Robert Reich reveals how holiday film perfectly captures an economy based on greed

Sarah K. Burris
5h
Former secretary of labor and professor, Robert Reich and Mr. Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life" (Photo: Screen capture)

Former secretary of labor and professor Robert Reich posted a short video that shows that a holiday film perfectly captured a life in which corporate greed runs the economy.

In the movie "It's a Wonderful Life," actor Jimmy Stewart's character, George Bailey, intended suicide on Christmas until his guardian angle shows him just how many lives he's touched.

At one point in the film, Bailey confronts a greedy banker and slumlord named Mr. Potter. Bailey's father once owned a building and loan company. Potter, who sits on the board, wants to kill the bank because he thought Bailey's father was too soft hearted.

"Potter complains that George's father spent too much time helping the people of Bedford Falls, and not enough time focusing on his bottom line," Reich explains.

"What does that get us?" asks Mr. Potter at one point. "A discontented lazy rabble, instead of a thrifty working class."

Reich calls him a "curmudgeon."

Like Potter, Reich explained that many wealthy CEOs and business leaders today, "working class people just need to be more self-sufficient and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. This is a myth, in both the movie and the real world."

Reich said that such a message distracts Americans from the reality that the system is rigged against most people.

Bailey has a profound moment where he confronts Potter, saying that his father's work helping people meant people in Potter's slums could get out.

"When working people get a shot at a decent life and at better jobs with higher wages, they have more money to spend," said Reich. He notes that investing in Americans over billionaires and corporations build a stronger economy and future.

"Here's the thing that Mr. Potter never understood," Reich continued. "Even wealthy people like him do better with a smaller share of an economy growing rapidly because everyone is doing better. Then with a bigger share of an economy growing slowly because so many are barely making it."


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