Robert Reich wants to adapt Saving Capitalism into a movie

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      Last year, Georgia Straight books editor Brian Lynch asked me and others to write about one outstanding novel or nonfiction book from 2015.

      I chose Robert Reich's Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few because it showed how billionaires have rigged the economy in their favour. Reich's book was also full of ideas about how laws could be changed to reduce income inequality.

      I even wrote a lengthy article explaining how this book offers a road map for the revival of the federal New Democratic Party.

      For those who aren't aware of Reich, he's a progressive economist, former U.S. secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, author of several books, and keynote speaker at SFU's Community Summit on the economy in 2013.

      Now, Reich plans to turn Saving Capitalism into a movie. On his Facebook page, he wrote that it's because his son Sam told him that no one his age reads books anymore.

      In the past, that prompted Reich to team up with Jacob Kornbluth to make the documentary Inequality for All, which Reich says has been seen more than 80 million times.

      "I still love books, but you can’t deny the reach of video as a storytelling medium," Reich states on Facebook. "That’s why we are making Saving Capitalism."

      He's trying to raise funds through kickstarter.

      In an interview with the Straight in 2013, Reich said that income inequality has become a larger problem than ever in the United States.

      "The problem is that under these circumstances, people begin looking for scapegoats," he stated. "You have a very fertile field for demagogues, whether they’re right-wing demagogues or left-wing demagogues, who point the finger of blame. And that finger of blame can be directed at immigrants or the poor or the rich or corporations or unions or the government itself. And that generates a kind of polarization, gridlock, divisiveness that is difficult for a nation to handle. The United States hasn’t succumbed to fascism. I don’t believe we would or will, but we are more polarized right now and more divided than we have at any time in my memory."

      In the race for the presidency, Reich has endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic Party nomination.

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