Customer Reviews

Opposing The System

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In this largely ignored follow up book to his overwhelming best seller "The Greening of America", Charles Reich threads together an impressive argument that essentially validates the long-standing "power-elite" thesis forwarded by sociologists such as C. Wright Mills and G. William Domhoff. The present effort, written in compelling terms and reading more like a thriller at points than a dry stuffy academic tome, illustrates how the federal government, which in the times of FDR's New Deal stood as a lone bulwark shielding average citizens from the excesses of industrial capitalism, has since dumped the interests of the average citizen to become the chief apologist and cheerleader for the large multi-national corporations, which have consequently become a world power unto themselves. With the new policies of the government acting in lockstep with the interests of the corporations, there is no countervaling force acting to shield private individuals from the excesses of profit-orientation, and this leaves individual citizens at the mercy of anonymous mulit-national forces they are now impotent to combat. Certainly legislative actions such as the NAFTA and GATT packages were oriented to the interests of large multinational corporations far better than those of average citizens. Yet, almost mysteriously, little public debate were encourgade or observed. Through a number of examples he illustrates how fedearl and state governmental decisions rouitnely show preferencet for anonymous corporations as though they were their constituency, instead of us, serving their needs and protecting their interests against ours. He cites examples in which the provisions of the Taft-Hartley antitrust legislation are strangely but openly twisted to serve the purposes of the corporate entities and against the efforts of individuals. This thin volume is interesting reading and a wake-up call for individuals who think our socioeconomic system represents a level playing field and that each of us has an open opportunity to rise in the system based on hard work and relative merit. Then again, as H. L. Mencken wrote, we have the best Congress that money can buy; the problem is that we didn't buy them. the corporations did.

This book explains some basic factors why modern society is in such a mess.We are now ruled by what Reich calls the System, a merger of governments, top corporations,lawyers and media.The System puts economic factors above all else.They talk about free markets, but in reality they work for markets controlled by them.The power elite call for individual responsibility, but they are silent about their own social responsibilities.Attacks on "big government" are a smokescreen to hide the fact that corporations now control government.Welfare is needed to counter the deprivations caused by the System.Reich points out that corporations don't have to comply with the Bill of Rights.He gives an example where two employees of a large scale firm were sacked simply for dating.Reich shows how the power elite have been planning for years to take over society, and it has now happened.This is a very good book to help explain some basic causes of what is wrong in society today.

A sequel to his book, "The Greening of America", Charles Reich has presented an informative, influential, and provocative view of what has happened to America and democracy. Reich highlights the idea of economic government, in which a small managerial corporate elite wields great power over the masses. Also, such a "System" goes largely unnoticed by the masses, resulting in much difficult for social change.

Most striking is the integration of law, politics, economics, and psychology. In a straight-forward and incisive style, Reich pulls it all together and highlights what the "System" is and the magnititude of its power.

Although Reich does give a general guideline on how to oppose the "System", he could stand to give more specific examples, and show how such decisions can be made in everyday life.

All in all, this is a great read, and strikingly realistic.

Reich's analysis is inarguably on the mark. What is missing, however, is a discussion of the underlying psychodynamic factors that have led to the creation and perpetuation of transnational corporate hegemony. Money and property, as sublimations for a repressed regression drive, will and must be the central obsessions of the corporate-financial sector. Reich should have read Norman O. Brown's LIFE AGAINST DEATH AND Ken Wilber's UP FROM EDEN before he tried to devise a purely socio-economic solution to the crisis of private economic governance. The solution to the condtions Reich describes lies within, not without.

I first read "Opposing the System" when it was first published in 1995. I thought it was excellent then, and now six years later, I still think it's excellent---and am, if possible, even more enthusiastic about it. The only thing that could have made it better, IMO, is if a study guide had been included. This book should be required reading for every citizen in America before tomorrow morning's coffee is poured. Reich describes our dire present political/economic reality with perfect clarity; he peels away the scales covering our eyes, scales fastened there by what he calls the System, a system so ravenous and so consuming that it threatens to swallow the entire planet Earth---if not the entire solar system. Borrow, or FIND and BUY a used copy of this OP book as soon as possible. Badger the publisher to re-issue it ASAP---and to include a study guide. This is one of the most important books in America today.

Reich's earlier book, "The Greening Of America," is also excellent. Add to these two Charles A. Reich books, Thomas Frank's "One Market Under God." Read, study and absorb the content of all three, and you'll be well prepared to confront, lay bare, and deflate the claims of the System's eager courtiers and foot-soldiers who've cheerfully applauded and helped shackle us to the unholy economic/political System we're deeply mired in, and are Systematically forcing down the throats of the entire world. Read these books as a monumental favor to your self and to our country.

I first read "Opposing the System" when it was first published in 1995. I thought it was excellent then, and now six years later, I still think it's excellent---and am, if possible, even more enthusiastic about it. The only thing that could have made it better, IMO, is if a study guide had been included. This book should be required reading for every citizen in America before tomorrow morning's coffee is poured. Reich describes our dire present political/economic reality with perfect clarity; he peels away the scales covering our eyes, scales fastened there by what he calls the System, a system so ravenous and so consuming that it threatens to swallow the entire planet. Borrow, or FIND and BUY a used copy of this OP book as soon as possible. Badger the publisher to re-issue it ASAP---and to include a study guide so you can study the book in groups with friends and colleagues. This is one of the most important books in America today.

Reich's earlier book, "The Greening Of America," is also excellent. Add to these two Charles A. Reich books, Thomas Frank's "One Market Under God." Read, study and absorb the content of all three, and you'll be well prepared to confront, lay bare, and deflate the claims of the System's eager courtiers and foot-soldiers who've cheerfully applauded and helped shackle us to the unholy economic/political System we're deeply mired in and are Systematically forcing down the throats of the entire world. Read these books as a monumental favor to yourself, to our country, and to the world.

"Opposing the System," by C.A. Reich offers frightening insight into the problems that we face as a nation.

Unfortunately, Reich's solution is more of the same big government that got us into this mess, but run in a more kindly manner.

Reich repeats Marx's fallacy of blaming everything on business and ignoring greedy financiers. Bigger government just plays into the hands multinational enterprises that control policy and shift the costs to customers and taxpayers.

Reich is correct in stating that both US political parties are the same. They both adhere to a seductive remedy that has now been totally discredited on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The big government favored by Reich conflicts with individualism and human rights. We can't empower individuals by confiscating their money and property. We can't strengthen families by increasing the role of government.

Reich's conflicting logic is tiresome. The Constitution is good, but we should re-interpret it willy-nilly as we please. Stealing the fruits of a person's labor is bad, unless it is done through taxation. A centralized economy is bad, unless his crowd is directing it. Diversity is great, but society is no longer cohesive.

Guilt is powerful. Reich, gets sidetracked from analyzing our problems, and the book degenerates into a forum for expounding liberal social ideas. Reich seems to advocate government as a sanitized church, with Christian social values but without God. That way liberals can assuage their guilt by "doing good" with our money-while all of the problems Reich pinpointed go unsolved.

I first read "Opposing the System" when it was first published in 1995. I thought it was excellent then, and now six years later, I still think it's excellent---and am, if possible, even more enthusiastic about it. The only thing that could have made it better, IMO, is if a study guide had been included. This book should be required reading for every citizen in America before tomorrow morning's coffee is poured. Reich describes our dire present political/economic reality with perfect clarity; he peels away the scales covering our eyes, scales fastened there by what he calls the System, a system so ravenous and so consuming that it threatens to swallow the entire planet Earth---if not the entire solar system. Borrow, or FIND and BUY a used copy of this OP book as soon as possible. Badger the publisher to re-issue it ASAP---and to include a study guide. This is one of the most important books in America today.

Reich's earlier book, "The Greening Of America," is also excellent. Add to these two Charles A. Reich books, Thomas Frank's "One Market Under God." Read, study and absorb the content of all three, and you'll be well prepared to confront, lay bare, and deflate the claims of the System's eager courtiers and foot-soldiers who've cheerfully applauded and helped shackle us to the unholy economic/political System we're deeply mired in, and are Systematically forcing down the throats of the entire world. Read these books as a monumental favor to your self and to our country.

His analysis is INTERESTING BUT his recommendation - that the system must be stoppped may - to Mr Reich's surprise - come true - on 1/1/00 ... LET'S hope this does not happen !!!

"Opposing the System" is a silly book.
Reich is in a long line of socialist reformers whose disdain for ordinary people compels him to try to harness the power of government to hammer citizens into a new form of acceptable human which will populate the utopia of his imagination.
Like socialist intellectuals everywhere, Reich would eagerly trample on freedom in the name of freedom, slaughter truth in the pursuit of a "higher truth." Avoiding facing the fact that his ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity have failed with bloody results everywhere they have been tried, from Russia to Germany to Uganda to Cuba to Cambodia, he nevertheless marches on, convinced of his own special insight.
This book is shot through with glaring factual errors about the alleged pervasiveness of crime, poverty, unemployment and associated disillusionment. His main argument, the old discredited claim of socialism, is that society is split between the powerful exploiters and the powerless exploited masses. His hatred of large corporations who supposedly enslave their workers is reminiscent of those puerile manifestos and declarations which issued from the silly and naive college students in the sixties. What is needed, he says, is a group of talented, compassionate, scientific decision-makers (presumably including him) to organize society in such a way as to bring love, peace and harmony to the ignorant masses.
In one rare example of lucidity, Reich acknowledges that "...governments are adept at avoiding responsibility when they cause harm." He apparently doesn't see the irony of proposing bigger and more powerful government with sweeping control over all aspects of our lives.
But it is not only Reich's politics that makes this a bad book. Reich displays a stunning ignorance of economics, history, psychology, human nature and constitutional government. His sloppy logic is on display in nonsensical statements like: We need to devlop "social self-knowledge" - an ability to "understand how (society) acts," "why it treats us as it does,...what it cares about." And what do we make of statements like: Since WWII "America has suffered a steady impoverishment..."? Is he suggesting that we are worse off than we were in 1945? Where has he been? Has he heard of equal rights, abolition of Jim Crow, a cure for Polio, artificial hearts and hips, the exponential rise in the standard of living, extended life expectancy? In one very important way, we ARE worse off than in 1945, in the loss of much of our liberty. But apparently this is fine with Reich who proposes to rob us of the rest of it.
Consider this economic profundity: He contends that under the current system, one's pay is determined, not by its value, but by what someone is willing to pay - as if there were any other way, in the real world, to measure value. The failure of socialism is, to no small degree, a consequence of people like Reich trying to assign equal value to street cleaners and heart surgeons. Of course, these people have equal value in God's eyes, but this is not where Reich is going with his argument. .
Reich quotes Roosevelt: "...necessitous men are not free men." but then writes a whole book advocating that government assume responsibility for our mental, physical, economic, psychic well-being, making us wholly dependent on enlightened men like him, a course of action that throughout history has produced, not utopia, but poverty, misery and death.
"Opposing the System" is a shallow collection of meaningless platitudes. Don't waste your time.