner-is more seriously compromised by his underdeveloped mix of neoliberalism and social democracy (despite his lucid critique of the Radcons' economic ideas and record). But he roars home with his last main subject, "Positive Patriotism," rejecting "chest-thumping pride" in favor of defining America by its ideals. Although his book is uneven, Reich's distinctive perspective provides insights targeted well beyond November's election. Agent, Rafe Sagalyn. 60,000 first printing. (May 12) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Liberals should win, argues Brandeis professor Reich, but can they? Only when they act on the courage of their convictions. With an 11-city author tour. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

AudioFile

Economist Reich defends liberalism against the ascendant "rad-cons" (radical conservatives), who, he believes, are ruining America. His experience as a government appointee gives him credibility; his experience as a TV and radio pundit gives him considerable style as narrator. Blessed with a pleasant voice, he reads expressively, not to mention unctuously. He convinces the listener of his anxiety over the fate of the nation and his enthusiasm for reform. However, he fails to convince the thinker of the truth of his inferences, despite the numerous anecdotes and statistics he cites. He is as partisan, if not quite as extreme, as the rad-cons he denounces. The choir he is preaching to will most enjoy but benefit least from this volume. Y.R. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews