Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America

Ted Widmer

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.
— The New York Times

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.

Kirkus Reviews

To the barricades, liberals: according to former Secretary of Labor Reich, your hour is at hand. Americans, Reich (The Future of Success, 2001, etc.) argues, tend to be socially moderate, if not liberal; certainly they are not "radcons," or radical conservatives, by inclination. In support of this assertion, Reich offers a series of public-opinion surveys showing that a majority of people favor a woman's right to choose, America conceived of as a secular nation, environmental protection over short-term economic gain, and liberty and justice for all. Yet-and here's the rub-even though Americans "have had enough of the radical conservatives-their intolerance, their mean-spiritedness, their moral righteousness, their arrogance toward the rest of the world"-Americans seem to have no problem putting such people in office. This, by Reich's account, is because the progressive or liberal wing of the Democratic Party has failed to provide any kind of agenda that speaks to the "large, anxious middle and lower-middle class" and has instead stood by as others within the party have pushed it rightward toward an imagined center. "Centrism is bogus," Reich thunders. "The ‘center' keeps shifting further right because Radcons stay put while Democrats keep meeting them halfway." Thus Clinton's embracing an economic boom that benefited only a few; thus the Democrats' having so little vision that the only thing they could think of to do with the budget surplus of a few years' back was to retire the national debt early. Stuff and nonsense, Reich argues; it's time to unfurl the liberal flag and proudly own the name, recognizing that the largest political group in the country is not Republicans or Democrats or"swing voters," but those Americans who, out of apathy or disgust, just don't vote at all. That's the audience to court, Reich insists, for winning it will bring on a liberal restoration. All remains to be seen. But Reich offers a persuasive, and spirited, view of the present political landscape and how it might be remade.