Michael: In the 1960s, the average CEO in America earned about 20 times more than their typical worker. A big gap, sure, but within the realm of human comprehension. Kevin: Okay, I can picture that. The corner office gets a much bigger slice of the pie. Makes sense. Michael: Now, fast forward to today. That same ratio isn't 20-to-1. It's closer to 300-to-1. Kevin: Whoa, hold on. 300 times? That’s not a bigger slice of the pie; that’s a different planet. How does that even happen? That feels… broken. Michael: That's the exact word. And it's the central question in Robert B. Reich's book, The Common Good. He argues that this number isn't just about money; it's a symptom of a society that has fundamentally forgotten how to share, how to think of itself as a 'we'. Kevin: Robert Reich… I know that name. Wasn't he a big deal in Washington? Michael: He was. And that’s what makes his perspective so powerful. Reich isn't just an academic theorist; he served as Secretary of Labor under President Clinton. He’s seen how the sausage gets made, and how it sometimes gets poisoned. He argues this massive shift wasn't an accident or some inevitable force of economics. It was a series of choices that led us to lose our sense of a common good. Kevin: So where do you even start with a problem that big? It feels like trying to fix the entire ocean. Michael: Reich starts with a perfect, almost unbelievable villain. A character so perfectly awful, he makes the abstract idea of a 'declining common good' feel incredibly real and personal.

Kevin: A villain? I'm intrigued. This isn't a superhero movie. Who are we talking about? Michael: We're talking about Martin Shkreli. The "Pharma Bro." Kevin: Oh, that guy. I remember him. The one who smirked his way through a congressional hearing. What was his story again? Michael: In 2015, his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, bought the rights to a 62-year-old drug called Daraprim. It’s a life-saving medication for people with compromised immune systems, like AIDS patients or pregnant women, who get a specific parasitic infection. It was on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines. Kevin: Okay, so it's a critical, long-established drug. Not some new blockbuster invention. Michael: Exactly. And it cost about $13.50 a pill. A manageable price. Shkreli acquired it and, overnight, raised the price to $750 per pill. Kevin: Wait, from thirteen dollars to seven hundred and fifty? That’s an increase of over 5,000 percent. That's not just business; that's holding sick people hostage. Michael: It's pure extortion. And when he was called out on it, he was completely unapologetic. He went on TV and said, and I'm quoting him here, "This is a capitalist society, a capitalist system and capitalist rules. And my investors expect me to maximize profits... to go to 100 percent of the profit curve." Kevin: Wow. So his defense was basically, "I'm just playing the game by the rules of pure, uncut greed." That’s chilling. But here's the question that really matters: Is he just a one-off monster, a uniquely terrible human being? Or is he a product of our culture? Michael: That's the million-dollar question, and Reich argues forcefully that he's a symptom, not the disease. Shkreli is the logical endpoint of a culture that has shifted dramatically from 'we' to 'me'. Kevin: What does that shift actually look like? I mean, haven't people always been a little selfish? Michael: Of course, but the ideal we looked up to has changed. Reich tells this personal story about being a 21-year-old intern for Robert F. Kennedy in the late 60s. His job was literally just running RFK's signature machine. Mind-numbingly boring. But he felt this profound sense of contributing to the country, inspired by JFK's call to "ask not what your country can do for you." There was a sense of civic duty in the air. Kevin: Okay, I can see that. The post-war, Camelot era of public service. Michael: Right. Now contrast that with the late 70s and 80s. A book called Looking Out for #1 becomes a massive bestseller, its core message being that selfishness is a virtue. Then, in 1987, the movie Wall Street comes out, and Gordon Gekko becomes a cultural icon for declaring, "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good." Kevin: And people cheered for him! He was the cool, anti-hero. So you're saying we went from 'ask what you can do for your country' to 'greed is good' in less than one generation. Michael: Precisely. The definition of success shifted from contributing to the common good to accumulating personal wealth and power, no matter the cost to others. Shkreli just took that philosophy and stripped away all the polite pretenses. He's the Gekko of the pharmaceutical world. Kevin: That makes a terrifying amount of sense. The culture changed, and it created an environment where someone like Shkreli could not only exist but thrive and then justify his actions as just being a good capitalist. Michael: And once that becomes the norm, trust evaporates. If you believe everyone is just looking out for number one, you stop trusting institutions, you stop trusting your neighbors, you stop trusting the whole system. Kevin: Okay, so the culture changed. But Reich argues it was more than that, right? It wasn't just a vibe shift. He says the system itself was actively, deliberately broken. How?

Michael: Exactly. He identifies what I think of as a three-headed dragon—three massive, interconnected structural breakdowns that systematically dismantled the common good. It’s like a detective story. We've seen the crime scene with Shkreli; now we follow the evidence back to the culprits. Kevin: A three-headed dragon. I like that. What's the first head? Michael: The first head is Whatever-It-Takes-to-Win Politics. Reich points to the Watergate scandal as a turning point. It wasn't just about the break-in; it was about President Nixon's mindset. He famously told an interviewer, "If the president does it, that means it is not illegal." Kevin: That's the ultimate "rules for thee, but not for me" statement. The belief that you are above the system you're supposed to be leading. Michael: It's the total rejection of being a trustee for the public good. That mentality seeped into everything. Reich details the brutal confirmation hearing for Robert Bork for the Supreme Court in 1987, where tactics got so vicious it literally created a new verb: "to Bork" someone, meaning to defame them systematically. The goal was no longer to find the best candidate, but for your side to win at any cost. Kevin: And once one side does it, the other side feels they have to retaliate with the same tactics to compete. It's a race to the bottom. Michael: That's the chain reaction. Which brings us to the second head of the dragon: Whatever-It-Takes-to-Maximize-Profits in Business. Before the 1980s, big corporations felt a certain obligation to their workers and their communities. They were stakeholders. Kevin: Right, the company town model. You might work for the factory your whole life, they sponsor the Little League team, you get a pension. It wasn't perfect, but there was a relationship. Michael: A social contract. Then came the era of the corporate raiders and a new philosophy: the only thing that matters is shareholder value. The poster child for this was Jack Welch, the CEO of GE from 1981. He was celebrated as a management genius. His method? He slashed over 100,000 American jobs, pioneered the practice of firing the bottom 10% of managers every year, and moved operations overseas for cheaper labor. Kevin: They called him "Neutron Jack" because he'd get rid of the people but leave the buildings standing. Michael: Exactly. GE's stock price soared. Welch became a hero on Wall Street. But the social contract was shredded. The only stakeholder that mattered anymore was the shareholder. This thinking spread everywhere, from banking to healthcare. Kevin: Okay, so we have politics without rules and business without a soul. What's the third head of the dragon? Michael: The one that feeds the other two: Whatever-It-Takes-to-Rig-the-Economy with Money. Reich pinpoints a fascinating and chilling origin story for this: a confidential memo written in 1971 by a corporate lawyer named Lewis Powell, just before he was appointed to the Supreme Court. Kevin: A secret memo? This really is a detective story. What did it say? Michael: Powell wrote to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and his message was essentially a call to arms for corporate America. He argued that the "American free enterprise system is under broad attack" from consumer groups, environmentalists, and unions. He urged businesses to stop being passive and to mobilize for political combat. They needed to fund think tanks, pour money into lobbying, and challenge regulations in court. Kevin: So he basically drew up the battle plan for a corporate takeover of politics. Michael: It was the blueprint. And it worked spectacularly. Corporate lobbying exploded. Campaign contributions became the price of admission for politicians. And slowly but surely, the rules of the economy were rewritten—tax laws, bankruptcy laws, trade rules, antitrust enforcement—all tilted to favor those at the very top. Kevin: Wow. So it's a vicious feedback loop. The politicians stop caring about the rules, the corporations stop caring about people, and then the corporations use their money to pay the politicians to keep it that way. It's a perfect storm. Michael: It's a perfect storm. Reich uses the "Broken Window Theory" to explain it. If one window in a building is broken and left unrepaired, it signals that no one cares. Soon, more windows are broken, and decay sets in. Shkreli, Welch, the political games—they were all broken windows. They signaled that the old norms of decency and shared responsibility were no longer being enforced. Kevin: This is all feeling pretty bleak. It sounds like the system is fundamentally broken. Does Reich offer any way out, or are we just doomed to live in Pottersville instead of Bedford Falls? Michael: He absolutely offers a way out! And that's the most powerful part of the book. He uses that exact analogy from It's a Wonderful Life. He argues that we are not doomed to live in Potter's town, because the spirit of Bedford Falls—the common good—is still alive. It's just been beaten down.

Kevin: Okay, I need some hope here. How do we get back to Bedford Falls? What's the blueprint for repair? Michael: Reich's core idea for the solution is a concept he calls Leadership as Trusteeship. A trustee is someone who holds something of value—like an inheritance or an institution—for the benefit of others. Their primary duty is to protect and pass on that asset in better shape than they found it. Kevin: So leaders in politics and business should see themselves not as winners taking spoils, but as caretakers of public trust and the health of the system itself. Michael: Precisely. And he gives these incredible, real-world examples that show this isn't just a fantasy. The most powerful one for me was the story of Market Basket. Kevin: Market Basket? The supermarket chain? Michael: The very one. In 2014, the company's board, led by a cousin of the CEO, ousted the popular chief executive, Arthur T. Demoulas. The reason? The board felt Arthur T. was too good to his employees and customers. He paid them well above industry average, gave generous bonuses, and kept prices low. He wasn't maximizing profits enough for the shareholders. Kevin: That sounds like the Jack Welch playbook in reverse. So what happened? Michael: What happened was astonishing. The employees—managers, cashiers, stockers—walked out on strike. But they weren't striking for themselves; they were striking to get their old CEO back. And then the customers joined in. They boycotted the stores, holding signs that said "We Support Arthur T." The shelves went bare. The stores were empty. The boycott cost the company millions of dollars a day. Kevin: The customers boycotted to support a CEO who was good to his workers? That's incredible. Michael: It's the common good in action! It proves that people, when given the choice, don't just value the lowest price or the highest profit. They value fairness, loyalty, and community. The pressure was so immense that the board caved and sold the company back to Arthur T. Demoulas. The people of Bedford Falls won. Kevin: So the desire for the common good is still there, it's just been suppressed. That's a really hopeful story. Does he see any examples of this in the political arena? Michael: He does, and he points to a very dramatic one. In 2017, Senator John McCain, who was battling brain cancer, returned to the Senate for the vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act. The Republican party was desperate for a win. It was the ultimate "whatever-it-takes" moment. Kevin: I remember this. The suspense was insane. Michael: McCain went to the Senate floor and gave this powerful speech, not about the specifics of the bill, but about the brokenness of the process. He scolded his colleagues on both sides for prioritizing partisan victory over the integrity of the Senate. And then, in a moment of pure political drama, he walked to the center of the chamber, gave a firm thumbs-down, and cast the deciding vote to kill the repeal. Kevin: He chose the institution over the party. He acted as a trustee. Michael: He acted as a trustee. He knew it would infuriate his own party, but he believed his primary duty was to the health of the democratic system. That, Reich says, is the kind of moral leadership that can begin to restore trust. It's about leaders being willing to sacrifice a "win" for the sake of the common good. Kevin: So it comes down to leadership, and a public that demands that kind of leadership, like the customers at Market Basket did. Michael: Exactly. And Reich adds two other pillars to the restoration project: resurrecting a shared standard of Truth, and a new commitment to Civic Education that teaches not just rights, but also obligations.

Kevin: It's fascinating. When you lay it all out like that, the problem feels huge, but the solution feels… human-sized. It’s about the choices leaders make and the values we as a society decide to celebrate. Michael: That's the perfect way to put it. Reich's ultimate point is that the 'common good' isn't some soft, sentimental, utopian idea. It's the essential immune system of a democracy. It's the unwritten rules, the shared trust, and the sense of mutual obligation that keep the whole thing running. Kevin: And when that immune system fails, society gets sick. Michael: It gets sick with the diseases of cynicism, rampant inequality, and deep distrust. You get a world where a Martin Shkreli can look the public in the eye and say his greed is justified, and a system that, for a time, proves him right. Kevin: But the Market Basket story shows there's a cure. That people are hungry for a different way of doing things. They want to believe in something bigger than just their own bottom line. Michael: They do. The book is ultimately a call to action. It's a reminder that the common good doesn't just happen. It has to be built, defended, and constantly restored by citizens and by leaders who understand they are trustees for the next generation. Kevin: It really makes you wonder, what's one small, unwritten rule I follow or break in my own life that either builds or erodes that trust? You know, like letting someone merge in traffic, or not. It seems small, but maybe it's part of the same muscle. Michael: That's a great question to reflect on. And we'd love to hear our listeners' thoughts on this. What does the 'common good' mean to you today? Is it a lost cause, or do you see it alive and well in your own communities? Find us on our socials and let's talk about it. Kevin: It’s a conversation we definitely need to be having. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.