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Justin Mongu
Prof. Valentina L. Martinez
ANT 2000
17/4/2020
Film discussion
In this day and age, the economy has a large influence on the wellbeing of a society and
the governing party has large role to play in the state and so in turn the state of the population of
that community. Robert Reich in the documentary titled, “Inequality for All” extensively
discusses how the government is in charge of controlling the rules that control the way the
market is run, which in turn affect the economy and the people as well. However, he is just not
talking about it affecting society as a whole, he discusses how the different classes of a stratified
society like the united states are affected by this and benefits or loses from it. The market and
economy are directly related to the to the welfare of the population of a society where the rules
do exist to keep order and some fairness however the wealthier classes are able to manipulate
these rules and often at the expense of middle and lower classes.
The people benefit the most from the current rules of market function are the wealthier
people of the upper class. Reich talks about how a majority of the money earned by the wealthy
in society isn’t spent and put back into the economy, we say, “Somebody earning 10 million
dollars a year doesn’t spend 10 million dollars, they save it and those saving go anywhere around
the world where they can make the most money” (17:42 to 17:56). Here he is saying the upper
class already make so much money that the majority of it isn’t even spent or used to improve the
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economy but instead is used to make more money for them. This show that the upper class are
very much reaping the benefits of the current system.
However, the middle and lower classes do not share in the prosperity of the upper classes.
Reich discusses how the middle class is the driving source of the economy United States, but
also how with the current system they are struggling. A woman who is presumably middle class
comments, “well, everyone tells me that I am but I don’t feel like I’m middle class because I’m
barely making it” (11:19 to 11:23). She is referring to how being part of the middle class is
something that has become increasingly difficult which is most likely the case for many others
like her. The current rules of the market function seem to be pulling them down instead of
helping them prosper unlike the upper class.
Even though the rules of market share have been implemented for the prosperity of
everyone in a society some members use them to benefit themselves at the expense of others. In
the documentary we see as president Clinton gives his speech he mentions establishing new
policies in order to stop large corporation from laying off workers just to increase their own
income and Reich says this about it,
“when it came to actually implementing it, The Treasury Department decided that
as long as CEO pay was linked to company performance you could deduct pay over a
million dollars. Well that was the signal to a lot of executives and to their boards of
directors to make more and more of executive pay into stock options… it was a kind of
perversion of Bill Clintons promise” (47:29 to 48:17).
The wealthy members of the upper class (the “executives” and “boards of directors”) have the
ability to manipulate the rules to their own gain, like they did with the policy mentioned above
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that was meant to actually help people of lower classes to keep their jobs. This tells us that the
rules of the economy are more likely to help the wealthy upper class instead of the lower class
who arguably need it more.
Within a stratified society the rules that have been crafted by the government to dictate
market function to help improve the economy to the benefit of the entire population are greatly
used to the advantage of people of higher class at the expense of people in lower classes.
Work cited
Berliner, Alan, director. Margaret Mead: An Observer Observed. Gail Jansen and Lance Pierce,
fl. 1996
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