The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st Century Capitalism

by Robert B. Reich

There is no longer such a thing as an American economy, say Robert Reich at the beginning of this brilliant book.  What does it mean to be a nation when money, goods, and services know no borders?  What skills will be the most valuable in the coming century? And how can our country best ensure that all its citizen have a share in the new global economy?  Robert B. Reich, the widely respected and bestselling author of The Next American Frontier and The Resurgent Liberal, defines the real challenge facing the United States in the 21st century in this trail-blazing book.  Original, readable, and vastly informed, The Work of Nations is certain to set a standard for the next generation of policy-makers.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Politics, Business, Sociology, History, Political Science

331 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Robert Bernard Reich is an American politician, academic, and political commentator. He served as Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997. Reich is a former Harvard University professor and the former Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. He is currently a professor at the University of California, Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy. Mr. Reich is also on the board of directors of Tutor.com. He is a trustee of the Economists for Peace and Security. He is an occasional political commentator, notably on Hardball with Chris Matthews, This Week with George Stephanopoulos and CNBC's Kudlow & Company.

Reviews

[Mel Foster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reich, writing in 1991, argues that we don't think properly about economic priorities in the modern global age, being too stuck in metaphors (or "vestigial thinking" as he calls it) designed to describe systems of past generations. He repeatedly argues that "The skills of a nation's work force and the quality of its infrastructure are what makes it unique, and uniquely attractive, in the world economy. " (264) Therefore, he challenges the idea that ownership should determine whether a company is "American" or not. Incidentally, these arguments are probably even more true today than then were nearly three decades ago.
While the examples, and there are a pile of them, may seem removed in time for us today, most of the discussion in the book is astonishingly relevant. Reich covers much more ground than just economics, including the proper goals of education, what it means to be a nation, what it means for a product or company to be "American." He writes for instance:"American-owned firms were doing so much abroad, and foreign-owned firms so much here, that by 1990 American consumers intent on improving the nation's trade balance would have done better to buy a Honda than a Pontiac Le Mans." (134)

I enjoyed some of his discussion on education very much. I used the following passages to discuss with my children the goals of science labs and English papers. Reich identifies the symbolic-analytic worker as the category (as opposed to routine production services and in-person services) as the worker with the most potential for value and growth. "The formal education of an incipient symbolic analyst thus entails refining four basic skills: abstraction, system thinking, experimentation, and collaboration." (229)
"The student is taught to get behind the data--to ask why certain facts have been selected, why they are assumed to be important, how they were deduced, and how they might be contradicted. The student learns to examine reality from many angles, in different lights, and thus to visualize new possibilities and choices. The symbolic-analytic mind is trained to be skeptical, curious, and creative." (230)

There are some great discussions about the difference between consumption and investment when it comes to government spending. He sees money spent on infrastructure and education as investment and different altogether in value from most other budgetary lines. Good food for thought.

Reich is generally a very thoughtful and careful writer. But occasionally there are some fuzzy spots, such as when he says that "In 1965 the nation [I believe he means congress] decided that all students qualified to attend college should have access to higher education."

Despite documenting some of the foolish and unintended outcomes of government regulation and restriction of the market, he seems to have a very optimistic view of the good government can do. He advocates "a kind of 'GATT for direct investment'"(313) in which countries would voluntarily limit their sweet deals to corporations for the sake of the common good, which seems likely to me to be undermined in a thousand ways. He has an unbounded confidence that money equals results in public education. And he believes that a properly progressive tax can solve nearly all the financial ills of any country. While he makes some important observations by extrapolating changes to the taxes of the wealthiest Americans out to their financial value over many years, I am confident that without strong boundaries on spending all that too could be piddled away by our national government. He mentions the need for restraint with categories such as military, but his real passion is for a more progressive income tax.
While I found this book interesting, I found it slower going than many books. I believe that was in part due to the mountain of examples Reich references regarding his points.
____________________________________________________________
A few more good quotes:
"Capitalism, unlike other ideologies, is indifferent to the beliefs or pedigrees of its practitioners so long as they contribute to the bottom line. " (122)

"It should be noted that the term "labor shortage" rarely means that workers cannot be found at any price. Its real meaning is that desired workers cannot be found at the price that employers and customers wish to pay." (286)
"The media carefully avoid complex explanations and context for fear that their harried listeners and readers will seek more entertaining diversion. (290)
"We are, after all, citizens as well as economic actors; we may work in markets but we live in societies." (304)
History offers ample warning of how zero-sum nationalism. . .can corrode public values to the point where citizens support policies which marginally improve their own welfare while harming everyone else on the planet. . . (306)
Technologies are not commodities for which world demand is finite, nor do they come in fixed quantities. .. (307)
"Those who aim to reform the world in one fell sweep often have difficulty signing up credulous recruits." (311)
"Human capital, unlike physical of financial capital, has no inherent bounds." (312)

[Thomas Ray · Rating 1 out of 5]

Blithering. Reich thinks the winners in society are winners because they "manipulate symbols." No, Bob. The winners are winners because they've been cut in on the deal. Wealth goes to those with wealth, not those with exceptional skills: Talented programmers have their projects cancelled, their jobs outsourced to Asia. Talented musicians starve. People go to college because they're wealthy, to a much greater degree than conversely.

If you want to know economics, read Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty, Muhammad Yunus, Jack London (The People of the Abyss, The Strength of the Strong). Even Mark Twain, tongue far into cheek in Political Economy, knows more of how the world works. More: worldcat.org/profiles/Tom2718/lists/3...

[Papaphilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written and thought provoking. I read this one twenty years ago and have never forgotten it. I do not agree with the main premise, but it made me think and that is still important. One of the early authors to note the "knowledge economy" and many of his prophecies have come to pass.
I found his discussion on education both illuminating and forethought long before it became the widely discussed subject of the last few years.

His discussion of "American" made is both very profound and spot on.

I also had much food for though on his discussion on "labor shortage" and I do agree with this assessment.

Overall, it is still a very relevant read and stands up from when it was published well. This is a great jumping off point to the study of the global economy.

[Ritika Nevatia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish there was more to the book after 1990. How do the ideas translate to today. It'll be interesting especially post-covid.

[Brett · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second book from Reich I have read, after 2007's Reason, a book for which I did not much care. This one I like a little better but only a little.

The Work of Nations is from 1991 and shows Reich in a more professorial mode, as opposed to the political pundit mode he would write in later. This would be before he was a member of Clinton's cabinet and still just an economics prof at Harvard. (He had earlier been a lower level official in the Carter administration.)

A lot of the Work of Nations is anticipating the coming changes to national economies that globalization would bring. Reading it brought to mind Naomi Klein's book No Logo from later in the 90s when some of results from globalization were more apparent; Klein's book remains more relevant at this juncture.

Reich spends much time discussing what he terms a "symbolic analyst" which we would more probably refer to as a knowledge worker today. He is meaning the type of employee whose work involves significant independent judgment, not simply seeing that a process is carried out correctly. The old middle management jobs are disappearing he says; the future will allow these symbolic analysts more power in the workplace. They will be able to write their own ticket essentially because of the skills they have. Those that do not develop these skills will be left behind the new economy.

He goes on to describe how the US can keep its competitive advantage in the world economy by investing more in our educational institutions to see to it that our workforce continues to produce more and better higher level analysts.

It's a work that has its insights but is largely bereft of analysis that asks questions about the role of capital in the new economy, instead imagining workers unilaterally determining their own fates.

And quite obviously, the US did not take the route of increased investment in our infrastructure, educational or otherwise. No doubt if we had followed Reich's advice here we would be in a better position today, but the delineation between knowledge workers and others at this at the crux of so much of this book at this point seems to be breaking down as well. Fears that artificial intelligence will put artists out of business, write legal briefs, and publish dubiously sourced news articles have many of us that make our living employing supposedly higher levels of independent judgment feeling that we are not so secure anymore, if ever we really were.

This book is an artifact from a more hopeful time though, when it seemed like we might use public policy to harness for good some of the technological and economic forces which now just seem to inexorably be pulling us apart.

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Work Of Nations by Robert B Reich was published in 1991, written, therefore, prior to that year. In the book, the author describes the role of the business enterprise, with specific reference to what we used to call companies or corporations, in what was already by then an established process we now call globalization. At the time, the significance of the term and its reality was only just dawning within the popular imagination.

But this is a book that goes beyond mere description of the functions of the global economic system. Via its analysis of national economies, and how they interlink, The Work Of Nations also deals with concepts such as national identity, the potential for political action and, fundamentally, how economic classes are formed, how people identify with them and their inter-relationships.

It is worth pausing again to place Robert Reich’s book in context. In 1991 the world had just seen the end of the Soviet Union, but there was no real indication of what might emerge from the debris. The Internet did not emergent until a couple of years later. China’s emergence as a global economic power was underway, but Japan was still by far the biggest economy in Asia. Put simply, after thirty years of an emerging and wholly new world, The Work Of Nations ought to be thoroughly out of date. It isn’t. And the fact that it still has much to offer in the analysis of our contemporary societies is testament to the quality of the author’s vision, which is inspired as well as enduring.

At the heart of the book’s analysis are two fundamental concepts. One is that the old model of the corporation, which implies a vertically integrated organization that brings a product to market via a workforce employed directly by the company and in competition with other similar corporations, is long dead. Secondly, this changed economic structure of developed societies has resulted in a fundamental change to social class formation. Gone is any assumption that masses of nationally resident blue-collar workers are automatically created by pyramids of employment and inverted pyramids of earnings.

In 1991, The Work Of Nations was already describing corporations that cooperated across national borders, shared investment and risk, and moved production or even registration as circumstances provided opportunity. Crucially, Robert Reich was already describing the existence of an international class formed comprising professionals, problem solvers and solution identifiers whose status and earnings were determined by their education, their skills and their performance. Over forty years earlier, Michael Young’s The Rise Of The Meritocracy described a world where the benefits accruing to such a class would result in deep social divisions, to the extent that allegiances would become primarily determined by class rather than nationality.

In the 2020s we can see the results of this ideological realignment in the way groups of electors in democracies coalesce around certain types of policy, such as the overtly nationalistic, the anti-immigrant, and, on the other side, liberalism and internationalism.

Does, for instance, this passage remind anyone of more recent preoccupations in American politics? “In the life of a nation, few ideas are more dangerous than good solutions to the wrong problems. Proposals for improving the profitability of American corporations are now legion, as are more general panaceas for what ails American industry. Politicians and pundits talk loosely of ‘restoring’ or ‘restarting’ American business, as if it were a stalled, broken-down jalopy in need of a thorough tune-up. Others offer plans for regaining America’s competitive edge and revitalizing the American economy. Many of these ideas a sound. Some are silly. But all for from vestigial thinking about exactly what it is that must be restored, restarted, regained, or revitalized. They assume as their subject in American economy centered upon core American corporations and comprising major American industries - in other words, the American economy of midcentury, which easily dominated what limited world commerce there was. But as we have seen, this image bears only the faintest resemblance to the global economy at the end of the century, in which money and information move almost effortlessly through global webs of enterprise. There is coming to be no such thing as an American corporation or an American industry. The American economy is but a region of the global economy - albeit still a relatively wealthy region. In this light, then, it becomes apparent that all of the entities one might wish revitalize are quickly ceasing to exist.”

And precisely who benefits from the neoliberal economics that rollback the state? “While average working Americans may just feel that they have been surrendering a larger percentage of their earnings in taxes … tax burdens on Americans overall have not increased since the mid-1960s. Total tax receipts amounted to 31.1 per cent of gross national product in 1969, 31.1 per cent in 1979, and 32 pe cent in 1989. It is just that the burden has been shifted from relatively wealthy Americans to relatively poor Americans.”

More recently, Thomas Picketty has analyzed inequality as reflected in asset and income distribution. He has identified, even within traditionally entrenched ownership relations, an emerging class of people who, by virtue of their education and skills, command significant earnings. Even in 1991, Robert Reich saw them as an emerging social class.

Robert Reich’s The Work Of Nations is not only still worth reading: it ought to be an essential text. It still has much to say that still needs to be said about the disorganization of national economies in our own time.

[April · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another college book that I likely never fully read. Reading it now and during this time period in history, there are still some parallels and relevant concepts that affect our global economy. I wonder what the breakdown of what he calls "symbolic analysts" is now compared to the in-person servers and routine producers. In this book, it was the upper fifth and the lower four-fifths. How much has that shifted now? The upper third and the lower two-thirds? Maybe. Most of my friends and the people I know are "symbolic analysts."

“Money, technology, information, and goods are flowing across national borders with unprecedented rapidity and ease. The cost of transporting things and communicating ideas is plummeting. Capital controls in most industrialized countries are being removed; trade barriers, reduced. Even items that governments wish to prevent from getting in (drugs, illegal immigrants) or out (secret weapons) do so anyway.” pg. 6-7

“Democratic patriotism proved a far more potent force than was loyalty to a sovereign. Sacrificing one’s life and property to a monarch living luxuriously in a distant castle seemed far less inspiring (and less sensible) than sacrificing for one’s nation.” pg. 17

“It is a rudimentary principle of economics, indeed perhaps the only principle whose truth has been demonstrated with persuasive regularity: When the supply of a particular item increases faster than the demand for it, its price will tend to decline. This principle applied itself with particular vengeance in the late nineteenth century. Production expanded, but there were too few consumers ready to buy all the new goods suddenly available. Mass consumption is an acquired taste of modern society. Although the average worker was moving from farm to factory, the average consumer possessed the self-sufficient thriftiness learned on the farm. Mass distribution and retailing networks were not yet in place to cajole and conscript reluctant buyers into the great army of consumers that the new productive capacity required.
The result, predictably, was a general decline in prices.” pg. 27

“Large-scale mass production went hand in glove with mass consumption, of course. Here, finally, was the society that J.A. Hobson had wished for half a century before—one which could find its market at home. Americans took it as their patriotic duty to consume, and understood the purpose of the American economy as enabling them to do so. ‘Economic salvation, both national and personal, has nothing to do with pinching pennies,’ declared a 1953 advertisement for Gimbels, the New York department store. ‘Economic survival depends upon consumption. If you want to have more cake tomorrow, you have to eat more cake today. The more you consume, the more you’ll have, quicker.’ The chairman of Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisers made it official: The ‘ultimate purpose’ of the American economy, he solemnly intoned, was ‘to produce more consumer goods.’” pg. 45

“It was the perfect preparation for the world of high-volume production. In the early 1930s, educational expert Elwood P. Cubberly had anticipated the ideal American school in similar terms: ‘Our schools are, in a sense, factories in which the raw materials are to be shaped and fashioned into products to meet the various demands of life. The specifications for manufacturing come from the demands of the twentieth century civilization, and it is the business of the school to build its pupils to the specifications laid down. This demands good tools, specialized machinery, continuous measurements of production to see if it is according to specifications, [and] the elimination of waste in manufacture.’” pg. 60

“Nor was it mere coincidence that the Central Intelligence Agency discovered communist plots where American’s core corporations possessed, or wished to possess, substantial holdings of natural resources. . . .
That relations with Iran, Vietnam, and Central America became less than cordial in subsequent decades may have had something to do with America’s unflinching eagerness during this era to use foreign policy in the service of the core American corporation.” pg. 64-65

“Here I pause to examine the public benefits of symbolic analysis, and how the considerable skills and insights of symbolic analysts can be harnessed for the public good.
Problem-solving, -identifying, and brokering can create substantial value for individual consumers, but these services do not necessarily improve society. Sometimes, of course, there is a convergence between what customers want and what the public needs: Dread diseases are diagnosed and new cures are discovered; musical scores are written, performed, and marketed to millions of appreciative listeners; automobiles become cheaper, faster, safer, and more convenient. At other times, however, symbolic analysts simply enhance some people’s wealth while diminishing other people’s to an equal extent; or their net effect may be to reduce almost everyone’s well-being. A symbolic analyst who discovers yet another extravagant use for fossil fuel or nonbiodegradable plastic, for example, may be richly rewarded but may be helping to deprive future generations of the clean environment enjoyed by their predecessors.” pg. 185

“Perhaps the fiercest competition that in-person servers face comes from labor-saving machinery (much of it invented, designed, fabricated, or assembled in other nations, of course). Automated tellers, computerized cashiers, automatic car washes, robotized vending machines, self-service gasoline pumps, and all similar gadgets substitute for the human beings that customers once encountered. Even telephone operators are fast disappearing, as electronic sensors and voice simulators become capable of carrying on conversations that are reasonably intelligent, and always polite. Retail sales workers—among the largest groups of in-person servers—are similarly imperiled. Through personal computers linked to television screens, tomorrow’s consumers will be able to buy furniture, appliances, and all sorts of electronic toys from their living rooms—examining the merchandise from all angles, selecting whatever color, size, special features, and price seem most appealing, and then transmitting the order instantly to warehouses from which the selections will be shipped directly to their homes. So, too, with financial transactions, airline and hotel reservations, rental car agreements, and similar contracts, which will be executed between consumers in their homes and computer banks somewhere else on the globe.” pg. 216-217

“Remarkably often in American life, when the need for change is most urgent, the demands grow most insistent that we go ‘back to basics.’” pg. 227

“More important, these fortunate children learn how to conceptualize problems and solutions. The formal education of an incipient symbolic analyst thus entails refining four basic skills: abstraction, system thinking, experimentation, and collaboration.” pg. 229

“On the advanced tracks of the nation’s best primary and secondary schools, and in the seminar rooms and laboratories of America’s best universities, the curriculum is fluid and interactive. Instead of emphasizing the transmission of information, the focus is on judgment and interpretation. The student is taught to get behind the data—to ask why certain facts have been selected, why they are assumed to be important, how they were deduced, and how they might be contradicted. The student learns to examine reality from many angles, in different lights, and thus to visualize new possibilities and choices. The symbolic-analytic mind is trained to be skeptical, curious, and creative.” pg. 230

“The education of the symbolic analyst emphasizes system thinking. Rather than teach students how to solve a problem that is presented to them, they are taught to examine why the problem arises and how it is connected to other problems. Learning how to travel from one place to another by following a prescribed route is one thing; learning the entire terrain so that you can find shortcuts to wherever you may want to go is quite another. Instead of assuming that problems and their solutions are generated by others (as they were under high-volume, standardized production), students are taught that problems can usually be redefined according to where you look in a broad system of forces, variables, and outcomes, and that unexpected relationships and potential solutions can be discovered by examining this larger terrain.” pg. 231

New vocabulary word: eleemosynary - adj. relating to or dependent on charity; charitable

“Thus a central question concerns the extent to which America’s fortunate citizens—especially symbolic analysts, who, with about half the nation’s income, constitute the greatest part of the most fortunate fifth of the population—are willing to bear these burdens. But herein lies a paradox: As the economic fates of Americans diverge, the top may be losing the long-held sense of connectedness with the bottom fifth, or even the bottom four-fifths, that would motivate such generosity.
Ironically, as the rest of the nation grows more economically dependent than ever on the fortunate fifth, the fortunate fifth is becoming less and less dependent on them.” pg. 250

“The proper view of a national economy as a region of the global economy draws its most important distinctions between investment and consumption—between what is spent to create future wealth and what is spent to satisfy current needs and wants. This logic suggests why, contrary to the assumptions of so many in government and the public, there is nothing terribly wrong with being indebted to foreigners—so long as the borrowings are invested in factories, schools, roads, and other means of enhancing future production. In fact, taking on debt for these purposes is preferable to maintaining a balanced budget by deferring or cutting back on such investments. Debt is only a problem if the money is squandered on consumption. Any competent businessperson understands the soundness of this principle: If necessary, you borrow in order to invest in the greater future productivity of your enterprise. Once achieved, the new levels of productivity enable you to pay back the debt and enjoy higher returns thereafter. Problems arise, however, if instead of investing the money you have borrowed in productive capacity, you spend it at fancy restaurants and at the racetrack. Regrettably, this is what the fortunate fifth of Americans did on a grand scale for much of the 1980s.
More investment is necessary but not sufficient.” pg. 266

“Were the lower four-fifths of the population more politically active, their total campaign contributions and their efforts to get out the vote could overwhelm the pecuniary resources of symbolic analysts, who, though wealthy, are far fewer in number. But there is no easy way to mobilize this great force and snap the vicious circle of political futility. Between the mid-1930s, and the 1960s, organized labor mobilized America’s working class in support of education, social services, and a progressive income tax. But the global economy has eroded the strength of organized labor, and the number of American routine producers continues to dwindle. In-person servers, whose numbers are increasing, cannot be organized as readily; they tend to work in small establishments, and are dispersed over wide geographical areas in many different lines of work. While most other Western democracies still feature active labor movements which give political representation to the economic interests of their work forces, America no longer does. The consequences are political lethargy among most American workers and a self-fulfilling prophecy that politicians are working for the guys at the top.” pg. 294

“The cosmopolitan man or woman with a sense of global citizenship is thus able to maintain appropriate perspective on the world’s problems and possibilities. Devoid of strong patriotic impulse, the global symbolic analyst is likely to resist zero-sum solutions and thus behave more responsibly (in this sense) than citizens whose frame of reference is narrower.
But will the cosmopolitan with a global perspective choose to act fairly and compassionately? Will our current and future symbolic analysts—lacking any special sense of responsibility toward a particular nation and its citizens—share their wealth with the less fortunate of the world and devote their resources and energies to improving the chances that others may contribute to the world’s wealth? Here we find the darker side of cosmopolitanism. For without strong attachments and loyalties extending beyond family and friends, symbolic analysts may never develop the habits and attitudes of social responsibility. They will be world citizens, but without accepting or even acknowledging any of the obligations that citizenship in a polity normally implies. They will resist zero-sum solutions, but they may also resist all other solutions that require sacrifice and commitment. Without a real political community in which to learn, refine, and practice the ideals of justice and fairness, they may find these ideals to be meaningless abstractions.” pg. 309

“Cosmopolitanism can also engender resignation. Even if the symbolic analyst is sensitive to the problems that plague the world, these dilemmas may seem so intractable and overpowering in their global dimension that any attempt to remedy them appears futile. The greatest enemy of progress is a sense of hopelessness; from a vantage point that takes in the full enormity of the world’s ills, real progress may seem beyond reach. With smaller political units like towns, cities, states, and even nations, problems may seem soluble; even a tiny improvement can seem large on this smaller scale. As a result, where the nationalist or localist is apt to feel that a sacrifice is both valorous and potentially effective, the cosmopolitan may be overcome by its apparent uselessness.” pg. 310

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

IS THE END OF "NATIONAL" TECHNOLOGIES ON THE HORIZON?

Robert Bernard Reich (born 1946) was Secretary of Labor during Clinton's first term; he has written books such as 'Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future,' 'The Next American Frontier,' 'New Deals: the Chrysler Revival and the American System,' etc.

He wrote in the Introduction to this 1991 book, "We are living through a transformation that will rearrange the politics and economics of the coming century... There will no longer be national economies, at least as we have come to understand that concept. All that will remain rooted within national borders are the people who comprise a nation... Each nation's primary political task will be to cope with ... forces of the global economy which tear at the ties binding citizens together..." (Pg. 3)

He suggests, "In the high-value enterprise, only one asset grows more valuable as it is used: the problem-solving, -identifying, and brokering skills of key people. Unlike machinery that gradually wears out... the skills and insights that come from discovering new linkages between technologies and needs actually increase with practice." (Pg. 108) He asks, "Why, then, do foreigners ... purchase American assets? Because they think they can make better use of American assets---including American workers---than can American firms." (Pg. 145)

He later adds that "it is likely that Americans will continue to excel at symbolic analysis... (because) no nation educates its most fortunate and talented children ... as well as does America... no nation possesses the agglomerations of symbolic analysts already in place and able to learn continuously and informally from one another..." (Pg. 225-226) He asserts that here, "symbolic analysts are concentrated in specialized geographical pockets where they live, work, and learn with other symbolic analysts... Such symbolic-analytic zones cannot easily be duplicated elsewhere on the globe... These zones serve as design centers, development laboratories, and strategic-brokering hubs for worldwide operations." (Pg. 234-235)

A logical extension of Reich's 'Next American Frontier," reading this book is somewhat discouraging, since we have begun to fall behind other countries in many of the areas Reich outlined as our strengths.

[Les Hollingsworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just as relevant today as it was the day it was written (26 years ago). In fact, the predictions are remarkable considering that they were made before the Internet was heavily commercialized. All except one of Reich's forecasts have come to pass. The one he missed on was the rise of Japan as a major economic challenger to the USA; missed that one by mile (but nobody's perfect).

Ultimately, this is a valuable and insightful read to understand that what we're seeing in the USA in 2017 was foreseeable and to a large extent Americans' own doing -- don't vote, overfund bombs and underfund brains, and allowing ourselves to be seduced by nostalgic stories of America's manufacturing greatness (which neither could nor should return), to name a few.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before he was Clinton's Labor Secretary, Reich argued that the world economy had changed so drastically that national economies had become meaningless, allowing specially trained individuals ("symbolic analysts") to make huge hulking wads of money without any of it trickling down to benefit their less-gifted countrymen ("in-person servicers" and "routine producers"). Reich's answer, for the U.S., is for the U.S. to invest more into education, training, infrastructure, and such, to enable more people to become symbolic analysts. He doesn't say much, alas, about those who are unable to become symbolic analysts, presaging the current ugliness in American politics. Still an excellent framing of the problem of the postmodern economy.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of a work of defeatism where he thinks you can't put the genie back in the bottle

and you can't make a car 100% in America anymore

It's interesting but for 20 years I thought, man he gives up easy...

I guess that's why you had bullheaded people like Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Trump, to just apply maximum force to a lot of their agendas

The political scientist Kenneth Waltz said that globalization was a fad of the 90s
And well look at the date of this book

[Chinthaka Kuruwita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book! Explains why "made in America" is such an illusion, because of the complexity of the world's supply chains. Ford cars have as many Chinese parts in their engines as in any Japanese cars!!

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

can't claim to have digested it all. written in the early 90's, therefore before 9-11 and the current Islamaphobia...but thought-provoking and unbelievably timeless.

[PhattandyPDX · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Reich is the man; he’s committed his life to being an advocate for the working and middle classes.

[Chris Halverson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read 35 years later. He makes some predictions about 2020, and they weren't that far off.

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

This 1992 book by Robert B. Reich, a political economist at Harvard and a reputable policy wonk, purports to be about economies and globalization but is in fact about new business models. Reich lays out the case for globalization in a standard fashion and makes the case that American corporations aren't really American anymore - no surprise at all to anyone who has worked in a multi-billion dollar company recently.

Reich is filled up with words like "enterprise web" and "network", but these concepts are jaded to anyone who has been reading Fast Company and Wired Magazine over the last 15 years - in fact, Reich is a legacy of the dotcom bust generation. In this we have the advantage over him, in that we can read his work looking for the hubris of the `new economists.'

Reich identifies 3 new key players in the business world. These three are problem identifiers, problem solvers, and strategic brokers. He believes fervently that these three types of job holders will exist in the network or enterprise web as independent agents, making and shaking the world and being rewarded monetarily for it. He, for some unfathomable reason, believes that these people will constitute a majority of the white collar workers, and that everyone else will work at commoditized jobs. In other words, there will be some poor schmoes at the bottom whose access to the good life is increasingly marginalized. The view that the people and companies who actually deliver day-to-day, not the next keen iPod or Futon, but the houses we live in, the education of our children, the gas we burn in our cars, the organic food we eat - the view that these people are no longer economically important is ludicrous.

I'll keep the book because of the excellent first third that talks you through the rise of Nationalism in economic terms - its good history. Otherwise, this book is trendology or futurist prediction that misses the mark.

[Leonardo]

En la medida en que el mercado mundial se realiza hoy más acabadamente, tiende a deconstruir los límites del Estado-nación. En un período previo, los Estados-nación fueron los actores principales en la organización imperialista moderna de la producción e intercambio global, pero para el mercado mundial aparecen como meros obstáculos. Robert Reich, ex Secretario de Trabajo de los Estados Unidos, se halla en una excelente posición para reconocer y festejar el levantamiento de los límites nacionales en el mercado mundial. Sostiene que “como casi todos los factores de la producción–dinero, tecnología, fábricas y equipamientos–se desplazan sin esfuerzo a través de las fronteras, la propia idea de una economía [nacional] está perdiendo su sentido”. En el futuro “no habrá productos o tecnologías nacionales, ni corporaciones nacionales, ni industrias nacionales. Ya no habrá economías nacionales, al menos en la forma en que hemos entendido este concepto”.

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Robert Reich denomina a la clase de trabajo inmaterial implicado en el trabajo de la computadora y la comunicación “servicios simbólico-analíticos”-tareas que incluyen “resolución de problemas, identificación de problemas y actividades de corretaje estratégico”.
Robert Reich, The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st-Century Capitalism (New York: Knopf, 1991), p. 177. Lo más importante para Reich es que la ventaja-y finalmente la dominación nacional-será ganada en la economía global siguiendo las líneas de esta nueva división, a través de la distribución geográfica de estas tareas de alto o bajo valor.

Imperio Pág.220

[Caleb Chamberlain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Globalization is a hot topic; some see it as a good thing, others think that it heralds the end of civilization as we know it (these latter groups might be more right than they know...) Reich takes a sort of middle ground in "The Work of Nations."

[William Boardman · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read. I would be interested in seeing what the author thinks now that twenty years have passed. Global warming now includes global cooling. Russia is trying to collect (or punish) former soviet states. The Obama care fiasco. A fresh view 20 yrs later would be interesting.

[Bimus · Rating 4 out of 5]

hopefully all can find work that is beneficial. hard to say whether there will be political acceptance of any sort of global empowerment based on good work.

[Michael Josefowicz · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1992, before globalization and internet were mainstream realities, Reich focuses correctly on the coming problems for Americans in the emerging world economy.

[Elaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best explanation of globalization and why it matters to the average Joe that I've ever seen.

[Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this while completing my MBA. Useful perspective at the time.

[yangsta · Rating 3 out of 5]

got it after reading supercapitalism, but not as good as supercapitalism.

[Gordon Kwok · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book on how to prepare the nation for the future.

[Nikhil Mahadea · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love Reich's Twitter but this book is way too old now. 30-years old!